Move Once: Rethinking Retirement Downsizing

I have had this conversation with a few of you this year, others in the past and no doubt will do with some of you in the future. The phrase I use is ‘Move Once’.

My thoughts here make no judgement or opinion on those who have or will do differently. And as usual, there are variables for other folk too. However, if this move is still to happen in your life, think on it.

It’s about when we get to that stage where you’ve been in that same, lovely, old-school house for 30 years, with a door to the kitchen and a separate entrance hall so that you can sneak to your room without the guest in the lounge seeing you. But now the kids have left, retirement has snuck up on you, and it’s time to think about moving and downscaling. You might be in your early sixties, and you don’t believe you’re old enough to move into a retirement living / complex space yet. So, you move now, and then you might have to move again in your seventies or eighties.

The truth is that we are, ready to move in our sixties to that retirement living space. Where the care will be there for us without moving again. We avoid another stressful time of buying and selling and transfer fees and throwing away more of the 30 years of stuff you brought with you on the first move. Our health will be weaker later. It won’t seem so easy when 10 years older.

Move once.