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....all these neighbors in need of assistance prove to me that somewhere on the near horizon my wife and I will face similar challenges, and it will be best for us to act proactively to move to a lower upkeep dwelling BEFORE that day comes.
We're older than that, and we moved to a "higher upkeep" dwelling because we like the isolation, view, and serenity. We just pay to have the snow plowed on our long-ish driveway and 1/4 mile gravel road coming in.
I can hear Governor Ron DeSantis calling your name... "Hello, Roger! There's no snow here. The weather and political situation is GREAT! Come on down!"
I was thinking the same thing. Heading to the TX coast in a couple weeks for the winter. I can't imagine dealing with snow and cold every winter.
Yes it is time to move. But do you move down the street to an apartment building, or across country to an over 55 community?
First decide if you want to stay local or maybe move to a different climate.
Select a few places and then check them out. Remember the location will be home so do not evaluate like a vacation spot.
Check the costs of the location
AND the most important is a place with activities to keep you busy in retirement.
You do have plenty of time to make up your mind.
If you can I would try and rent for a few months in the location you think you would like to move too. Better yet if you could spend a couple of weeks in several locations. If you are looking at over 55 communities try and stay in the community and I would talk to all the sales people. You are trying to learn from them what others have though was important.
I have a long driveway but I would never depend on my neighbors to plow it. For one thing, half of them are older than I am, and I'm 71. And it just wouldn't be right anyway. I hire enough stuff out now that I'd just add this to the list. Anyway, the guy at the corner has a snowblade plow attached to his pickup truck, so he's a pretty likely candidate.
I would start looking and planning now not in five years. Personally, the thought of packing up a house, finding a new house, moving with all the logistics of it sounds like a nightmare and exhausting. Do you want that at 70yrs old?
We just completed the move from Colorado to California in order to be close to kids and grand kids. At 71, it was indeed exhausting.
With perfect hindsight, we should have done it two years ago but the pandemic interfered.
We decided to spend our remaining time close to family. When we need help they will be just 10 minutes away, not 1000 miles.
I did it at 62. Sold a 45 acre ranch. Loved working on it and had it for 8 years.
And I bought a condo in a beach town about 2 years ago.
I pay HOA and they take care of everything. Everything is about a 10 minute drive away...the beach is 5 minutes.
I'm not in a beach town because the condos there are way out of my reach. But glad, because after Sandy, the insurance skyrocketed!
I have a condo (townhouse complex) six miles inland. Beach is about 15 minutes. I can walk to the supermarket if I want. I wake up on snowy mornings and hear somebody else clearing my sidewalk and front porch.
But I spent last winter in a very cold, rural place. Glutton for punishment.
I would start looking and planning now not in five years. Personally, the thought of packing up a house, finding a new house, moving with all the logistics of it sounds like a nightmare and exhausting. Do you want that at 70yrs old?
Second that. We moved out of state last year; I was almost 67, and my husband was almost 64. We managed it just fine, but now that it is over, I think that unless you pay someone to do everything for you, I would not recommend it to anyone over the age of 70 unless they are in EXCELLENT health and physical condition.
I would think of downsizing and to a less maintenance home. My parents are 77 and 79 and they have 4.5 acres that I have tried for a few years now to convince them to downsize but they refuse. Mostly it is my mother holding back and she has health issues that may take her anytime, sadly. We had to help them extensively this past summer because my Dad hurt his back and couldn’t get around well. I was hoping it would hit home to them that they need to downsize but it did not, at least not yet.
Had this conversation a few years ago with a co-worker before we both retired. He said, "people say they are going to do this and do that when they retire, and often they don't realize that they might not be physically capable."
He went on to tell me how his own parents, who had retired to Florida, started to fail physically. He realized it when one day his father called him and said, "The light over the sink in the bathroom is burned out, and I can't see to shave, but I can't reach the fixture and I'm afraid to get up on the stepstool".
He said, "Dad, you know I'm 1200 miles away, right? I can't change a lightbulb for you." His father said, "I don't know what to do, though."
My coworker ended up calling an electrician in his parents' neighborhood and paying him to relamp the entire house.
But that's serious, when you can't change a bulb because you are afraid to get up on the stepstool.
I worked for the electric utility in my county for most of my adult life. When I was working as the dispatcher for the trouble crews, I would sometimes get a call from a senior on the weekend, when the main office was closed, asking for help as "their lights were out". Sometimes it would turn out to be a kitchen fluorescent tube that needed changing. We weren't supposed to fix things INSIDE a customer's home, as that was their property, not the utility's, but I had one or two troubleshooters whom I could trust to go help an elderly customer out, and keep it on the QT. So yeah, we changed a few light bulbs. I usually would go through the list of..."does anyone live with you?", "can you ask your next-door neighbor for help?", but eventually it came down to me calling in a favor from one of my guys. I plan to always have a list of neighbors, handymen, driveway plowers, and gardeners when I get too old to do such things myself.
Our community, which isn't a 55+ but is mostly retirees, has a community volunteer organization just for this sort of thing. While we don't need snowplows here, we do have a quite a few "super-seniors" (over 80) who need minor help with tasks or handyman jobs. The volunteers all donate their time, and accept donations to the group for materials and admin costs. They will change high bulbs, fix a light switch or doorknob, drive you to an appointment, pick up groceries, or "sit with" a disabled or sick spouse for respite, or other minor tasks that are just so small that hiring someone to do them would be silly. It's just a way to match needs to those willing to fill that need at no charge to their neighbors. For things like mowing, leaves, weeding, tree pruning, (plowing if we required it), etc. there are a lot of gardeners and handymen happy to help for a fee.
Last edited by TheShadow; 11-18-2021 at 09:17 AM..
We have started some hiring of services. We have hired a company to do Fall gutter cleaning the past two years. I bought the Roomba equivalent for gutter cleaning, made by the same company, it doesn't work at all!
Subdivision sized lot so mowing, raking, and snow removal of one lot still qualifies as exercise rather than exhaustion.
My wife and I are both perfectionists and have discovered that the quality produced by our abilities, even diminished as they are in retirement, exceed that of most trade professionals. It hurts twice as bad to pay money for inferior results, just because you are too old to easily or safely self perform the task.
Last edited by MI-Roger; 11-18-2021 at 08:59 AM..
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