Grocery shopping in Virginia used to mean a bag boy who carried your bags all the way to the car and a butcher who’d cut a steak exactly the way you asked for it. Try finding either one now. A wave of local chains vanished from Virginia in the ’80s and ’90s, bought out, renamed,…
A driver crosses a stretch of Florida’s Turnpike with no SunPass and without encountering a cash lane. The toll still arrives in the mail, plus an extra fee for not having a transponder. You never used to have to pay to drive on a road. These are the everyday things Floridians used to get for…
A Mississippi transplant stands in the condiment aisle of an Ohio grocery store, checking every bottle of ranch and Thousand Island twice. No comeback sauce anywhere on the shelf. These are the things Mississippians miss most once they’ve packed up and moved away. 1. Delta Hot Tamales Delta hot tamales are the food many Mississippi…
Ask a Georgia driver what the state grows best, and “peaches” comes back before the question even finishes. That answer feels like common sense. It’s also not the full picture. These are the numbers behind Georgia’s Peach State name that don’t match the reputation the way people assume. How Georgia Earned Its Nickname Georgia’s reputation…
A tour guide in Charleston stops the group outside an old jail cell and starts the same story locals have repeated for generations. But is it true? Here’s a two truths and a lie game that checks eight South Carolina ghost stories against the record. Each round below hands you three claims about the story,…
Claiming Social Security at 62 feels like the safe move. It’s also one of the few choices Social Security barely lets you take back. Sometimes claiming Social Security at 62 is the best choice for a person’s circumstances. But some Georgia retirees who claim too early may find out later, in small ways scattered across…
An English king once settled a personal debt by handing over an entire American colony instead of paying cash. That colony was Pennsylvania. King Charles II owed the debt to William Penn’s father, and the payoff changed who got to put a name on a map. Pennsylvania’s European place names trace back to one overlooked…
California’s top income tax rate tops out at 13.3%, the highest of any state in the country. It follows you into retirement. California decides some of its biggest retirement costs, breaks, and deadlines in the weeks around your last day of work, not after it. These are the things California retirees wish they’d handled before…
A homeowner in Cape Coral replaces their roof, hangs a full set of shutters, and installs a water sensor by their water heater. But they never call their insurance agent about any of it. Florida’s insurers offer dollar-value credit for exactly these upgrades. However, the credit only shows up on a bill after someone asks…
A couple in Roanoke pays off their mortgage, circles a retirement date on their calendar, and believes the hard part is behind them. Three years later, the numbers they ran at their kitchen table stop matching what shows up on paper. These are the money mistakes Virginia homeowners make before they retire. Note: This is…
