Shelter in Place

There is no place like home. This is where we heal the booboo's, wipe the tears, celebrate the special occasion's, morn our losses, laugh, love, and pray

 We planted our first tree for hubby on his first Birthday in our new home so many years ago.

 Our garden that provides food, WORK, blood, sweat and tears, cursing the varmints that take our veggies and pay water bills that cost and arm and a leg.

 A place to eat, think, enjoy friends and family. That is until the skeeters drive us inside.

 All the flowers, bushes, bulbs and plants we have nurtured over the years that the grands love to water and pick these days.

Where the learning never ends "Papaw I didn't know potatoes came from dirt"

And where sweet little grands harvest our love, prayers, hopes and dreams and of course carrots.  They love to eat raw carrots.

Well now............sigh

I started this post with the intention of sharing one of the BIG decisions we need to make before retirement. Should we "Shelter in Place" at retirement?  After looking through photo's to share on this post my mind is made up. YEP, this is where we live and this is where we will stay! It might not be the most frugal decision or practical choice but this is where our heart is.

Could you "Shelter in Place"? its a new phrase in the US that seems to have come along after the tragedy of 911 where so many of our fellow country men, woman, and children were murdered. We all headed HOME, to watch the unbelievable horrors of what was happening in our country. Could it happen in our own town? Of course it could. What would we do, where would we go, how could we live and keep our families safe?

Could you "Shelter in place" if a natural disaster were to hit? Maybe its snow and ice, hurricanes, tornadoes, your power grid going down.

Could you "Shelter in Place" if your local authorities ask like the people in Boston to do while the search went on for yet another terrorist killer?

In all honesty we can say yes (at least we have tried). Our kiddo's know to head home as fast as they can, as soon as they can. We are prepared (fingers crossed). But the one thing we put out of our mind was could we really "shelter in Place" in our old age? Maybe it was the thought of the large cost it would take to make our home handicapped assesable, the maintenance, cost of keeping the yard and home up that has delayed our decision's on "Sheltering in Place" at retirement. Today I know the answer, hubby will be so excited that the decision is made. Now where the heck is all this money gonna come from? HA

Here were the options we had to kick around, some might be just right for you as you head into the retirement stage.

Sell and move to a smaller home

We (me) have looked around at smaller homes in our area. We could move from our county just a few miles away that has cheaper taxes. We could pay cash for a smaller home once our home sold. We would buy new, also brick so the upkeep and major repairers wouldn't be a drain on our nest egg. A smaller home would mean less spent on power bill, less paid for yard work or cleaning.

Buy a condo/townhouse

We could stay put for now and take some cash from our nest egg to purchase a condo/townhouse to move to when we are unable to stay in our current home. Taking that much cash from our retirement would mean less in our pocket each month but I think I could make it work. We could rent the condo for now and use that money as income. We have been landlords WAY back when, it SUCKED!!! We used a rental management company to alleviate all the hassle of being landlords, what a waste of money. The cost of evicting the tenant, cleaning up her mess, replacing flooring, carpets and damage she did in 3 years wiped out any profit we had made. Not sure I am up to that nightmare again!!

Senior Community Campus

This option might be well out of our price range but is the most attractive to me (us) We have several of these communities in the surrounding area. The housing in the one I have requested information from has housing starting with 2 BD Villa's (sounds expensive!). 2 BD cottages (wonder if they take coupons), 1-2 BD apartment (might be in our price range) or studio apartments (maybe all we could afford) The campus has progressive long term health care that includes in home nursing all the way to long term facilities. They have a insured future residency plan for ages under 70 years old that is dirt cheap (as in we can afford that) future residency plan for 70 years old or older that is also VERY doable. We have a couple of friends who's Mom/parents are already residence. They all LOVE the place. I have other friends who do volunteer work in the facility that have dreams/plans to retire there. I would HOPE something like this would be a LONG way down the road but you never know. When I get the info/cost I will share it here. I am afraid however we are looking at a Jaguar facility on a Ford pocket book!

Burden our Kiddo's

This is not an option we would want to do. Although it does have the pay back factor we all think about when our kids make us nuts. I'm having flashbacks/cold chills of the teen years. How much fun would it be to spill food, drinks, Popsicles and such on our adult kids floors? What about wetting our pants on various pieces of furniture? Producing a load or two of laundry each day? Splashing water all over the bathroom floor or better yet spitting water at them. Lets not forget the times they have made poop's in the tub, oh what fun that would be. Oh, to be able to say at least once to my kids, YUCK I won't eat that it looks nasty. Could I have some money to play bingo with my friends? This pair of orthopedic shoes are not what my friends are wearing, I need the new ones EVERYBODY else has. This is what sweet dreams are made of when you age. I know our DD's would take good care of us as the Grands would make sure of that. You better not be mean to our Nanny and Papaw they are the best old farts in the world.

Dinner is in the crock pot, the house is clean enough, errands for the day knocked out, now it's on to baking and Merry making (quilting)!! Oh ya, and making that list and cost of what it will take to "Shelter in Place"