Your Home and Your Golden Years - A Match Made In Heaven?
You've worked hard to afford the home you live in today. You
have undoubtedly invested sweat equity as well as money to
maintain your home and gradually shape it to the comfortable
living space that now says, "This is who I am." Your ultimate
dream is to remain in this home - independent, financially
secure, and in control of your personal and social needs and
wants. Can you achieve that goal? It is likely that you can,
with realistic planning and careful decision-making.
Our housing decisions at all stages of life are complex
psychological processes that involve personal, social, tangible
and financial factors. And these factors are not cut and dried.
They entail reasonable needs and values, but they also entail
wants (sometimes dating back to childhood) and even "shoulds"
instilled in us by others.
If your goal is to remain in this home for the rest of your
natural life, you need to think objectively about the home
itself, and you also need to think about your own housing
psychology.
How would you answer these questions?.
* What modifications will your home require in order to
accommodate diminished mobility or disability?
* How will you handle the physical challenges of maintaining the
structure as well as the lawn and garden?
* What shape are the major systems and appliances currently in,
and what is likely to break down and need replacement?
* An active social life will keep you young and happy throughout
your lifetime. Will you still have friends or relatives nearby
to fulfill your social needs?
* And how long will you be able to drive in order to take care
of your personal needs and enjoy the company of others?
* Can you plan for alternatives to personal driving?
* Are their resources available to provide assistance with daily
living when you are at the point of needing help?
If you are willing to consider these contingencies and plan for
aid in the future, will your budget accommodate those changes to
your lifestyle?
As you seek answers to these difficult questions in order to
make a long-term housing decision, keep in mind that we rarely
make such decisions on the basis of hard financial facts and
physical realities.
You have a housing history which includes the values, wants and
needs associated with every place you've ever called "home." It
is possible that you are unwittingly clinging to psychological
needs and wants from your childhood, perhaps related to early
housing dreams unfulfilled.
Your housing decisions are about everything in your life,
present and past. The more you can learn about your personal
housing psychology - that place where human interaction, the
role of "place" in our lives and finance all come together - the
more likely you are to make the right decision about remaining
in your home through your final years.