<p>Oh, and I like freecycle.org for giving away stuff. For some reason, there seems to be fewer “strange” responses to giving away stuff than craigslist and sometimes charity organizations belong.</p>
<p>And, before you travel, make sure and put your medical records together and take that with you. Can come in handy for an emergency.</p>
<p>Missy, I’m thinking about your cabinet full of Doritos and Ding dongs. 
Good for hubby for trying!</p>
<p>DH and I have thought about the rv life. I think for now the condo life suits us, but I’d like to travel in the summers when we retire. Good for you eDad!</p>
<p>Edad, you got me thinking. I have a ways to go to retirement, but I think I’ll start decluttering now. Has any one given thought to not downsizing and keeping their houses? I live in NJ and anticipate at least one of my kids settling in the area. He’ll never be able to afford to buy anything, the prices are so outrageous!! Maybe I should hold on to my house in case one of the kids needs a place to live (of course, I won’t be there!! I’m looking forward to a nice beach cottage!)</p>
<p>Great if you have the money to give your house to your kids. I need the proceeds from the sale of the house in order to retire. I also need to retire to a cheaper part of the country. The costs on Long Island are out of site and just continue to increase.</p>
<p>My married daughter is going to stay in the area. They can’t afford a house and we cannot afford to subsidize their lives by helping more. My younger daughter is unlikely to return to NY. I would not encourage any of my kids to live here. Sure salaries are higher than the national average but not enough to make up for the much highr cost of living. COL is more than 50% higher than the national average but salaries are maybe 30% higher. It is not a good scenario. Nor do I see much hope for improvement. There are way too many small inefficient town governments, library districts, county services, school boards, etc. The taxes are out of sight and the services poor.</p>
<p>Eadad- congrats on the retirement!</p>
<p>Couple on our street retired last week and their home is on the market as well. The are relocating within the state but smaller home, cabin in Asheville. And what they paid for it is what some people pay for a car! They still are within driving distance of their 2 adult children, a few hours, but have the freedom to now travel as they have wanted. Both domestic by vehicle and international travel. And without a mortagage and low COL here in NC they are very excited without very much stress.</p>
<p>They listened to my non-pack rat kiddos in decluttering, you need to love it and show respect for said item, used in in the last 6 months or it all needs to go!</p>
<p>Needless to say we are a family of 6 that travels/moves light…or at least they all try.</p>
<p>Our trip from CA to here (NC) limited what all could bring and we have always consolidated after every school year and moves in between. But with 5 kiddos I still managed to accumulate stuff. Now that they are out of high school and college we have really purged to 1 bigger bucket for high school and college per child and 1 smaller one for the younger years. This includes all work, books, baptism outfits, varsity jackets, awards, diplomas, national awards, medals, trophies…all carefully labelled and stored away but easily reachable. That’s it.</p>
<p>They can pack their clothes up easily, linens fit in labeled buckets, same with all holiday decorations and gifts for future events…all categorized and label display for easy use. Made life as a single mom with my 5 naughty kittens much easier to move when we needed to. All important papers for everyone are kept filed in two plastic file containers, small enough for me to pick up and move quickly. I try to keep it updated every few months so no extra paperwork that I can’t physically pick up, also keeps everything in 1 location where the kiddos can also find what they need quickly…transcripts, tax stuff, fafsa, house stuff, health forms…</p>
<p>It took me a while to get it this way but the freedom it allowed us was refreshing. Decisions can be made quickly, opportunities taken especially if one is flexible…can move and try new things without a lot of prep (it’s already done).</p>
<p>And you are right about the COL, huge difference between here and CA. College tuition, undergrad and grad school, multiple options for MANY schools and many diffrent programs, so many choices for employment and education. RTP is 30 minutes away, the beach is2 hours and the mountains 3-4 (Smokeys)…</p>
<p>This IS my retirement location in 20+ years…I figured I should go where I’d like to end up…and still be young enough to enjoy it…</p>
<p>BTW daughter’s BF moved from Long Island to here 6 months ago, and his job pays better here then it did in NYC as a CPA! Go figure…better health benefits as well. He said it was like somebody tripling his salary between his lower house payments, lower taxes, lower gas, food…bought a great vehicle 3% sales tax on car sales…his list is endless-the rest of his family is also considering relocating!!</p>
<p>Good luck, and you might want to plan to do a drive down south and give us a holler!</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s been my dream since I was 18!</p>
<p>The attic is stuffed with the things like soccer trophies…they are so far back that it would be a lot easier to just leave them where they are.</p>
<p>Of course, we are the family that puts up 14-18 Christmas trees a year, so just the decorations alone require lots of space.</p>
<p>dkitty21-</p>
<p>We are also about 10 yrs from retirement living in waaaaay too expensive NJ.
The property taxes are outrageous and spiraling upward.
We are not able to keep this house for DS who does hope to return to area next spring after grad school.<br>
We LOVE the area, actually, but so expensive, that we probably will not stay in this house. We ARE considering downsizing house size and trying to find smaller house in northern NJ in a township with (relatively) lower taxes. OR south jersey…I am a beach bunny from long ago.</p>
<p>DS would love to be near NYC (or in it!) but too expensive also.
Then we have the special needs young adult daughter who is now situated with MUCH stress and planning in a supported employment workshop with transportation…we are concerned about disrupting her situation there.</p>
<p>Sigh. I guess by 2020 I’ll have all this figured out!!</p>
<p>At the wife’s insistence, we looked at the feasibility of downsizing to a much smaller house and staying in the area. I spent some time researching cost of living. The house and property taxes are only a small part of the cost issues. Because the area has a high COL, every service is expensive because the folks selling the services need to survive in the high COL area. Medical costs are also extremely high in the NYC metro area. In spite of the big name medical centers, the measures for quality of healthcare are not so good. Even if you downsize your house and property taxes, you need to pay for the property taxes of the local businesses who provide the goods and services you need. Our fate was set when we decided to pay nearly full freight for a top 20 private college. I don’t regret the decision, but that decision and the bad economy has ended any consideration of remaining here.</p>
<p>Musicmom–I grew up on the northern shore, then spent my adult life mostly up North Jersey. Taxes where I am settling down in CM County are a fraction of up there. Plus it’s warmer and you really do need to heat the house less in the winter, and breezy enough to avoid AC in the summer. I am a Jersey girl at heart, and I feel I can stay in the state and afford it down here. I can give you more info about house prices and taxes, etc if you want it.</p>
<p>Ah, yes, medical costs.
That is perhaps one of the few easy pieces for us, IF we decide to stay local.
We will have lifetime health coverage if I work for at least another 2 years (a given), that will be our secondary after Medicare at full retirement.
Sure hope they don’t pull the plug on this…after 32 years, I have become quite fond of that particular carrot. </p>
<p>I do agree, there are SO many expensive aspects to living in greater NYC area.
The fact that we have no issue with one particular one may not be sufficient to offset all the others.</p>
<p>edad, I respect the obvious planning that you’ve applied to your next step in life.
I hope we do half as well when it is our turn!</p>
<p>garland-
Yes, Yes!
We have danced together before on this…growing up on the north end of jersey shore, living and raising families in northern nj…</p>
<p>As I posted, we are probably 10 yrs out on a move, but I am a planner!
Would love to hear about where you are transitioning to in jersey…
does CM= Cape May county? sorry, I feel quite North joisey centric!</p>
<p>Are there specific towns that you could suggest we look at? I love checking out homes online, it’s a hobby.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>There are so many great long term posters who are empty nesters- CC has continued to help with grad school stuff and we all need to pay it forward, but can we ask the mods to add a parent cafe sub forum for empty nest; it could be for all of us to chicken to enter the cafe political forum!</p>
<p>I think fretting rather than planning is a better description. Overall we are selling the house, putting everything left into storage and taking off in a small camper. That is like jumping in feet first without testing the water.</p>
<p>Musicmom–that’s right–didn’t we decide we went to the same HS?</p>
<p>CM is Cape May. We have a house now near the Del. Bay, about four miles from Cape May City. It’s a great area; we bought before the prices really slid, unfortunately,and they are still getting lower, i think. (we did get our house at about 70K less than the original asking price.) Taxes for it (seven room house, half mile from water) are around 3K
(yes, the rest of you can laugh, but for NJ, that’s low, less than half what we pay up north on a smaller, falling apart house.) you can get small houses in this area for less than 200K whose taxes are less than 2K, or you can get something really nice on the water for a lot more. There’s water everywhere, and Cape May is an easy drive or a medium bike ride away, with tons of unbelievable restaurants and a thriving arts community. there are several great wineries to visit, and the farm markets are great. </p>
<p>I can’t wait to live here full time!</p>
<p>garland-</p>
<p>Yup, same high school!</p>
<p>I am jealous, your new NJ home sounds great!
I will have to ‘research’ online. </p>
<p>No laughing here, that $3000 tax bill sounds like heaven compared to OUR falling down house in Morris county with a bill of $9000!</p>
<p>A small house for 2 or 300,000 not too far from our kids, somewhere near a beach…that’s heaven to me!</p>
<p>So happy for you, garland. Thanks for putting this idea in my mind.</p>
<p>You’re more than welcome! Feel free to pick my brain any time if your research leads you to questions I might be able to help you with.</p>
<p>Just wish we could make the move full time. Paying for two houses is difficult (our income keeps going down for mostly voluntary reasons) but our jobs hence our insurance are upstate. There are no jobs down here that come with benefits, basically.</p>
<p>$9000 sounds cheap to me. I know plenty of people who spend over $20,000 in real estate taxes - for pretty modest houses. (Yoo hoo there’s a reason why we who live in this area don’t feel rich making over $100,000!)</p>
<p>Luckily, in the same area, there are still houses with <8000 taxes. I don’t know why anyone buys those insanely expensive homes with the crazy taxes.</p>
<p>Hey! Can I come too? Cape May City sounds perfect for me!</p>
<p>Our property tax is about 3.5 k, but the state/local taxes…OUCH!</p>