Carolyn and I had been thinking about downsizing for several years, but we never seemed to find the time to actually carry out that crazy plan. We thought about a condo, but the tight housing market where we were living ruled that out. So, how do you downsize when there are no condos available and moving to another house would be just trading one set of headaches for another? Renting made no sense, as our house was paid off. If moving to a rental would give us more cash flow, it would also probably give us bad, and possibly psychotic, neighbors!
Enter the Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). So, you might well ask, “What the heck is a CCRC?” Well, the official definition is: A continuing care retirement community, sometimes known as a life plan community, is a type of retirement community in the U.S. where a continuum of aging care needs—from independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing care—can all be met within the community. Ok, it’s a nursing home, right? Wrong! That’s only one component of a CCRC. The emphasis is on “continuing,” from independent living (villas and apartments) to assisted living to skilled nursing, all there if (actually, when) you need it.
So, one big decision, lots of small decisions, one pandemic, a sale of the house, and an online auction for all the stuff we no longer needed, and on a cold Febuary day, a moving van, and the die was cast. For better or worse, we had made the move.
Here we are, in a two-bedroom villa with a sunroom. We think we made the right decision, and that’s where this blog comes in. Over the next weeks and months, we hope to use a good deal of humor while consuming perhaps a glass of wine or two to show the lighter side of life in a CCRC. The people, the culture, the perks, and the the quirks. We don’t see a downside, so we’ll skip that for now. We believe that this is the future for the post-work population, sometimes called “retirees,” so the more you know…