Below is the third rule and title chapter of the book, Downsize Sooner Than Later – 18 Rules for Retirement Success, available on Amazon.com.
Let’s kick off this rule with a brief story.
Anna is in her early eighties and lost her husband to cancer a few years ago. When she and her husband retired in their mid-60s, the couple decided to continue living in their long-time family home. The house is a five-bedroom two-story in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, bordering one of America’s largest cities.
Anna and her husband paid off their mortgage soon after they retired.
The house, beyond serving as a place to host occasional holiday gatherings, is significantly larger than the two of them needed for retirement. With over 3,000 square feet above ground and a large finished lower level, it requires two central air conditioning systems to keep cool in summer and two gas furnaces to stay warm in winter.
During their retired years, the couple perceived the house to be “outdated.” They embarked on several major and costly renovation projects including replacing windows, residing, re-roofing, and adding a four-season sun-room.
Beyond the renovations, given the home’s upscale location, the house demands constant external maintenance – lawn mowing, fertilizing, weeding, edging, trimming, mulching, planting of annuals, pruning, leaf removal, snow removal, etc.
Amidst her husband’s illness and since his passing, Anna has had to shoulder the responsibility for all the ongoing maintenance and upkeep.
This has added significant physical, emotional, and financial stress to her life as she has felt pressure to hold things together. As a result of being physically unable to do much of the work, Anna is forced to rely on a merry-go-round of outside contractors – many strangers, some ethical, others less so – to help keep things in shape. It seems something is always breaking down. Since her husband’s passing, Anna has had to replace a dishwasher, refrigerator, garage door-opener, fix a roof leak in the garage, and now one of the two air conditioners is acting up.
Trapped between the uncertainty of the future and the desire to remain connected with the past, Anna is stuck and miserable.
The house is far too much to manage, but it is difficult for her to walk away from her family home all by herself. This would mean letting go of many of her valued keepsakes and venturing into the unknown. She is yet to clear out her husband’s things since his passing – ties, suits, shoes, undershirts, socks, etc. But she has not found the will to do so. The added stress of keeping up a large high-maintenance home hasn’t helped.
Had the couple opted for a simpler lifestyle earlier on, Anna would not be facing so many difficult decisions by herself and as a grieving and stressed widow.
I am certain had her husband foreseen the circumstances she was going to be in after he died, he would have opted for an alternative course. They could have arranged as a couple for the inevitable day in which one of them was left to face the future alone. They could have made the tough decisions together about what to keep, what to discard, where to live, and how to simplify.
As Anna’s story demonstrates, the sooner the decision is made to downsize, the sooner one can have fewer worries, less complication, and become accustomed to a lifestyle that is more sustainable in the future. Downsizing also brings the bonus of lower recurring expenses for things like property taxes, utilities, upkeep, furnishings, and more.
For most retirees, lowering expenses sooner rather than later opens the door to additional long-term savings and makes affording a more enjoyable retirement lifestyle easier. In some parts of the country, it may make sense not only to downsize, but to move to a less costly location – even to another state – with a lower cost of living.
Downsizing early means being intentional about where you are headed.
It protects you from allowing inertia from the status quo to cause unnecessary future stress and expense. It avoids leaving a grieving spouse to grapple with heart-wrenching decisions about what to do with a couple’s lifetime of possessions all alone. Given the choice, make these hard decisions together and earlier when you can think clearly and are not under major stress.
Here is a list of potential “downsize-able” expenses that can weigh heavily in retirement.
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- A large home.
- Multiple homes.
- High maintenance/expense automobiles.
- High maintenance/expense possessions (boats, RVs, timeshares, vacation homes, rental properties).
- Club memberships.
- Extensive collections and hobby-related items.
Whether you decide to keep an item, let it go now, or make plans to let it go later, is a matter of personal preference.
If you do keep an item, make sure it is a conscious decision rather than driven by inertia. Add to your considerations how you or your surviving spouse will manage high maintenance items should one of you be left facing the future alone.
Questions or comments?
I can be reached at this link – contact Ted Stevenot.