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Downsizing, To Move or Not to Move? That is the Question
Aging Well | Last Active: Mar 23 9:13pm | Replies (473)Comment receiving replies
I too moved from Illinois but to Florida 13 years ago. My husband passed last year and I have a daughter in town but rarely see her due to her work schedule. The other four adult kids and a grandson are in Illinois. A second grandchild is on the way. I have a 1600 sf home and only use three rooms. Our oldest daughter (my step-daughter) wants me to move near her in Central Illinois. It's tempting because housing is more affordable there and property taxes are comparable to Jacksonville, Florida. I would still be four hours away from the rest of the kids, but it's still better than 1200 miles away. I'm not sure what I will decide to do. Right now without a second income and retirement in 8-10 years, I am thinking of staying put. Our house is paid for and property taxes manageable. I do worry about getting ill and needing care. How will my youngest daughter help if I rarely see her now? This is not an easy decision.
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Good morning, @dg0797 I think you hit the nail on the head with your closing sentence. "This is not an easy decision."
When my wife was alive we had many discussions about where to live, etc. One decision we personally made was that we'd never 'chase' our kids and pick a place to live just to be close to one of them. Our main reason was that we never wanted our children to consider not taking a new job, make some life change, etc. because "Mom and Dad are here". On the other hand, my folks moved to Florida and while they loved being there early on, when my mom got older she often told me she wished she'd not moved, especially once travel was problematic for her. I remember her saying "I always thought "well, I can just get on a plane and go see you, your sisters, and grandchildren until I couldn't."
As @spudmato suggested, before each of our large decisions in our lives we literally wrote out a detailed pro and con list, knowing no place/job/etc. would ever be perfect so we needed to be able to pick the alternative that had the most 'pros' for us. With our location decisions, the big one for us was how much we love the change of seasons and the amount of water there is in the Midwest. When we lived in New Mexico we came to realize how much we missed water -- and we realized it quite quickly. Certainly a case of different strokes for different folks.
Strength, Courage, & Peace to all!