Reply to If you are in your 60s or 70s, and you are living in a regular house...

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it depends on size of your house. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of tear downs. The older people in my neighborhood tend to live in the smaller (often one level or one level + basement) homes that will likely be torn down someday. I get why they stay b/c it’s a manageable house size even into your 80s. I also get why people with young adult children stay in SFHs because they have extra rooms for kids + young grandkids to visit.

But I think you have to keep in mind, it can be very unfair to your children if you don’t downsize/purge while you still can. My MIL is a widower who has been in a giant 5 bedroom house alone for over 10 years. We live local to her so we do not do overnight visits and her out of state grandchildren are all grown. There is no need for her to have a house that big and she’s already fallen on the bottom stairs resulting in an ER visit.

The house is PACKED to the gills with 40 years or accumulated stuff. I’m talking print outs of tax returns from the 90s, yellowed linens piled in closets that never see the light of day, and so on. Not hoarder level, but at the cusp. We have asked her so many times to downsize, have offered to help (DH has gone over and cleared out his childhood bedroom and a few random storage areas), even hired a company to help get it started and she just … won’t get rid of anything. And now her health is failing. My DH is the only child who lives nearby, so this will likely fall on us entirely to manage, which is hard because we have young children and full time careers of our own. His siblings already don’t help with anything and can barely manage their own lives, so it just sucks. It would have been such a gift to us had she at least purged some items even 5 years ago when she was healthy enough to do so.

So if you do decide to age in place, please do not leave your entire life’s belongings to your children to deal with. My parents downsize to a condo and got rid of 75% of their belongings, and I am so grateful to them for that. This is probably why most people assume you’ll move at some point, to not leave your kids to deal with the fallout while someday grieving. And your health goes quicker than you think — that decade between 70 and 80 can be rapidly game changing. [/quote]
These are two different issues. One is moving which I asked about.  The other is stuff. 
My house isn't filled with stuff. I purge all the time. Upon our demise, or move,  there will be furniture, clothes,  and kitchen items, art work and probably the same stuff people 30 years younger would  have. [/quote]

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