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We sold our house in Phoenix, loaded up a UPack trailer, and drove 1700 miles to the Deep South. Just before that, I traded my little suv for F150 SuperCrew which made the move so much easier. Then, we sold my wife’s car.
Now, we’re living in my aunt’s basement in her “apartment” that was my grandmother’s last home before she went into the nursing home. It’s a one bedroom, one bath place with its own kitchen.
My wife is working in another room in the basement. We had to install fiber cable for her internet needs but that was easy. Despite her initial reluctance to move, she’s settled in nicely! She’s taking equestrian lessons which makes her extremely happy.
There’s a weight machine just past my aunt’s sewing room in the basement and I’m working out 3x a week. This is in the “dungeon“ which is a popular spot for 5-6 seniors when there’s a tornado outbreak.
Parker, our vizsla, loves loves loves it here. The weather here is semi-tropical and the number of birds and squirrels keeps him busy. We walk “downtown” everyday to the post office. That’s about 2 miles or so. Good exercise. I grew up here and left home at 18. There are so many people that I haven’t seen since then and I’m enjoying seeing them on my walks or over at the little league ball friends.
We are building a new house about 120 miles away. I’ve been over a couple of times but this past weekend, my wife and aunt got to see the project for the first time ever. The house is almost dried in and my wife loved everything. My aunt, due to her age, has no filter and can be quite mean at times but even she loved the house and the location.
We’ll go over again this coming weekend, without my aunt. My wife wants to double-check some decisions made this past weekend when my aunt made things more difficult than necessary. Lol In fact, she woke me up at 6 am this morning and said, “Let’s go to Lowe’s” to look at stuff for the house. It’s only 35 miles away but, we knew we could get back by the time she needed to begin work. Her job is 100% WFH but, her team is in Phoenix! The timezone differences makes it easy to make a quick trip to Lowe’s.
She was thrilled with the visit. Most of our stuff won’t come from Lowe’s BUT the items they have on display made it easier for her to see a much wider variety of items and colors in-person, a challenge that the builder’s granite supplier couldn’t seem to meet. Their on-site slabs seem rather limited. We’ll get there.
Despite various challenges such as Covid, lumber prices, living so far from the new house construction, temporarily only having one vehicle, living with a (sometimes difficult, cranky, unfiltered) octogenarian, I can’t imagine things being that much better. I’m about eight months into retirement and I’m loving it!
Sounds like you've got things planned really well. I've been retired for 10 years and as much as I loved the work I was in (Fish hatchery manager), I don't miss it at all. We bought our retirement home in 2007 and started renovating it. We've increased the value by about $150k but we have no intention of ever moving.
Retirement was the best thing we could do, particularly as the job got more political, which I hated.
Good for k7....
We retired in 2010, and were lucky enough to retire in the place we bought in 2003. Not everyone is that lucky, but our 3-2-2, 2000 S/ft home still works nicely for us.
Good for k7....
We retired in 2010, and were lucky enough to retire in the place we bought in 2003. Not everyone is that lucky, but our 3-2-2, 2000 S/ft home still works nicely for us.
Nice! Our last location was AZ and last summer was, well, last summer. With apologies to Neil,
AZ's fine, the sun shines most the time
And the feeling is "lay back"
Palm trees grow and rents are low
But you know I keep thinkin' about
Making my way back
I’ve lived, worked or traveled to all 50 states and worked in 8 counties but, I had no idea where I wanted to retire. MrsK7 nailed it down: “I want to be near relatives.”
A search led to to our current location. We’re almost exactly between my brother and my sisters. Cousins, nieces and nephews are scattered around us. Hospital care is excellent, cultural activities are close due to a major university and we’re far enough outside of town to avoid the kids, most of the time. Life is great!
Congrats to you!! I retired a little over 2 months ago and enjoy every day of it. My only problem is that time is going by much too quickly. The last 2 months of not working feel like only 2 weeks.
Congrats to you!! I retired a little over 2 months ago and enjoy every day of it. My only problem is that time is going by much too quickly. The last 2 months of not working feel like only 2 weeks.
Yep.... I saw your posts and I’m happy for you. It feels so good to get that phase of life done. We made it! Holy smokes.....do I feel blessed.
Congrats!
Given that I can't wait to retire, and would retire tomorrow if I could -- I think I'll have not problem loving retirement!
How much longer do you have?
From when I was about 58 until 61, I wasn’t ready. In fact, I’d get emotional about “retiring” but when I returned from my holiday break at the end of 2019, I was done. I committed to work until March 2021 but, I recognized it was going to be tough to make it. Covid took care of my issues and.....here I am. As happy as a lark!
A huge weight was lifted off my shoulder when my wife and aunt blessed the new house. Plan B was to finish it, sell it and reconsider our options. Thank goodness they loved it. This picture is about 10 days old. “Someone” forgot to take pictures this weekend. Sheesh.
Nothing too fancy. 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath. Office, tornado safe room that doubles as our master closet. Porch that runs across the front and down the right side. Screened porch in the back, small covered porch also. We’ll need to remove a few more trees as the final landscaping occurs. We’ll have a 22-kw generator and can hopefully pave the driveway. The laundry room will have a small half shower for the dog lest all that red dirt and mud will come in with him.
Oh yeah....Plan C: take all the lumber to the casino, put it on red and hope for the best.
Alack and alas.....20 months, when I lock in a pension and retiree health care.
Keep updating with pictures...they're inspirational.
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