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Local teenagers mow my front yard, backyard, side yard, and strips of grass along curbs plus weeded by garage driveway all for $25. The yards are small.
An adult guy did it for $20.
Snow shoveling also done for similar price, sometimes a little more.
One can find these people by looking at nextdoor.com
Considering your own life, could't you pay someone and hire someone (perhaps a snow removal service) to do your own snow removal when you no longer wish to or find it too strenuous?
^^This.^^
I grew up in the snowbelt. Most of my older neighbors hired a service or local kid, especially if they were retired.
If you're retired there's less urgency on the whole since they didn't have to leave for work, it wasn't a huge deal if the service didn't arrive til noon or the local kid didn't get there til after school. And, honestly most snowstorms didn't dump enough snow that they couldn't get out of the driveway in an emergency.
My plan is 1a. (1) Do things as you can for as long possible, then decide what to do when you "hit the wall.")
Continue to do things for a while yet, but change to lower maintenance housing befire we hit the wall.
The trick is to prepare, and move before you hit the wall. Moving is a bear no matter your age. But moving as an aged person with possible health issues cropping up will be a living hell. Even if you pay someone to do all the heavy lifting for you.
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.
Gosh, at their age, and condition the mere thought of all that entails is probably overwhelming, and exhausting. Would you be doing most of the work for them since they can't do it?
Start researching now. Take your time to plan.
Take notes. Communicate fully with each other.
Eliminate places you would never live. That will help. A lot.
Talk about townhomes, apartment style condos, single family houses.
Is a high WalkScore important to you or not?
How close do hospitals need to be?
I spent a lot of time at age 60 thinking about acceptable places and we decided (before our daughter was even married) that we would stay in the Socialist Paradise of the City & County of Denver.
Now, the grandkids live 8.2 miles away so you know we are not moving away.
At ages 62/53 we woke up one morning in our dream house of 24 years and said: we should downsize our mortgage and living space.
I decided that a duplex made the most sense for reduced maintenance effort.
Our WalkScore is 90 and this turns out, for us, to be very important to our lifestyle. Three blocks to the nearest supermarket.
Ten years in our "new" house and we are very happy.
Oh! I have been thinking about a duplex (to avoid a condo); but, I wonder if it is hard to have a tenant right next door that might not keep their side up to my standards. How is that working out and have you had various tenants?
When I look at houses I always wonder about the 20+ foot ceiling some people have. . .
I'm not sure high my ceiling is, but I climb up an 8 foot ladder and then use an extension pole. It's a rough cedar ceiling so I have to wear goggles, and when I am done sweeping it I get to shake my clothes out and vacuum. It's not a quick project and the ladder is heavier than it used to be. :-). I vacuum the lower parts of the ceiling. It's a good upper body workout.
I am trying to prepare to move by clearing out my house. It's taking longer than I expected. I am hoping for more inventory on the market in the next few months. If I could find good help I would consider staying. It's lovely here in the country, but I am always working. I want to play! But to find reliable people who actually know how to do things is frustrating. I'm not even trying to find cheap people, just reliable ones.
I grew up in the snowbelt. Most of my older neighbors hired a service or local kid, especially if they were retired.
If you're retired there's less urgency on the whole since they didn't have to leave for work, it wasn't a huge deal if the service didn't arrive til noon or the local kid didn't get there til after school. And, honestly most snowstorms didn't dump enough snow that they couldn't get out of the driveway in an emergency.
Exactly - and since I was retired and I didn't require that the snow plow people come early, I got a lower rate!
But here's a tip: Make sure the snow plow people will also shovel your walkway so you can get in and out of the house, not just the driveway.
My wife's question was "Do we need to buy a larger snow blower?"
How about getting together with the neighbors who don't want to or are unable to use a snowblower and contact a plowing company to give a discount to each one of you? The snow plow people would be in the same neighborhood and servicing x amount of driveways at a time, seems worth a decent discount.
Maybe all the neighbors should get together and select a reliable snow removal service. Maybe you could each get a discount since there's no travel time required between each of the snow removal jobs.
I quit doing my snow removal the last few years in Minnesota. I hired a snow removal company for a couple years, and found a much cheaper snow removal company for the next two years. I did that after one of the co-workers at my wife's company was found dead on the driveway, trying to shovel the snow.
When selecting the snow removal company, one of the conditions that you need to be aware of is how much snow needs to fall before they do the snow removal jobs. Some companies have a one inch threshold, some have one and a half in threshold. A lower threshold will be more expense. You also have to pay more if they include snow / ice melt as part of the snow removal job.
One other factor to be aware of is if they drive up on your driveway, and pull the snow back off the driveway, the tires on the plow truck might create impacted snow on the driveway that builds up over time, and eventually turns into ice, turning your driveway into an icy mess.
We do this ^^^ with the lawn aeration and overseed guys. We get 4 or 5 of us on our cul de sac together and hire one lawn service to do all the yards on the same day and we each get a discount because it saves the service time doing multiple jobs in one location.
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