Report: Top 15 Most Affordable Places To Retire

By Craig Johnson – Clark Howard

Oct 6, 2021

A lot of people envision retirement as a time when they can take it easy and enjoy a slower pace of life. But it can depend — sometimes to a great degree — on where you retire.

Finance site WalletHub recently updated its list of the best places to retire in the United States.

Which Retiree-Friendly Cities Are the Best for Your Wallet?

A large number of American adults are worried about outliving their finances when they retire.

But WalletHub’s annual list considers four factors to come up with its scores:

Affordability
Activities
Quality of life
Health care

Starting with nearly 200 American cities, those four factors were then evaluated across 48 metrics, which were graded on a 100-point scale.

For our purposes, we'll only look at the top cities for retirees' affordability and the total scores for those destinations, according to WalletHub. Please see the link under the table for the cities' rankings for health care, activities and quality of life.

These Are the Most Affordable Cities for Retirees

City	Affordability	Total Score
Fort Smith, Arkansas	1	49.13
Montgomery, Alabama	2	48.02
Mobile, Alabama	3	51.27
Knoxville, Tennessee	4	54.28
Memphis, Tennessee	5	46.78
Columbia, South Carolina	6	57.68
Casper, Wyoming	7	57.00
Huntington, West Virginia	8	52.19
Birmingham, Alabama	9	53.60
Jacksonville, Florida	10	50.96
Jackson, Mississipp	11	53.32
Cheyenne, Wyoming	12	49.84
Orlando, Florida	13	62.14
Augusta, Georgia	14	50.45
Charleston, West Virginia	15	52.35

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Read WalletHub’s Best and Worst Places to Retire.

If you're thinking of relocating when you retire, money expert Clark Howard has some advice for you.

Here’s Clark’s Rule on Moving

Clark says he’s in favor of a measured approach when it comes to moving to a new city.

“One of my key rules is you should always rent first for six months, a year or even two years if you’re thinking about relocating for retirement. If it turns out that you don’t like it, at least you’re not all-in owning a home that you’ve now got to get rid of,” he says.