My husband and I are growing closer to our "retirement years". They are a few years off yet, but we have decided it is time to start getting ready for it.
We need to be able to 'afford' to be retired. Okay, we can do that. I have paid off the credit cards. paid off a car (two to go). We pay cash for what we need (not want).
Yet that is not enough, we need to downsize. Ahhhh excuse me? I have taken the last 40 years to obtain what we have, now get rid of it? That is like taking candy from a child after you have given it to him and let him taste it. It will NOT be pretty.
Okay, so I took a breath and thought about it. We can not afford the taxes on the house we live in so we must move into something older. I can do that. I can even deal with fixing something up. Yet, I have my expectations of what kind of house I want to retire in. Don't you?
I need either a porch or a patio - preferably in shade. I need a comfortable kitchen - not big but with reasonable storage. I would like an office to do my crafts in. Bob wants a two car garage with a workshop area (funny how I have wanted one for seven years and haven't gotten it, but that is another blog). We want one spare bedroom and two baths (we don't share well). That sounds reasonable. Right?
To do that we need to DOWNSIZE from a huge house with enough furniture to furnish two houses. Not too long ago we bought a sofa and loveseat. They are Lazyboy and four of the seats recline. Yet, it is too large for our livingroom. My thinking is they will be too large for a smaller house also. We need to sell those!
Then there is the STUFF - lots and lots of STUFF. We have rooms of STUFF. I usually give things to Goodwill or Helping Hands so as to not have to deal with them. But when we are looking at this much I am going to have to advertise and try to sale some things and then maybe have a garage sale. How in the world did we get to here? Jesus said "not to want for anything, not even the clothes we wear or the food we eat". Wow - we must have forgotten about that because we bought it instead.
Okay, bite size pieces - we need to find a house that we can live in, and while we are looking for that we need to start selling things. I will let you know how it goes!
