Life in Retirement - We've made it! Now what? (No investment discussions permitted)

Parent Cafe
941

I have a friend who has a friend who always said that when she turns 80 that she is selling her house and her car and moving to a CCRC near one of her kids. And that’s what she did! I admire her having a plan and sticking to it, and she’s become my new role model.

That same friend (my friend, not hers) is widowed and in her 50s and is tired of her house and yard and is ready to downsize already so I know that I’m not the only one making plans! She’d like to buy a duplex with her daughter and they each live in a half. Both her kids are local for now and likely will stay local, at least the dd will.

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942

There are many many many different types of arrangements. Some places, you’re required to pay in an absolute fortune (to me, anyway) to get a place. Other places, you pay a [relatively] modest upfront cost plus monthly fees even before you need the service. Then, when/if you need the services – either at home or in the facility – it’s already paid for. The latter is the type of arrangment I’m looking at. This type of arrangment lets you stay in your home as long as possible, with just four- or eight-hour-a-day help, if that’s all you need.

My 88-y.o. friend has had two surgeries and both times needed help at home for a brief time. All paid for, due to her membership in this continuing care community.

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943

You should look into a rental apartment that is 55+. You don’t have to take care of any maintenance items (snow, garden, etc.). My husband and I have been living in one for a couple of years now. He loves to brag that he no longer visits the home depot, clogged sink just call maintenance. Most of the people in my building have a cleaning service come (I clean myself).

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944

It was USAA - said that I’d be paying too long, check back late 50s early 60s. But prices went up. Yes, I have a brother and cousin-in-law whose companies offered LTC (I think through John Hancock) and they were very comprehensive and affordable as paycheck deductions. They both also worked for companies who had pensions. They are in good shape these days.

945

I love where I live but I don’t plan to be in this house forever. It’s not realistic. I would like to stay in my neighborhood ( or the adjacent one) as it is very convenient, safe , walkable and has many amenities. All of the friends I have made live here and it’s close to D and SIL.
There are condos but the ones I like are very expensive. I could do it , not sure if I want to.
As for timing, with my husband’s recent passing, I am going to see how it goes with my dealing with a house on my own ( yes, I have heard the thing about no major changes for a year). So I might make a move in a year or two or it might be several.
I hadn’t considered renting an apartment but that is something I am willing to consider.

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946

I currently live in a large home with close to an acre of land. If I wind up on my own I think I’d like to be in a townhome, or a small, one level home where someone else does most of the maintenance. We KNOW we need to start getting rid of crap, but it’s tough.

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I have already gotten rid of all my furniture and belongings except for clothes, and meds, a few personal items (kid’s photos for example). I have a small storage space for memorabilia, photo albums and a few paintings.

Many apartment buildings have rentals that include a superintendent who handles maintenance quickly. The ones in the city where I am now do not have parking so it involves parking and toting groceries, or doing delivery.

Not to go into too much detail, but I have many allergies and sensitivities that limit housing options (carpeting, new vinyl plank flooring, etc.). I have looked at 55+ housing and they all have those kinds of issues for me.

The other issue around here is lack of supply in my home town (coastal, air bnb’s have taken over) and price in the city where I am temporarily. Time to find a new place!

948

Let me know whether you have time/room for another friend. Ds1’s MIL and FIL are in the process of finishing moving near you. They are renting for a year on Bde Maka Ska, and she’s looking for a book club.

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949

@Youdon_tsay - I’ll send you a PM

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950

This discussion (and that of other threads), pushes me to ask: What do we want? Instead of looking for it, only to be disappointed if not found, could WE (the collective baby boomers) create it instead? Some tight-knit communities have tried with the “Village Movement”. https://www.helpfulvillage.com/the-village-movement This does not solve the problem when a full nursing facility is required, but it does address the desire to live longer in a home and a community (offering social connections, sharing or hiring specific contractors for rides, visits, meals, yard help, perhaps even a visiting nurse shared between several households?). It builds a community within a community.

In the meantime, my daughter asked our preferences should she become the decision maker. We would likely need to move to where my children live, and we have little experience with specific options there. My answer (so far) was:

• A non-profit facility. In general, the non-profit communities in our home city are far better than the for-profit ones. They don’t always have the best layout, or all the perks (movie theatres, etc.), but their initial reasons for existence are typically found in their services. I feel the same about Hospice – My mind just has a hard time with for-profit hospice facilities.
• A group-home if the illness allows. These are much more rare, and definitely need oversight, but I like the smaller community aspect.

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951

@abasket, I asked ShawWife. We don’t know anyone in our generation who is moving to or considering moving to a CCRC. ShawWife’s mother, who is 93 and is starting to need some care, has visited her friends in CCRCs and says it seems like wealthy women who are being warehoused in extremely nice places. But, I think it may become a choice that people who now think they don’t want it will end up with (as happened with my mother).

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CCRCs are something that is talked about extensively in the parents helping parents thread.

I think it’s hard to change that mindset that independent living or assisted living are something that happens to other people in our parent’s generation.

I don’t know if it’s because there was a perception of what nursing homes used to be. I don’t know if it’s going through the depression that makes some wary of spending the money they spent a lifetime accruing. I don’t know if it’s their parents generation that elders are taken care of by their children. I don’t know if it’s because life expectancy is longer now.

But because my generation had children later, had less children, your children are having children later, my hope is that I will be wiser than our parents.

We all evolve. I don’t want to create a mess for my children because I won’t face the fact that Father Time always wins.

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953

When I’m a bit closer to retirement and once my kids are done with college & settled into their careers, I want to downsize to a condo or townhouse. Preferably one that’s all on one floor and in my state, there’s plenty of options for that.

While I love my current garden, when I’m 65, I don’t want to have to be tied to the yard like I am now. I want to be able to take off for a couple of weeks in the hottest part of the summer and escape and not have to think about how my plants back home are going to survive.

My H & I have very different views/attitudes of things like assisted living facilities & nursing homes. I view them as a natural progression of life and living in such a place can actually bring a lot more social life to a senior who previously was quite isolated. My grandparents lived in one for many years and had a good experience. H, on the other hand, views such places as cesspools where people leave their elderly parents “to rot away and wait to die” and has declared loudly that he’s not ever moving into one.

Ok fine, H, if we’re still married at that point (which is a big ‘if’ right now), you’ll be living alone because when the time comes and I need to move into an assisted living facility, I absolutely will do so. I’m not going to burden my kids with my ongoing care like I’ve seen other elderly parents do to their adult kids. Nope, not happening.

I also intend to NOT leave my kids with a mountain of stuff to have to sort through when my trips around the sun have ended. When my MIL died ~ 2 yr ago, going through all of her stuff was exhausting. She was a person who couldn’t face going through any of her possessions, so she held onto all of it. The woman had something like 12 sets of dishes when she died. She’d kept every single greeting card that anybody ever sent her for her whole entire life.

Even H at the time, when she was still alive, would practically beg her to sort through some of her stuff so it wouldn’t be so much work for him and his sister. MIL would say to him, “I’m not going to do that. Besides, if I wait until after I’m dead, it’s not going to matter because I’ll be dead and then I won’t have to deal with it.” Even when H would then say to her, “But you’ll be leaving all of this work for my sister & I. Doesn’t that matter?” she would say, “Nope! Because I’ll be dead then and I won’t care.”

Great, thanks for that.

So Swedish Death Cleaning? Bring it on.

Has H embraced that idea? No.

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954

I am not at all averse to moving into a condo/renting an apartment as long as it is in my neighborhood. That’s my next step, not sure when that will be. I will never say to my kids "don’t put me in a home’ as I have no idea what shape physically and/or mentally I will be in the future. I refuse to lay a guilt trip on them.

I am also getting rid of things I don’t want/need. Everyone has a certain amount of necessary “stuff” that needs to be cleared out but so much is unnecessary/unneeded/unwanted. Have heard older family members say “this is my kid’s problem”, again something I am not willing to put on them.

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955

We are in our just under 1000 sq foot ADU, on one floor, 18 feet away from DD and her family’s house. We downsized to move, and got rid of a lot of stuff, but it is crazy how fast the new stuff accumulates.

Goal for the coming winter is to clean out the basement, and go through some unsorted boxes. No, I don’t need lots of photographs of family on my walls, and ornaments are a definite “no. It has to be beautiful and useful and functional (or at least 2 out of 3). to make it into my house.

We still have a dog, who we love, but who has behavioral issues that make it hard to board him. When he eventually passes on, I plan to be a dog- free, happily without ticks and hairballs and having to monitor him with the grandchildren!

Our state does not yet have MAID, Medical assistance in dying, but I am hopeful it will in the next few years. If not, the next state which does is just an hour away. If I have a terminal progressive disease, I plan on taking that option!

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956

I think this is some of it.

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957

gift link

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958

I don’t know of anyone around here that moves into AL until they absolutely have to, and even then they most often wait until they are at nursing home level. I also don’t know of any facilities here that sounds like what people are describing with “communities?” My in-laws were at our local Brookdale facility for a year. I didn’t see much of a community there? I know my in-laws didn’t seem to talk to anyone new.

But I also live in a small city (50K people) where people have lived here for generations. Almost everyone has family and friends around. So even if they moved into a facility, the same family and friends would be around.

We (the average local person) also don’t have the $$$ to spend on facilities. I’m sure that contributes too.

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959

My parents knew many of the people in the upscale CCRC they went into but by the time they entered, they weren’t much into socializing and only ate together the 2 of them. No one invited them to do anything with them. They didn’t do any of the activities. They never went in the shuttle that the CCRC had that would have taken them to scheduled places and then picked them up at scheduled times & returned them to CCRC. We were their support and when we weren’t enough, we hired 24/7 companions for mom.

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I known a few older people at my church who have gone to independent living situations (sometimes with assisted living and nursing home / memory care options available down the road as needed). I accidentally asked one wife about their new Assisted Living apartment, back before I knew the lingo as well. I was quickly corrected that it was INDEPENDENT Living apartment… though we rarely see them now, and I suspect they may have switched over to get more care.