Organizing stuff, packing up, deciding what to keep and how. Those are big questions for us now, and I’d like to hear how others are addressing that. Especially the organizing part. The one big regret I have about moving here (Ed. note: South Hadley) is that we are so far from our kids. They both live in small apartments and are too busy to look at everything we saved from our Brooklyn brownstone, some – if not lots – of which they may one day want to have. I’m feeling stuck on where to get started.
Bonnie later wrote: I also found in Spam a message from Sallie Crittenden about moving that is very interesting. (I’m not sure why it was in Spam. There was something about it coming from yahoo, which I got out of quite a while ago.) I’m glad I didn’t miss it. It’s comforting to know that many of us are going through this process at the same time. I appreciate all the tips on organizing and downsizing. Downsizing from Brooklyn wasn’t a problem (we have a big, dry basement here for everything we don’t use regularly). But now we’d like to move into a retirement home here that will provide “assisted living” when we need it, but where storage is at a minimum. My husband Dan is 5 years older than me and has had numerous medical issues – which come and go. And this house is more expensive to run than I expected. As Sallie noted, without steady income, it’s hard to keep up with rising prices and a declining or stalled stock/bond market. Alas, we have a mortgage that we should have paid off when we first moved here. Now it’s a problem we’re trying to solve in order to move to Loomis, a nonprofit which doesn’t take a mortgage – full price up front, 90% of which is returned when you leave or die. (I’m afraid this is “too much information” – but I never know when one of you may have the perfect insight.) Hope to hear how others are handling – or have handled – these issues.
