Hello everyone. I moved into an independent retirement apartments 2 years ago and I’m still adjusting. Moved from Florida to Wisconsin to be close to my son. Gave away a lot of ‘stuff’ and kept some sentimental things. After Awhile you no longer miss what you gave away. I’ll be 88 soon. What I like the most about this place is there’s so much to do if I want to or I can stay in my apartment and read a book. Yes, there is storage separate from the apartment. Underground parking, nice grounds for walking, so so meals or do your own cooking. You really have to shop around and make comparisons especially fees. Another advantage is separate building for assisted living when needed and another for skilled nursing. I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll be here till I die, made peace with it, in the meantime just LIVE your best.
Hello everyone. I moved into an independent retirement apartments 2 years ago and I’m still adjusting. Moved from Florida to Wisconsin to be close to my son. Gave away a lot of ‘stuff’ and kept some sentimental things. After Awhile you no longer miss what you gave away. I’ll be 88 soon. What I like the most about this place is there’s so much to do if I want to or I can stay in my apartment and read a book. Yes, there is storage separate from the apartment. Underground parking, nice grounds for walking, so so meals or do your own cooking. You really have to shop around and make comparisons especially fees. Another advantage is separate building for assisted living when needed and another for skilled nursing. I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll be here till I die, made peace with it, in the meantime just LIVE your best.
Good for you! At least you've already done it and it sounds like you are in a place with options. Hopefully, you have made some new friends. Carry on!!
Hello everyone. I moved into an independent retirement apartments 2 years ago and I’m still adjusting. Moved from Florida to Wisconsin to be close to my son. Gave away a lot of ‘stuff’ and kept some sentimental things. After Awhile you no longer miss what you gave away. I’ll be 88 soon. What I like the most about this place is there’s so much to do if I want to or I can stay in my apartment and read a book. Yes, there is storage separate from the apartment. Underground parking, nice grounds for walking, so so meals or do your own cooking. You really have to shop around and make comparisons especially fees. Another advantage is separate building for assisted living when needed and another for skilled nursing. I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll be here till I die, made peace with it, in the meantime just LIVE your best.
We’ve lived in a CCRC Continuing Care Retirement community since 2016. It was a big decision and glad we took the time and energy looking at comparable housing and some crystal ball viewing regarding financial considerations. We decided to sell out of real estate to simplify, contain our economic risk and rely on this organization to provide our daily needs and future physical/medical requirements. We do have a retirement pension and Social Security income, excellent medical insurance, and are able to live independently so far. Our contract includes “lifetime guarantee” where we will be cared for even if our income would no longer be viable. We have watched some of our neighbors loose their income, become unable to care for themselves and/or move into our Assisted Living/Skilled Nursing building with a fluid procedure that seems to be beneficial to mgmt and resident. Each facility will have their own amenities, contracts and living choices; as well as financial obligations. Some facilities even offer rental apartments available.
I believe it is a choice each of us should evaluate. It is not for everyone.
Making this decision has given us peace of mind when there are so many more unknowns in maintaining and financial obligation of owning real estate in this changing economy. Here We know there are EMT medical to help us by pushing a button 24/7, food available in several locations within our facility (or choose to cook in our own kitchen), apartment housekeeping weekly with fresh linens, beautiful common living areas, lovely landscaping, and a general atmosphere of “family helping family”.
We are never a year younger on our birthday… years accumulate and we may find our mobility questionable. We will need help as we age. Best for you…
We’ve lived in a CCRC Continuing Care Retirement community since 2016. It was a big decision and glad we took the time and energy looking at comparable housing and some crystal ball viewing regarding financial considerations. We decided to sell out of real estate to simplify, contain our economic risk and rely on this organization to provide our daily needs and future physical/medical requirements. We do have a retirement pension and Social Security income, excellent medical insurance, and are able to live independently so far. Our contract includes “lifetime guarantee” where we will be cared for even if our income would no longer be viable. We have watched some of our neighbors loose their income, become unable to care for themselves and/or move into our Assisted Living/Skilled Nursing building with a fluid procedure that seems to be beneficial to mgmt and resident. Each facility will have their own amenities, contracts and living choices; as well as financial obligations. Some facilities even offer rental apartments available.
I believe it is a choice each of us should evaluate. It is not for everyone.
Making this decision has given us peace of mind when there are so many more unknowns in maintaining and financial obligation of owning real estate in this changing economy. Here We know there are EMT medical to help us by pushing a button 24/7, food available in several locations within our facility (or choose to cook in our own kitchen), apartment housekeeping weekly with fresh linens, beautiful common living areas, lovely landscaping, and a general atmosphere of “family helping family”.
We are never a year younger on our birthday… years accumulate and we may find our mobility questionable. We will need help as we age. Best for you…
Well, that's a scary story! Fortunately, it is not that common. Dealing with this situation at any time in your life would be difficult but when you are in your 90s?? E gad, hopefully not me.
@mymayoremote Thank you for sharing. While this sort of insolvency is not the norm, it IS definitely still a great reminder to be very very very careful in selecting a retirement home and the services.
Which particular retirement home to choose and what plan to choose is a decision full of traps - because the industry is not sufficiently regulated by government to stop unfair contracts.
Those who can afford to take legal advice should seek it. All should in any event make as many enquiries as possible.
Such a tough decision to make emotionally to move out of home made so much harder by dealing usually with a hungry profit driven industry
@ksdm My father is still living in the family home (after my mother passed some years ago from cancer) with my niece and her fiancé also living there too. Both are awesome. Dad pays all utility bills. It’s a win win that came about naturally out of mutual love and care. They’re saving for a home deposit and in return for boarding and bills paid they (with our help) wash his clothes and bed linen, make sure Dad takes his pills, is eating properly and isn’t skipping meals, organise cleaners and gardeners and other contractors, take him to medical appointments etc etc.
Dad is beginning to declutter ready for when that arrangement no longer works for everyone. He has asked us children to get together and agree between us to take what he doesn’t need now. Once we’ve done that the grandchildren will do the same. Depending on what’s left he will either donate items to charities who will collect the items or have a special bin collection for other items to go to the local tip.
He has his treasured items not included in this decluttering project.
Best wishes with your move. It’s a great opportunity to live more lightly 😊
I live in upstate New York in a two-story home. My husband has a variety of physical ailments that will eventually make stairs impossible, and I've got a deep history of dementia in the family. I'm a planner by nature, while my husband likes to live life as it comes. We're both retired, and financially comfortable enough to have choices, but at some risk of outliving our resources.
Early last summer, we finally realized that we are not going to be able to age in place to the end -- our home is just not physically conducive to this. So I plunged in.
It's important to realize that every option has risks and opportunities. You can't get rid of the risks, although you can pick your exposure and try to make them as unlikely as you can. And by setting your priorities, you can make the best of your opportunities.
So, here's where we landed:
-- I've been gradually giving stuff away through our local community Buy Nothing FB page. It started with practical items we haven't used in years, or that I rediscovered by scouring the entire house to look at shelves, cabinets, closets, etc that I haven't been paying attention to. (Wow, a lot of things I'd forgotten we owned.) Eventually moved into sentimental stuff, like most of my father's sculptures. It helped to do this gradually, which let me get my head around downsizing.
-- Eventually, I decided to set up a room for stuff to keep. The goal was to make it all visible on (inexpensive plastic) shelves and also use the room very practically as a pantry, place to sort laundry, a functioning location that I was in and out of a lot. This helped me get rid of more stuff, as I realized what things I thought I would keep weren't actually going to be needed or wanted if we moved. Still working on this, because it will eventually help me decide how much storage we will actually need. This is helping me actually live in a smaller footprint right now.
-- I did not touch my husband's collections. However, over time, as he watched me do this, he started conversations about what to do with the collections that are meaningful to him. We've agreed that offsite storage is an option if he hasn't downsized his possessions by the time we move, but that he is going to give it his best shot.
-- I've been an executor twice, and yup, most of it gets thrown out in the end. It helped me start looking at our possessions through that lens. If no one is going to want it when we are gone, then why not keep only the items that will be useful, or that we cherish because we see or touch it every day?
-- One of my to-do's is going to be creating a collage (using a poster frame) of meaningful photos that could move from retirement home to assisted living to nursing home, if necessary. Most of the remaining pictures will be thrown away.
-- The more places we visited, and the more research I did, the more we refined what we were looking for. What we first thought we were going to want evolved based on experience. We spoke with our local Office of the Aging, we tried to find friends who had friends who had experience with places, we figured out that the vibe and resident culture really mattered to us, we started to understand what turned us off and turned us on. I got to know all the sales people, and compared all the contracts, and ultimately requested a copy of the resident's manual (when they say they allow pets, for example, what exactly does that mean you can/can't/must do if you have a pet, and what kind of pets?).
-- We looked into options that would give us quality of life for as long as we can, would eliminate the need to personally hire-and-fire aids or nurses (because we've eventually not going to be capable of doing that, and we wouldn't enjoy it anyway), and would make this most likely to be our last major move. This means a community with onsite cottage homes, apartments, assisted living, memory care, nursing home. It exposes us to one big financial risk, which is bankruptcy or sale of the community to someone who runs it into the ground, so we've been very picky. It also exposes us to one big social/psychological/emotional risk, which is an incompatible community, so we've been very picky there, too. It does give us the opportunity to age in a community where we can make new friends, and where one of us can move to a higher level of care and be easily visited by the other one. It also gives us lots of independence in a cottage and our own space for as long as we can make that work.
-- We're waitlisted now for three options in that community. The one we would prefer has a 3-4 year expected wait time, while the two others have shorter times, in case we need to move sooner than we hope to have to.
-- I'll be interviewing a couple of move managers and a couple of real estate agents this winter or spring, just to get a handle on possible costs, and how much work we want to do ourselves (probably not much, because neither of us are physically able to do a lot of that any more, and we don't have kids).
Basically, I turned it into a project, and by doing that, I got increasingly comfortable with the whole idea. It started out traumatizing, and now I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.
This is kind of an extreme. (It's one step short of an actual, legally chartered CCRC, which we considered but eventually rejected.) We could much more easily just sold the house and moved into an apartment somewhere, which is a perfectly viable way to go. Just wasn't our choice.
I live in upstate New York in a two-story home. My husband has a variety of physical ailments that will eventually make stairs impossible, and I've got a deep history of dementia in the family. I'm a planner by nature, while my husband likes to live life as it comes. We're both retired, and financially comfortable enough to have choices, but at some risk of outliving our resources.
Early last summer, we finally realized that we are not going to be able to age in place to the end -- our home is just not physically conducive to this. So I plunged in.
It's important to realize that every option has risks and opportunities. You can't get rid of the risks, although you can pick your exposure and try to make them as unlikely as you can. And by setting your priorities, you can make the best of your opportunities.
So, here's where we landed:
-- I've been gradually giving stuff away through our local community Buy Nothing FB page. It started with practical items we haven't used in years, or that I rediscovered by scouring the entire house to look at shelves, cabinets, closets, etc that I haven't been paying attention to. (Wow, a lot of things I'd forgotten we owned.) Eventually moved into sentimental stuff, like most of my father's sculptures. It helped to do this gradually, which let me get my head around downsizing.
-- Eventually, I decided to set up a room for stuff to keep. The goal was to make it all visible on (inexpensive plastic) shelves and also use the room very practically as a pantry, place to sort laundry, a functioning location that I was in and out of a lot. This helped me get rid of more stuff, as I realized what things I thought I would keep weren't actually going to be needed or wanted if we moved. Still working on this, because it will eventually help me decide how much storage we will actually need. This is helping me actually live in a smaller footprint right now.
-- I did not touch my husband's collections. However, over time, as he watched me do this, he started conversations about what to do with the collections that are meaningful to him. We've agreed that offsite storage is an option if he hasn't downsized his possessions by the time we move, but that he is going to give it his best shot.
-- I've been an executor twice, and yup, most of it gets thrown out in the end. It helped me start looking at our possessions through that lens. If no one is going to want it when we are gone, then why not keep only the items that will be useful, or that we cherish because we see or touch it every day?
-- One of my to-do's is going to be creating a collage (using a poster frame) of meaningful photos that could move from retirement home to assisted living to nursing home, if necessary. Most of the remaining pictures will be thrown away.
-- The more places we visited, and the more research I did, the more we refined what we were looking for. What we first thought we were going to want evolved based on experience. We spoke with our local Office of the Aging, we tried to find friends who had friends who had experience with places, we figured out that the vibe and resident culture really mattered to us, we started to understand what turned us off and turned us on. I got to know all the sales people, and compared all the contracts, and ultimately requested a copy of the resident's manual (when they say they allow pets, for example, what exactly does that mean you can/can't/must do if you have a pet, and what kind of pets?).
-- We looked into options that would give us quality of life for as long as we can, would eliminate the need to personally hire-and-fire aids or nurses (because we've eventually not going to be capable of doing that, and we wouldn't enjoy it anyway), and would make this most likely to be our last major move. This means a community with onsite cottage homes, apartments, assisted living, memory care, nursing home. It exposes us to one big financial risk, which is bankruptcy or sale of the community to someone who runs it into the ground, so we've been very picky. It also exposes us to one big social/psychological/emotional risk, which is an incompatible community, so we've been very picky there, too. It does give us the opportunity to age in a community where we can make new friends, and where one of us can move to a higher level of care and be easily visited by the other one. It also gives us lots of independence in a cottage and our own space for as long as we can make that work.
-- We're waitlisted now for three options in that community. The one we would prefer has a 3-4 year expected wait time, while the two others have shorter times, in case we need to move sooner than we hope to have to.
-- I'll be interviewing a couple of move managers and a couple of real estate agents this winter or spring, just to get a handle on possible costs, and how much work we want to do ourselves (probably not much, because neither of us are physically able to do a lot of that any more, and we don't have kids).
Basically, I turned it into a project, and by doing that, I got increasingly comfortable with the whole idea. It started out traumatizing, and now I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.
This is kind of an extreme. (It's one step short of an actual, legally chartered CCRC, which we considered but eventually rejected.) We could much more easily just sold the house and moved into an apartment somewhere, which is a perfectly viable way to go. Just wasn't our choice.
I like your approach. It is methodical, progressive, evolutionary, and instructive. Nice!
I would nail down the 'sale and eventual bankruptcy' problem, and maybe even encourage the other denizens to do so retroactively if it isn't concretely and comprehensively (as in, 'hire a lawyer') spelled out in the contract. You two must be protected from rapacious natures, even if it's just business.
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Hello everyone. I moved into an independent retirement apartments 2 years ago and I’m still adjusting. Moved from Florida to Wisconsin to be close to my son. Gave away a lot of ‘stuff’ and kept some sentimental things. After Awhile you no longer miss what you gave away. I’ll be 88 soon. What I like the most about this place is there’s so much to do if I want to or I can stay in my apartment and read a book. Yes, there is storage separate from the apartment. Underground parking, nice grounds for walking, so so meals or do your own cooking. You really have to shop around and make comparisons especially fees. Another advantage is separate building for assisted living when needed and another for skilled nursing. I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll be here till I die, made peace with it, in the meantime just LIVE your best.
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26 ReactionsGood for you! At least you've already done it and it sounds like you are in a place with options. Hopefully, you have made some new friends. Carry on!!
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2 ReactionsI am so happy for you. I am 77 and my husband is 84. We too are thinking about making that move. You sure have a good attitude. God bless you.
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2 ReactionsWe’ve lived in a CCRC Continuing Care Retirement community since 2016. It was a big decision and glad we took the time and energy looking at comparable housing and some crystal ball viewing regarding financial considerations. We decided to sell out of real estate to simplify, contain our economic risk and rely on this organization to provide our daily needs and future physical/medical requirements. We do have a retirement pension and Social Security income, excellent medical insurance, and are able to live independently so far. Our contract includes “lifetime guarantee” where we will be cared for even if our income would no longer be viable. We have watched some of our neighbors loose their income, become unable to care for themselves and/or move into our Assisted Living/Skilled Nursing building with a fluid procedure that seems to be beneficial to mgmt and resident. Each facility will have their own amenities, contracts and living choices; as well as financial obligations. Some facilities even offer rental apartments available.
I believe it is a choice each of us should evaluate. It is not for everyone.
Making this decision has given us peace of mind when there are so many more unknowns in maintaining and financial obligation of owning real estate in this changing economy. Here We know there are EMT medical to help us by pushing a button 24/7, food available in several locations within our facility (or choose to cook in our own kitchen), apartment housekeeping weekly with fresh linens, beautiful common living areas, lovely landscaping, and a general atmosphere of “family helping family”.
We are never a year younger on our birthday… years accumulate and we may find our mobility questionable. We will need help as we age. Best for you…
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Hug
13 ReactionsSuggested reading:
New York Times - January 22, 2025…When Retirement Homes Go Broke.
A real wake-up call.
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3 ReactionsWell, that's a scary story! Fortunately, it is not that common. Dealing with this situation at any time in your life would be difficult but when you are in your 90s?? E gad, hopefully not me.
@mymayoremote Thank you for sharing. While this sort of insolvency is not the norm, it IS definitely still a great reminder to be very very very careful in selecting a retirement home and the services.
Which particular retirement home to choose and what plan to choose is a decision full of traps - because the industry is not sufficiently regulated by government to stop unfair contracts.
Those who can afford to take legal advice should seek it. All should in any event make as many enquiries as possible.
Such a tough decision to make emotionally to move out of home made so much harder by dealing usually with a hungry profit driven industry
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
2 Reactions@ksdm My father is still living in the family home (after my mother passed some years ago from cancer) with my niece and her fiancé also living there too. Both are awesome. Dad pays all utility bills. It’s a win win that came about naturally out of mutual love and care. They’re saving for a home deposit and in return for boarding and bills paid they (with our help) wash his clothes and bed linen, make sure Dad takes his pills, is eating properly and isn’t skipping meals, organise cleaners and gardeners and other contractors, take him to medical appointments etc etc.
Dad is beginning to declutter ready for when that arrangement no longer works for everyone. He has asked us children to get together and agree between us to take what he doesn’t need now. Once we’ve done that the grandchildren will do the same. Depending on what’s left he will either donate items to charities who will collect the items or have a special bin collection for other items to go to the local tip.
He has his treasured items not included in this decluttering project.
Best wishes with your move. It’s a great opportunity to live more lightly 😊
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
3 ReactionsI live in upstate New York in a two-story home. My husband has a variety of physical ailments that will eventually make stairs impossible, and I've got a deep history of dementia in the family. I'm a planner by nature, while my husband likes to live life as it comes. We're both retired, and financially comfortable enough to have choices, but at some risk of outliving our resources.
Early last summer, we finally realized that we are not going to be able to age in place to the end -- our home is just not physically conducive to this. So I plunged in.
It's important to realize that every option has risks and opportunities. You can't get rid of the risks, although you can pick your exposure and try to make them as unlikely as you can. And by setting your priorities, you can make the best of your opportunities.
So, here's where we landed:
-- I've been gradually giving stuff away through our local community Buy Nothing FB page. It started with practical items we haven't used in years, or that I rediscovered by scouring the entire house to look at shelves, cabinets, closets, etc that I haven't been paying attention to. (Wow, a lot of things I'd forgotten we owned.) Eventually moved into sentimental stuff, like most of my father's sculptures. It helped to do this gradually, which let me get my head around downsizing.
-- Eventually, I decided to set up a room for stuff to keep. The goal was to make it all visible on (inexpensive plastic) shelves and also use the room very practically as a pantry, place to sort laundry, a functioning location that I was in and out of a lot. This helped me get rid of more stuff, as I realized what things I thought I would keep weren't actually going to be needed or wanted if we moved. Still working on this, because it will eventually help me decide how much storage we will actually need. This is helping me actually live in a smaller footprint right now.
-- I did not touch my husband's collections. However, over time, as he watched me do this, he started conversations about what to do with the collections that are meaningful to him. We've agreed that offsite storage is an option if he hasn't downsized his possessions by the time we move, but that he is going to give it his best shot.
-- I've been an executor twice, and yup, most of it gets thrown out in the end. It helped me start looking at our possessions through that lens. If no one is going to want it when we are gone, then why not keep only the items that will be useful, or that we cherish because we see or touch it every day?
-- One of my to-do's is going to be creating a collage (using a poster frame) of meaningful photos that could move from retirement home to assisted living to nursing home, if necessary. Most of the remaining pictures will be thrown away.
-- The more places we visited, and the more research I did, the more we refined what we were looking for. What we first thought we were going to want evolved based on experience. We spoke with our local Office of the Aging, we tried to find friends who had friends who had experience with places, we figured out that the vibe and resident culture really mattered to us, we started to understand what turned us off and turned us on. I got to know all the sales people, and compared all the contracts, and ultimately requested a copy of the resident's manual (when they say they allow pets, for example, what exactly does that mean you can/can't/must do if you have a pet, and what kind of pets?).
-- We looked into options that would give us quality of life for as long as we can, would eliminate the need to personally hire-and-fire aids or nurses (because we've eventually not going to be capable of doing that, and we wouldn't enjoy it anyway), and would make this most likely to be our last major move. This means a community with onsite cottage homes, apartments, assisted living, memory care, nursing home. It exposes us to one big financial risk, which is bankruptcy or sale of the community to someone who runs it into the ground, so we've been very picky. It also exposes us to one big social/psychological/emotional risk, which is an incompatible community, so we've been very picky there, too. It does give us the opportunity to age in a community where we can make new friends, and where one of us can move to a higher level of care and be easily visited by the other one. It also gives us lots of independence in a cottage and our own space for as long as we can make that work.
-- We're waitlisted now for three options in that community. The one we would prefer has a 3-4 year expected wait time, while the two others have shorter times, in case we need to move sooner than we hope to have to.
-- I'll be interviewing a couple of move managers and a couple of real estate agents this winter or spring, just to get a handle on possible costs, and how much work we want to do ourselves (probably not much, because neither of us are physically able to do a lot of that any more, and we don't have kids).
Basically, I turned it into a project, and by doing that, I got increasingly comfortable with the whole idea. It started out traumatizing, and now I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.
This is kind of an extreme. (It's one step short of an actual, legally chartered CCRC, which we considered but eventually rejected.) We could much more easily just sold the house and moved into an apartment somewhere, which is a perfectly viable way to go. Just wasn't our choice.
-
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Helpful -
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14 ReactionsI like your approach. It is methodical, progressive, evolutionary, and instructive. Nice!
I would nail down the 'sale and eventual bankruptcy' problem, and maybe even encourage the other denizens to do so retroactively if it isn't concretely and comprehensively (as in, 'hire a lawyer') spelled out in the contract. You two must be protected from rapacious natures, even if it's just business.
-
Like -
Helpful -
Hug
6 Reactions