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My husband and I are about ready to take our next step towards retirement. We will be looking to move into a 55+ community. We live in Long Island, NY, and if we stay here to be close to our kids, the place we could afford will not offer us the active lifestyle we want.
However, if we move out of state, we get the lifestyle with a lower cost of living...but will not see our kids all that often.
I'd like to know if anyone has had to make this decision...and if there were any regrets.
My answer is you have to live your life for yourself, not for your kids. I have seen parents make a move to be near kids, then the kids move away.....LOL
...looking to move into a 55+ community.
if we move out of state, we get the lifestyle with a lower cost of living...
but will not see our kids all that often.
assuming staying put in the home you already have isn't desired...
or some sort of snow-birding between smaller homes isn't practical...
this is a rather plain vanilla decision that many before you have made.
[/quote]We live in Long Island, NY, and if we stay here to be close to our kids, the place we could afford will not offer us the active lifestyle we want.
[/quote]
A number of people from LI, Connecticut and New England post on the "55 + Communities" subject on the Delaware forum. You might want to check their experience and opinions. BTW, Delaware is a tax-friendly state that has attracted many retirees.
My answer is you have to live your life for yourself, not for your kids. I have seen parents make a move to be near kids, then the kids move away.....LOL
I say move to where you will be happy.
Have to agree with this. We, in retirement, moved away from five of our, combined, seven children and six of our to grandchildren - soon to be seven of 11. It put us 2,000 miles from them but 1,300 miles closer to two of the children and three of the grandchildren. One lives with her mother 800 miles in the other direction.
This we did for us. We had come to despise the left coast and wished to retire back in America. We couldn't be happier or more content. Planes, trains, cars, phones and computers still work in both directions!
I moved from the midwest to a 55+ community in Nevada after I retired almost two years ago and have no regrets. My children and grandchildren are still in the midwest and I don't see them often, but I have a wonderful life in my new home. I'm in touch with my kids regularly and visit twice a year, but I'm increasingly aware that with their busy lives, trying to fit time in with me would be a stressor, not a comfort. I'm living exactly the life I'd hoped to live in retirement and my kids are happy for me.
I have to agree with the majority here. Live where you need to live. You can skype, email, call and visit. My daughter right now is starting to have problems with me relocating to AK but the reason to me was, "I won't have a free place to stay now"... really?? Geez that makes me warm and fuzzy now LOL
Shes going on 22 and very independant and has her father to live with for "free". I will miss her and my son but they are very active in their lifes and I have many ways of communication... plus i will have a beautiful place for them to visit right?... good luck in your decission
My husband and I are about ready to take our next step towards retirement. We will be looking to move into a 55+ community. We live in Long Island, NY, and if we stay here to be close to our kids, the place we could afford will not offer us the active lifestyle we want.
However, if we move out of state, we get the lifestyle with a lower cost of living...but will not see our kids all that often.
I'd like to know if anyone has had to make this decision...and if there were any regrets.
Thanks so much,
EM
My parents never left their high-cost area in southern NH. They lived much more poorly than they could have in another location, because it costs so very much just to live here. Property taxes are insane, heating bills very expensive, hiring any sort of help is out of this world costly, and all utilities are very expensive. Once they retired, they could have moved out of this area to a place with much less employment, but they did not. Instead, they lived hand to mouth until my mom passed and my Dad needed assistance.
So I moved back to southern NH to take care of my elderly Dad. This happened right before the housing collapse, so we made the mistake of buying our own house, thinking we'd sell it when he passed on.
Three years later, my Dad passed on. The housing collapse was now total, and it was impossible to sell our house in Exeter, which we bought because we thought the school system would make it easy to sell. Unfortunately, all the school system did was make Exeter's tax rates so extreme (even for Rockingham County, the highest property-taxed county in the 2nd highest property-taxed state) that even the most liberal will avoid it.
Since my parents had been so poor, my Dad's house had over 50 years of deferred maintenance. I had the choice of letting the Town of Hampton take it for property taxes, or trying to renovate it in the hopes I could rent it. The rental agents assured me I would have no trouble renting it, so we decided to invest our life's savings and try to turn this property into at least a self-sufficient one. This past summer was the first it was available for renting, and since then it has not rented for a single day. Worse, after meeting with the CPA and realizing we had some bad misconceptions on rental tax deductions, we are not eligible for ANY tax deduction for all the money we sunk into the property.
So, long story short, my husband and I had been pretty financially successful, until we needed to come back her and take care of the last of my family. These last years pretty much wiped us out, and the future holds little hope of any improvement. I guess we'll be supporting two houses in one of the most costly areas in the nation, until we lose everything. We don't even get a tiny tax break for the situation that is bankrupting us.
Do NOT wipe out your children's potential financial stability by staying in an area of high cost of living. Get out ASAP, and they'll probably end up moving to the new, better area eventually anyway. It's not like these high-expense areas offer JOBS anymore to offset their devastating financial drains.
I would consider how close you are to your kids, and whether you're involved with grandkids or not. I have lots of friends here who wouldn't think about living far from their grandchildren.
If you could afford to snowbird, that would be different. Have you thought of trying to find a place fairly close to your kids, but cheaper than where you currently live? Then perhaps you could afford to spend a couple of months somewhere warm in winter, but still be close most of the year.
Last edited by Wwanderer; 10-11-2011 at 06:46 AM..
One problem with staying where your children are or moving to where they are is that there's no guarantee that they won't move away. It happens a lot as they seek new or different job opportunities, better schools for their children or simply want a change of pace and/or scenery. Where does that leave you?
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