Question of the Day, Sunday, October 18, 2015

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
We are talking about moving once we both retire. Rick really wants to go to the Pacific Northwest. You all know by now that I'm a warm-weather lover and I want to move to where I will never even have to think about snow or ice or cold. (Belize. I'm serious.)

the Pacific Northwest really is very lovely, but it does get very cold and lots of snow there.

even with raynaud's, i still end up wanting to live in the northern US.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
We have NO intention of being in this house when we retire.  It's too much upkeep, and too costly.  NJ taxes are awful, and when you add in all the other maintenance costs it just wouldn't make sense fiscally to stay.

We might even move sooner as my BF is starting to look at secondary colleges to get his B.A. and eventual Masters.  He's contemplating a school in a different part of NJ, and we both need to make sure that we can respectively get to the school and my job with not too much effort.  Depending on where he winds up there's a good chance we'll be moving and worry about the retirement move later on, which is still 10-12 years away.  If we do move inbetween we're probably going to wind up in a condo/townhouse situation.  Both of us just don't have the wherewithall for constant upkeep on a home any longer.  If it is a house, I'll be looking turn key this time.  No more renovations. No way, no how.

that all makes sense to me!

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
I'm hanging onto my place for as long as possible.  I've spent years creating a beautiful garden with lots of trees etc.  My house is worth very little and the land is worth a lot so when I sell it will be bulldozed and they'll put a duplex on the site.  I feel like I need to be my garden's guardian for as long as I possibly can. 

that sounds great!

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

 
I love our home and we'll be here for some time.  But it is on a hill with stairs everywhere and it's a good-sized place so there's lots of maintenance.  I'm sure at some point we'll want to move into something smaller, more manageable and on flatter ground.  

   But who knows when that will be.  

ahhhh, stairs! yes, i'll be looking for slightly smaller as well as 'one floor living' for my next house.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

 
so many people think and talk of moving when they retire. by the time i do move again, i'll be around 60 years old. so my age (and getting into my senior years) will have a definite bearing on the house i choose to buy as well as it's location.

The long term is something DH and I considered when we were looking at houses.  We watched my Grandparents age and saw the difficulties they had staying in their own homes.  One set of Grandparents have a split level; the other had a ranch with a basement.  The laundry was in the basement; so my Grandfather had a walker stationed at the bottom of the basement stairs and another at the top.  And another just outside the door in the garage for outside use.  That always scared me!!  Even with him having one of those Life Alert type services!  That is the house that recently sold.  My other Grandmother gets around very well; especially for an elderly woman (97 next month!!) but she has had a couple falls navigating curbs.  She is good about taking her time on the steps and watching her footing.  You have to either go up or down steps to reach a bathroom in her house; so there is no avoiding it.  She says it's good exercise.  But DH and I said we wanted something we could be comfortable in for a long time; so something either on one level or with a master bedroom on the first floor.  We ended up with the single story home.  

 

[Winchester]

I would kill for an old, large two-story house. But at my age, that will never happen now. As it is, when my legs are really bad or I've screwed up my knee (again), sometimes it's all I can do to even go down to the basement to do laundry. Going down usually isn't a problem; it's getting back upstairs that hurts. We'd like to put an addition onto our house for a new living room and then use the old living room as a dining room, etc. At that point, we'd create a pantry with the washer and dryer in there so that I'm not constantly running down and up the stairs. But it doesn't really seem worth it, if we are going to move when we retire....Rick's now talking about retiring next year, so we'll have to see what happens. I don't see an addition in our future at this point. I can retire at 67(!) so I still have a few years left.

When we redid our kitchen, one of my GFs kept at me to put in ceramic tile on the kitchen floor. With my legs, I knew that would never work, so we opted for vinyl groutable tiles. It was the smart move for me. With all the time I spend in our kitchen, the ceramic tile would have killed my hips and legs.