Adult Kids Are Talking Their Parents Out of Florida, and One Argument Works Every Time
Florida pulls billions in retiree wealth every year, yet nearly 300,000 tax returns left the state in the same period, and the adult kids pushing back on their parents have one calculation that changes the entire conversation.
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Making the decision to retire and move to Florida is a frequent family debate. It’s frequently parents in their 60s who say they’re heading to Florida, and their adult kids who are pushing back. The parents have plenty of company, as Florida led every state in net income migration, with $20.6 billion in net adjusted gross income arriving in the latest IRS data.
Fewer people notice the other side of that data: 298,763 tax returns left Florida in the same period, and the top destinations were Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina. One argument kids raise is that retirees may move twice, and the second move can cost the most.
What a Comfortable Florida Retirement Costs a Couple
A useful benchmark comes from a Lakewood Ranch retiree featured by the Wall Street Journal. He spends about $80,000 a year and pays more than $700 a month in HOA dues. Using $80,000 as the working budget for a couple in their late 60s, the line items look like this:
| Expense | Annual Cost |
|---|---|
| HOA dues | $8,400 |
| Homeowners insurance ($300,000 dwelling) | $6,400 |
| Property tax (estimate) | $6,000 |
| Medicare Part B, two people | $4,870 |
| Medigap and Part D (estimate) | $7,000 |
| Food (estimate) | $12,000 |
| Utilities (estimate) | $5,000 |
| Transportation (estimate) | $8,000 |
| Maintenance, family travel, gifts, reserves, federal tax | $22,330 |
Florida’s insurance line is the biggest outlier. Insurify places the state as having the most expensive homeowners insurance in the country. Part B costs $202.90 per person per month, and this couple stays well under the $218,000 joint IRMAA threshold.
On the income side, a typical older couple will collect $3,355 a month after the 2027 COLA, which is $40,260 a year. The portfolio covers the rest. The target with 4% withdrawals is about $994,000. At 3.5%, which matches a 30-year horizon better, it’s about $1.14 million (we laid out the full case for stepping down from the classic 4% rule in a free report). The lower rate also makes sense because the trustees project the retirement trust fund will be depleted in 2032, with 78% of benefits payable after that. Waiting until 70 to claim lets the higher earner reduce the gap and the target.
Why the Second Move Costs the Most
The truth is that many people leaving Florida often head to nearby Southern states. At the top of this list are outbound returns to Georgia (28,263), North Carolina (20,553), and Tennessee (12,505). The IRS data doesn’t record why people moved.
Assuming a $450,000 sale and 6% transaction costs, selling takes about $27,000 off the top. Most people miss the second cost: the state’s homestead cap limits assessment increases to 3% a year, and you can carry up to $500,000 of that benefit to a new home. That portability only works for another Florida homestead if you set up within three years. If you leave the state, the tax savings you’ve built up over a decade disappear, and the new state assesses you at market value.
Running the Same Retirement Near the Kids
A major consideration for anyone considering a move is that Florida’s cost-of-living index is 103.414. On the other hand, Tennessee sits at 91.87, North Carolina at 94.326, and Georgia at 96.293. Tennessee also ties Florida for first on individual income tax in the Tax Foundation’s index, at place 1. Scale the $80,000 budget to Tennessee’s index, and you get about $71,000. At 3.5%, that needs a portfolio of about $880,000, roughly $255,000 less than Florida. These indexes are statewide averages, so Nashville suburbs will cost more than the figures suggest.
What It Takes to Make Florida Work Anyway
Florida’s numbers line up for a couple with about $1.1 million in savings, average Social Security, and a 3.5% annual draw. Such a plan would also need roughly $27,000 in reserves for a possible exit. Home price trends vary by location: over the past year, Tampa home prices rose 1.07%, while Cape Coral-Fort Myers fell 0.9%. Retiree inflation ran 3.6%, so the budget needs to grow every year.
The kids’ argument centers on considering the cost of the second move before making the first. If the kids live in a cheaper state and moving near them is likely within 15 years, Florida needs about $255,000 more in savings, plus about $27,000 in selling costs and the lost tax cap, numbers that must be found and accounted for before any move.
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David Beren has been a Flywheel Publishing contributor since 2022. Writing for 24/7 Wall St. since 2023, David loves to write about topics of all shapes and sizes. As a technology expert, David focuses heavily on consumer electronics brands, automobiles, and general technology. He has previously written for LifeWire, formerly About.com. As a part-time freelance writer, David’s “day job” has been working on and leading social media for multiple Fortune 100 brands. David loves the flexibility of this field and its ability to reach customers exactly where they like to spend their time. Additionally, David previously published his own blog, TmoNews.com, which reached 3 million readers in its first year. In addition to freelance and social media work, David loves to spend time with his family and children and relive the glory days of video game consoles by playing any retro game console he can get his hands on.
