Why I May Be Moving To A Retirement Home Before I Retire

To move or not to move, that is the question.

Moving to our retirement home before we actually retire has become a real possibility.  Things have certainly changed in the last year. We went from 2 stable incomes to one of us retiring from a long utility construction career and one of us  loosing a 32 year job with no warning. All this brought us scrambling as to what to do next.  Luckily we have options and have slowly been weighing those options the last few months.

You see the long term plan was for me to keep working for the next few years and eventually we discussed perhaps moving to northern Wisconsin, someplace quiet and on the water to live out our retirement years.  Given the circumstances of the last year, that plan may be pushed up.  With our daughter off to college and beginning her adult life and with our income taking a drastic hit, it is time to regroup and reassess our goals for the future.

This shift has not been all bad.  It has given me a chance to really ponder where I am  during this stage of life and where I want to go from here.  Losing my steady income has given me the opportunity to really dig into something that I really want to pursue.

 

Making blogging a priority

I have been blogging for a couple of years now.  Mostly I just wrote because I loved it and sharing my experiences with whoever wanted to read about them was a way for me to satisfy my obsession with putting words on paper along with a kind of therapy for me.  Writing seems to give me an outlet to express myself where verbally I am paralyzed to do so.  I have kept journals since I was in High School and always found them helpful to figure things out.

So the upside is that I decided to take on the blogging world more seriously and perhaps make a business out of it. Loving travel, I decided to make that my main focus, but with the twist of gearing it more toward the midlife woman who may be hesitant about going out on her own. By travel I don’t necessarily mean you need to go to far away exotic places. I say sometimes the best destinations are right in your back yard.  Being from Wisconsin, I know there are a ton of things to discover right here.

It’s hard to think about uprooting ourselves

Back to the subject at hand. Thirteen years ago when we built our house outside my hometown we never planned to move again.  I was happily “home” and as much as I couldn’t wait to leave when I was in High School, time made me nostalgic for the quaint main street we used to drive up and down on a Friday night after Football and Basketball games. Going to the grocery store now means running into people I haven’t seen for ages.  Such is life in a small town. As much as I crave the big city life of Chicago and even Paris, I enjoy being at home where most people would help you out at the drop of the hat.  In my town the whole community comes together when we suffer tragic loses. that’s what you do in a small town.

Yes, life does have a way of throwing curve balls once in awhile.

Which is why we are considering giving up our nice house in our nice small town to make the move north. Saddled with a nice sized house payment is something we no longer want to deal with.  We would rather at this point in life pursue our dreams.  Hubby growing his online replacement tree stand seat business and me my love of travel and writing about my experiences. It’s funny how you reach your 50’s and your mindset seems to shift.  I no longer want to work my ass off and be stressed all the time unable to sleep thinking about the next day’s work.  I want to enjoy life while I am young enough to do so.

I’m not saying work is the enemy here

I don’t mind having a job.  I like the extra money as much as the next person. Unless I get super successful at blogging (cross my fingers I will be able to sustain travel through it), I know I will need to have some sort of job. What I no longer want, is to be consumed by thoughts of work and the living to work mentality.   My current job working for the Post Office is something I enjoy and find very challenging.  It’s a good gig, one not without a downside though.  Being on call constantly is hard to get used to and working 6 days one week and 1 the next makes the income pretty unpredictable. Other than that, it’s a pretty good gig.

So here we are trolling Zillow and spending every waking hour looking for budget friendly properties that will allow us to live the life we want. The main criteria we have are to be on a body of water (my main want), be within a short distance of civilization (AKA a grocery store). Within an hour of Green Bay for my city craving and access to a larger airport,  something small that we can manage upkeep, and room to build a massive garage.  It does not have to be perfect.  We are both capable to put work into it to make it our own. We just want a place with good “bones”.

I keep telling myself change is good

Throwing caution to the wind and moving is a very scary thought. You never are really sure you are doing the right thing.  What if we sell our nice roomy house and regret it down the road?  We can’t look into the future.  Just think how boring life would be if we never took a chance.  Life is all about growing and adjusting to circumstances. We cannot control everything in life, but we can control how we react and the actions we take. We love our house, our neighbors, and the life we have built here. On the other hand the time has come to make a change, and live the second half of our life not tied down to a big house payment.

Fulfilling dreams has become a priority. I want to write about travel and life in midlife and I want a life that affords me to do that.  Too many people who never got the chance to pursue their dreams.  We never know what is behind the next corner.  Life is predictable.  Live it today.

Giving up what you know and are comfortable with can be scary.

Do you have a dream or a big change you are considering? Are you willing to make it happen?

 

Questions? Comments? Share then with me!

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