<p>I logged on yesterday and noticed it had been 3 months since I looked at the CC forums. For years it seemed I lived and breathed college, especially paying for college. I rarely missed a day looking at the CC forums. There is a lot of good, common sense on here and it helped me many times. Hopefully I also helped some others.</p>
<p>After 5 years the youngest has finished her double degree. She graduated from the conservatory with a B of Music last year and this year she got her BS. Now she is on her own, living in her “home”, and working at a temp job to be able to pay loans and tuition for a masters. She has done well and all the time, money and efforts seem to have been worth it.</p>
<p>Now it is time for a different phase in my life. With the downturn in the economy and all the money that went towards tuition, retirement seems like it should be a long way off. After lots of soul searching and financial calculations, I came to a different conclusion. I am worn out with working long, long hours in a stressful job. I can retire if we move to an area of the country with an average cost of living. I can sell the house, put aside half the proceeds for a future downsized house and live off the remainder for a couple of years until it is time to pull from retirement funds. For 6 plus months we have been struggling with downsizing and getting the house ready for sale. It should go on the market by the end of this week. Once the house is sold, everything left will go into storage. We will travel and do photography instead of relocating. We already bought the RV and it is sitting in the driveway ready to go.</p>
<p>On second thought I may need to return to this forum for moral support. I am more nervous than a teenager about to leave for college.</p>
<p>Congratulations, edad! You’ve obviously done a great job, and your future plans sound wonderful. If you don’t mind my asking, could you discuss how you’ll deal with health insurance/ medical care for the next few years?</p>
<p>H and I would like to move to our intended future home, away from the one with the insane property taxes which is a generally more stressful place to live, but it’s where we have jobs with insurance. The future home is in an area with few professional, full-time jobs. Insurance is one of the big sticking points for us. We can downsize our incomes, but then it would be hard to pay for health insurance. Are you self-insuring, or have other thoughts on this?</p>
<p>DO IT!!! How exciting!!! It was always my parents dream - to buy an RV and travel the country. Unfortunately, with four kids spanning 13 years, by the time they were free to do it, my dad no longer wanted to drive such a large vehicle for so many hours (my mom didn’t drive). </p>
<p>Do it now, it sounds like a great plan! We have two years left for our youngest to go off to college and we’re already thinking about moving on. Congratulations!</p>
<p>garland, yes healthcare concerns were the biggest stumbling block. My D now has her own coverage. I need to pay Cobra which will be a very significant cost. I just turned 64 so I dont have that long until Medicare. </p>
<p>We have lots of issues to resolve between the time the house is sold and we leave. We will probably become residents of South Dakota (no vehicle inspections, no state income tax, one 1 overnight stay needed for a drivers license). All the banking and financial matters will need to be handled electronically. Right now we are only part way doing that.</p>
<p>At 64, you deserve this. Congratulations! We are thinking of a similar plan, but ideally would like one small place on each coast, probably two small condos, which we could do after selling our large SoCal house. My DH has a few more years to go, though (only 58) as he’s not quite ready. I could see it in about four years, though.
Our daughter is in the northeast, and our son will remain on the west coast. This plan would give us a few months near each kid and family and would give us a little variety for our retirement years. And as much as I love the changing seasons in the east, the long winters in the northeast are a little too much for my native California blood.</p>
<p>Please keep us posted on how your plan progresses. You will be an inspiration to many of us.</p>
<p>Good for you!! We have three kids spanning college, admissions, and hs. We dream of where we will go and what we will do. The kids certainly have their ideas. They always seem to involve lake houses and boats…wonder if THEY are paying I love the idea of traveling to decide where to ‘plant’.<br>
I think CC should have a forum for parents who are empty nesters!
Enjoy!! You’ve earned it!! :)</p>
<p>edad, what a great plan! Good for you for thinking about this so carefully and taking action. But please don’t leave - we want to hear how things are going!</p>
<p>Why not start another forum for post cc’ers? Seriously, good luck in your retirement and move! It’s a long way to go for DH and I but hearing about your plans gives us a look into what lies ahead for us! There is life after putting kids through school!</p>
<p>Good luck to you edad. We just finished building our downsized future retirement home by a river on the other side of the state fr. where we currently live. Youngest kid has two more years of college and then we will seriously look at making the move. For now, we’ll go down on weekends and dream.<br>
The insurance piece is a serious roadblock for us too as we will both be early 50’s when S2 graduates. DH is hoping to find a fairly low-stress job there that will provide insurance for us.</p>
<p>Good for you, edad! I, too, would enjoy hearing how things are going. I like your plan to travel as a transition to settling somewhere again. Yes, CC needs a forum for life-after-college parents. (That’s 2012 for us.)</p>
<p>What you are doing is exactly what I would like to do in the future, when the kids are finished with school and more or less established, and when we qualify for Medicare (still 6+ years away). Health insurance will be the big issue for us, too.</p>
<p>I am envious that you apparantly have a strong enough marriage that it sounds fun to travel and live in close quarters with your wife! So many marriages break up when the nest is empty and even more couples lead separate lives.</p>
<p>missypie, this whole process is testing our marriage sometimes to the limit. The transtition to retirement can be stressful enough. There is considerable added stress with the downsizing process. We have already gotten rid of most of the furniture and maybe 2/3rds of a huge, huge accumulation of stuff. Then there were the considerations of leaving the newly born grandson. If we ever get past all of the transition issues, I hope the rest will be easy.</p>
<p>Hey, don’t bail out on CC yet. Lots of parents and students can benefit from your experience and knowledge of the college process!</p>
<p>Good luck on the house thing. I will be very interested to hear how long it takes and how the process goes. We hope to put our house on the market in two years.</p>
<p>edad, best of luck for you and your wife as you drive your rv into a new life. Happy travels. Just keep some cash set aside for quick trips home to the grandchild(ren), and you’ll be set! Thanks for all your contributions here.</p>
I love the idea of traveling to decide where to ‘plant’.<br>
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