Aging in Place

Hello Dan again, I’m on vacation this week and started to think that since I’m approaching 60 maybe it’s time to start giving retirement some serious thought. And what happens when I do, if ever, retire? As I look around I’m quite comfortable in my current surroundings and would not want to leave them anytime soon. Sounds like what I’m aiming for is to age in place.

The location where I live is convenient, I’m close to several of the main thoroughfares that allow me to maneuver around to the mall, super market and the rest of the Garden State for that matter.  I’m also very close to the train which adds to my ability to travel. This is handy if I ever lose my ability to drive. I‘ve lived in this area for most of the 39 years I have been married so it would be a little weird to live somewhere different.

I would make the assumption that the majority of us would prefer to age in place. Maybe aging in my home is not reasonable; it’s two stories with a basement. What happens if I can’t maneuver the stairs? My wife and I can live on the main floor or why not sell this and buy a ranch at some point?  I guess  my aim is, as we age, for us to remain independent.

Having been a caregiver I know that a strain is placed on the caregiver and I would not want to inflict any undue guilt on my kids.  So I would like to continue living on my own independently and certainly not in assisted living.  I know that I say that now. I wrestled with putting my mom in an assisted living facility. But when I got scared that one day she might burn the house down while cooking something I felt that I had to do it. And as I mentioned, I still carry the guilt to this day. I think that the combination of Catholic upbringing and Irish roots has an influence on the guilt, but that is a story for another day. So now that I have the idea that I want to remain independent, I have to ask myself is this feasible and what would prevent me from being able to accomplish this goal?

I came up with two main issues that I feel would have the greatest impact on the probability of remaining independent while aging in place.  They are:

• How will my health be?
• Can I afford to be independent?

Although they run a close tie in my book, it was not as close in a Huffington Post article by Dr. Ken Dychtwald entitled Study Reveals The #1 Key To A Happy Retirement.  His findings were, 81% of respondents chose health as the most important ingredients to happy retirement and 58% went with financial security. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-dychtwald/retirement-planning_b_5800234.html.

It looks like no matter how much money you have, as the saying goes, health trumps wealth.  If you can’t enjoy it, why bother?

We should all heed the sage advice of Eubie Blake who was still performing as a pianist at age 99.  “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”

I’m going to start doing just that.

Please join me next time for my next two blogs in which I’ll take a deeper dive into the health and wealth aspects of me being able to age in place and remain independent for a long time.

Until next time…

Dan