Four Years Later, 3/2021 - #7

 And just like that...four years have gone by!

I began this blog March 12, 2017 and it is almost exactly 4 years later. Needless to say, so much has happened since that last post.

Firstly, Charlie and I are now retired.  We were pushed into it slightly earlier than planned due to shut downs from the pandemic, but we are happy and healthy and it worked out okay for us.

We passed papers on the sale of our house November 16, 2016.  It was purchased by a very nice young couple with two little boys. Although I have admitted to not being the sentimental type, I had an awful lot of dreams about that house. I would be sneaking in and hiding there, hoping the new owners wouldn't see me. Interestingly, that young family sold the house less than 3 years later. I often wonder if somehow a part of me "haunted" that house and maybe I scared them out! After it was resold, I stopped having those dreams! 

On March 21, 2017, Charlie's oldest son, Shawn lost his 5 year battle with cancer. He faced it bravely; he fought for a long time. I give credit to amazing doctors who tried so hard to save his life. But some things are just not meant to be. Shawn was only 49 years old. 

Our in-law apartment was completed on August 19, 2017 - exactly one week after my granddaughter was born. Since then, a grandson was added to the mix as well and it is not uncommon to now hear the  trampling of elephants across the upstairs floor, which is our ceiling. It has been a wonderful living arrangement with our children and grandchildren and I am grateful to my daughter and son-in-law for wanting us to join them. This is multi-generational living at its best!

 I love and am so proud of our apartment! I was able to design a layout that worked best giving us an open floorplan and maximize light coming into the space. And I made sure Charlie's needs would be accommodated as well. We downsized further with our move getting rid of just about everything, including our bed. This allowed us to get furnishings that fit the new space properly, things we loved.  Turns out, we didn't need much.

We have adjusted well to life in our new small hometown and continue to explore different parts of Massachusetts. We enjoy discovering new restaurants, hiking paths, parks, making new friends and participating in the many activities this area has to offer.

The House - #6

If you are going to do something, do it right!

The process of preparing our house for sale was an awesome task.  I had a big "to do" list and 5 months before I wanted to put it on the market in October. I knew I just couldn't go through another winter in that house.

The minute (literally) our tenants vacated the premises, I was upstairs cleaning and clearing.  I had been chomping at the bit!  My daughters and my husband will tell you, I am not easy to live with. I am a little OCD about my home and that can drive everyone a little crazy. I get it.

First, I had the window company come to measure up all the windows to be replaced. I had the upstairs of the house professionally painted (I did the downstairs myself), we had the hardwood floors refinished, I painted all the trim inside the house white, we replaced light fixtures, had the tub reglazed white, replaced flooring in the office, had the carpet cleaned downstairs, repaired the exterior bricks on the chimney and had it waterproofed, repaired exterior stairs to the basement, cut trees, power washed the cedar shingles, had the heating system and electrical inspected and tons of little things more... the house was clean and looked good. I had been willing to invest some money to make this house right. It was not perfect, but ready. I had gotten rid of most of our furniture and staged the house very sparingly. We had even put our cats up in a "luxury cat B&B" for several months so they were out of the way for most of this process.

Our realtor who had seen the house early on was so pleased with how it now presented! I knew this would make her job easier, but even more importantly, it was a feeling of pride in myself. We decided on a selling price (me pushing for more and our realtor relented) and were ready for an open house. Happily, we never even made it to the open house as anxious buyers came to see it beforehand and we received two solid good offers within a day or two of putting it on the market.  We settled on the offer even more than the asking! We were thrilled to know the hard work had paid off!

                

         

 

Decisions, Decisions - #5

You never know which way life's road will lead you.

I learned a long time ago, you have to be flexible with your plans. It's good to have more than one option - or at least be willing to go with the flow and revise your plans along the way.

Over the past ten years, I came up with many different scenarios of how we could accomplish our dream of retirement. Interestingly, two years ago, a new opportunity presented itself which became the perfect solution for a new home base.

My younger daughter and new husband, both very successful and family conscious individuals, decided they wanted to buy their first home. They also generously asked us to be part of their new living situation. This would be in the form of a fully separate in-law apartment.  So, just over six months ago, their new house just outside of Boston was completed and ready to move in. They picked an area in Massachusetts that would be accessible for all of us to travel to our current employment, convenient to commuter rail and highways. And they were able to find a large piece of property, formerly a farm, being developed by a local builder which would give us a lot of outside space; I knew this would make Charlie happy. Working with the builder on a new build was an opportunity to have the home customized for all our specific needs. Since our "apartment" would be basement level, the house was lifted to allow for full sized windows in the rear of the house and a special entryway was created in the front of the house to provide direct access to the lower level. In doing this, the staircase which generally would divide the basement space in half, was now moved off to one side. This allowed for many more design possibilities. The basement area would provide approximately 800 square feet of blank space to create "my" dream apartment. We even installed a special steel beam in the ceiling to eliminate most of the support columns that would normally impede upon the openness of the space, had all the plumbing installed and upgraded the electrical system. All preliminary "behind the scenes work" would be completed leaving the actual construction of the apartment to be done after my daughter & husband took occupancy of their house. All the changes to accommodate our needs and work to create our space would be a separate transaction paid for by us and required a separate permit and therefore would not hold up their house closing.
And, we still had to sell our house.

Change - #4

Change is not easy. For some it is harder than others.

My husband Charlie isn't a big fan of change. But I like the idea of starting over. I am always trying new approaches to different things that may make my(our) life better or at least more interesting. For this reason, I consider myself more driven. I am always thinking.

I was 24 years old when my first husband, Bob and I purchased our first (and only) home.  Our children were born and raised in this home and it was where Bob suddenly died, a very young man of 34. I remarried and continued to live in this house, starting over again, many times. Thirty seven years later, I feel like I have lived several lives in this home and I have been ready for a change for a very long time now. I am not generally the sentimental type.

After all our children had come and gone, the house was pretty empty. It seemed like we gravitated only to a small portion of the house and the rest of the rooms remained untouched. So I came up with an idea. (always thinking) The way the house was styled, it would be easy to separate the upstairs from the downstairs and make two separate living spaces, each with their own private entrance. And that is what we did.

For six years, we rented the larger main upstairs of the house and created an apartment for ourselves in the basement level. The basement of our raised ranch had large windows around the entire house, making it bright and sunny. It had been divided up and partially finished when I first purchased the home. Over the years, I had finished the remaining space. When we moved downstairs, it became the first step toward downsizing. We created clearly defined uses for the rooms: a large bedroom (almost 20' long) with sitting area, a separate office, and a combined living and eating space, and a nice little bathroom with a shower. We created a "European" kitchen - small refrigerator,  microwave, convection/toaster oven and a small portable cooktop. We also had a laundry area. This type of living is obviously not for everyone, but it worked for us. The rental income gave us an opportunity to save, pay off debt and begin to make improvements to the house. And, it became a possible scenario for us to travel and leave the house in the custody of our tenants, while making the house self supporting through rental income.

However, once the decision had been made that we would be moving with our children (story forthcoming), we gave our tenants about 6 months notice to vacate. And in May, 2016, we began the process of readying the house for sale.

The RV - #3

You just know when the right one comes along!

In 2012, right after I returned home from my trip to France visiting my older daughter and her husband, Charlie and I purchased our travel trailer.

It was the perfect size - 21.5' in length. The interior was laid our perfectly for our needs and the additional outdoor kitchen in a side panel clinched the deal for us. We were in love!

Over the past five years, we have been enjoying it on and off, mostly for excursions to our favorite destinations in Connecticut and weekends exploring various campgrounds within New England. 

In the meanwhile, we continued sorting out the remaining pieces of our retirement puzzle.

The Plan - #2

It started with a dream.  Then it became a plan.

Ten years ago in 2007, I was far off from retirement but it is never too early to start putting a plan into motion. After all, the journey is part of the pleasure.

First, I assessed what we had. Our biggest asset was the house - no mortgage. We had some savings, but probably only enough to allow us to live about 5-7 years (frugally) supplemented by social security.  Our vehicles were older, paid for, but would eventually need to be replaced. We were both working full time. Health insurance would be our biggest expense. And we would need an RV.

As I started doing research, I discovered a whole world of possibilities through RVing.  "Workamping -  a contraction of "work camping" is a form of RV camping involving singles, couples or families who work part-time or full-time. The people who are Workamping can be called Workampers."  This would be an opportunity for us to be compensated, even if only covering our living expenses. It would also provide a venue for us to be active, involved and meet like minded people. I also joined RV communities on-line and found members very supportive and forthcoming.

Selling the house would provide a bigger nest egg and investment income but we still wanted a home base in Massachusetts, at least for the warmer months. An ideal situation would be a condo, where exterior maintenance - mowing, snow plowing - would be eliminated from our list of responsibilities. With money from the sale of our house, we could buy a property outright and our living expenses would be greatly reduced. It would be hard to convince my husband of this.

We started visiting RV sales centers and RV shows in Boston and Rhode Island, to gather information about products, pricing and figure out what would work for us. We weren't quite ready to buy.



                                      

Beginnings/March, 2017 - #1

Every day is a new beginning.
If you are healthy and feel good, a new day can bring wonderful possibilities!

My name is Eileen. I turned 62 exactly one month ago. I am the younger and more driven half of the Lorings. The other Loring is my husband, Charlie. He is a youthful 69 and for better or worse, is along for the ride on our life adventures.

Charlie and I just "celebrated" our 19th anniversary. We are parents of a relatively "un" blended family. Charlie's three children are substantially older than my two girls; our offspring ranging in age from 49 to 31 and being at different stages of their lives when we first met, probably accounts for a good portion of the lack of mixing in.  Our kids are now all adults, most with kids of their own. As of this writing, I am expecting my first grandchild.

For a very long time I have been dreaming of retirement. I have wanted to make some changes, take some chances, do something off the beaten path but within reason as to not burn through our limited finances. So about 10 years ago, I came up with a plan.

Through Charlie, I acquired a taste for RVing. When we first met, he introduced me to his fully self-contained camper that slid into the back of his pick up truck. It was an adorable tiny living space and I became enamored with the idea of traveling with your home in tow. We used the slide on for a number of years until the squirrels ate through a wall, the roof began to leak and the hand jacks that lifted the camper up to slide into the truck bed had become rusty and too difficult to crank. Did I mention that my husband is not big on preventative maintenance? We eventually found a handy guy with some foresight and a pick up truck and gave the camper to him. As the story goes, handy guy passed the camper on to someone else and it is probably rotting away in a backyard somewhere in New England as I type this blog... (Better his yard than mine)