WHERE WILL YOU LIVE LATER IN LIFE?

Thinking that where you will want to spend your retirement years will be a decision that just sort of unfolds after you’ve settled into a relaxed lifestyle? And isn’t that “relaxed lifestyle” just what you’ve worked all these years to be sure that you will have? Well here is some thought fodder for you on the “where to live later in life” issue:

Certainly where you live has always played a significant role in many aspects of your life. However, in the later part of your life, where you live will figure critically in the essential quality of the life you have. If you need to move from the community where you have spent much of your life raising your family, and working, then it is probably beneficial to make that choice while you are still mobile and able to reach out and make new friends and acquaintances. Having the energy to be part of a new community is important to most of us, and it is especially difficult for those of us who do not get out and about as much as we used to do. Then to, as we no longer have jobs or children in school, or are surrounded by family members or long time friends, there is not much reason to be out and about.

Do you know anything about alternative living situations for retired people? Have you thought about what would best suit your personality in terms of a living situation other than your own home? What is your financial situation, and what could you afford to pay for another living situation? Have you discussed various possibilities and alternatives with your family and friends? These questions and others need to be considered when you think about retirement living.

Most of us would say that when we retire we would want a home base near family members, if at all possible. Choosing to live in the same area as other family members might be for you a first choice, but it may also not be a real possibility in your situation. Even if you do live near family, you want to be realistic about how much time you will actually be able to spend with them on a daily basis, and you need to think about what other people you will have available to interact with frequently.

For the average person, living in a community with people in similar circumstances is frequently the most comfortable choice for all sorts of reasons. Where you can find this situation takes some serious thinking and investigating, and one of the options you can consider is living in a retirement community of some kind. Certainly this choice fulfills all kinds of needs for a retired person.

Having spent seven years working in a retirement community, in a position that put me in face to face contact with a wide variety of residents over the years, I discovered a surprising fact about many of these people: Very many residents that I met told me their move into a retirement community, which was for them a far more socially active situation, was about ten years later than would have been optimum for them. And why was this so? Well, because like most of us, they saw retirement communities as places your family put you when you got to be real old. And most were quick to add, “if I had only known how happy I would be here!”

It was unfortunate that these folks found out quite late in life just how much enjoyment is to be had from living in your own comfortable apartment, surrounded by cherished belongings, in a community of friendly people, where there is a multitude of choices about what to do every day. And, of course, one of the choices is to stay in your apartment and relax and read or watch a bit of TV. However, as a retired person, it is essential for most of us to have companionable friends available for such things as chatting over a cup of coffee, sharing interests, or shopping or traveling together whenever we feel like having company. Some of the other perks in many retirement communities are dining facilities for when you don’t want to cook, transportation to a variety of places you may need or want to go, and staff to help clean your apartment, or fix things when they don’t work right, or check on your safety, or call 911 when you need them to do so.

There are several varies of retirement communities, and in thinking about them as possible places for you to reside, you need to consider things such as location, the population mix in the community (the kind of backgrounds and general interests that are shared by the majority of the people in the community), the cost of living in the community, and the services they offer that you may or may not need at this time, but may need in the not distant future.

 

WHAT TO THINK ABOUT IF YOU WANT TO STAY IN YOUR HOME

If you choose to stay in your family home, or even if you downsize and move to a smaller home, be sure you check out some key things with your family. If they reassure you and promise that they will be both present and available to help you when the time comes, then you are a most fortunate person. However, you do need to factor in the fact that families frequently become scattered as job and relationship demands require.

 If you are tempted to skip this conversation, you may be thinking, I have a large family, and at least one or two children who might remain near the family home. Do you honestly want to count on a suppostion as a sure thing? And when thinking about your children being there to help you, you also need to consider the reality that people are living busier and busier lives, and visiting older relatives often becomes an obligation rather than a pleasure, especially if the older relative routinely needs help with all kinds of things.

Here’s another fact you need to look at: Helping an older person with many of the tasks of daily life can become an almost full time occupation, even if the task is shared between at least a couple of people. Making sure the older person has proper nutrition, appropriate medical care and a well kept home is a demanding and taxing undertaking. However, those are only the basic care issues as an old-old person may also need bookkeeping help, and perhaps some financial aid, a decent social life and regular visits from those they care about. As you can easily see, all this takes a lot of time, energy and organization, to say nothing of self sacrifice on the part of the “helpers.”

So what about the idea of hiring someone to help you out if you stay in your own home? That sounds possible if you have a sizable amount of monthly income or plenty of savings. It is not cheap to have in-home help! Check out the average price per hour of hiring someone in your area who is bonded and insured and comes with references. It may well be more than you can afford. Also, do you actually want to spend most of your time with an individual caregiver as opposed to having a variety of people with which to interact? It is usual that relatives and friends will probably not be available to visit you nearly as often as you would wish.

Staying home all alone, or with only a hired caregiver, is not an optimum situation for most of us. There are other options and we need to discuss some of these which we will do in the next blogs.