My wife and I moved and downsized and simplified our life five years
ago.
I have been asked at least six dozen times by various people about
how we made this decision and about how we went about such a radical
change. And then, of course, the next obvious question is "Do you think
you made the right decision?"
A lot of things fell into place at about the same time. The state
came out with a buyout plan that made me five years older, my wife's
Parkinson's problems were increasing, my kids left home and got good
jobs, the old dog died, my knees were causing me a lot of pain, my job
was becoming increasingly high stress, Joliet crime rate was going up-
up-up, several longtime friends moved away at the same time.
We sold our large house with the big yard. Yes, we had finally got
every little remodeling job done and every individually planned decorating
job done. The yard was finally finished in every detail.
But the house had stairs and outside steps. Even with a self-propelled
mower, the yard mowing took hours. Leaf raking, pruning, and other yard
maintenance was hot, time consuming, and a trifle expensive.
What to do?
We could have retired anywhere. One co-worker moved to Arkansas.
Another went to Missouri. One friend went to South Carolina. We
thought about San Diego and Huntington Beach, California.
Finally, though, we decided on southern Indiana. We bought a small
house with a very small yard. The house was five years old and fully
maintenance free on the outside. (Been there. Done that. Several
times. No more ladders, scrapers, paint brushes!) One floor.
I bailed out of my job (a third of a century is plenty of time working
at one place), we sold the big house, packed up one medium sized
truck, went to five parties, said good-bye to friends and acquaintances,
and simplified our lives.
Yes, there are things we miss. We don't have a fireplace now.
We had to get a new dentist, new doctors, new auto service department,
new this and new that.
But the health problems did not get any better. We know now that
living in the house with stairs and keeping up with the yard work would
have been a real problem by now.
We have made a new life here. We joined several organizations
(I'm president of the Lions Club), started working at our own pace in
several charity fund raising projects, and made a long list of mini-
vacations that we want to do.
The local health facilities are very good. Indiana University has
super faculty and medical care in Indianapolis just 75 minutes away.
1) There has not been one day in the last five years that I have
rolled out of bed and said, "I sure wish that I could go to work today."
2) Friends can still come to see us on a long weekend. We
put them up in a spare bedroom. Our home makes a good base for
relatives and friends to run around. (Look at a map of the area between
Indianapolis and the Ohio River.)
3) We quickly adapted to a smaller house and yard. We did
get rid of a lot of clutter, and we do have a two car garage and we do
rent a storage unit to hold some items that we seldom use.
Several times writers on the ListServe have asked for the experiences
of others regarding household setups. This has been the experience of
we two senior citizens. We moved and downsized our possessions and
simplified what we were doing. We think that this is the smoothest time
of our life.
Added note: A couple of weeks ago I was asked to come back again
to the annual retirement party for all employees that have reached the point
of retirement. The guy that called asked me, "Are you going to give your
same talk?" and I said, "I've only got one speech that I give at these
retirement dinners."
The speech that I gave at my retirement party, and the speech that I
give each year at the annual retirement party is real simple. I tell all
the
retirees and workers and guests, "Someday it is going to be your turn.
And I hope that when it comes your turn to retire that the money will be
there and you will be in good shape to enjoy your leisure time!"
