Thinking of downsizing.......

trailingspouse

I appreciate that you're concerned about noise from potential neighbours, but the answer to that is simple - maybe it'll be a problem, maybe it won't, there's no way of knowing.

BUT - moving house with the potential for being in a worse situation than you are at the moment (to say nothing of the cost of moving over and above the cost of the house), because you don't want to drive just seems short sighted to me. You've already realised what a pain it is when your OH was ill. And as far as not having a car available to you while your OH is at work - I thought you said he was going part-time?

gilly41

Well he wouldn't be working part time if we still lived here!
You seem very rude .....not everyone wants to drive you know! Luckily I am 49 and used to ppl like yourself in my daily life...but maybe other posters would feel they didn't want to post again after you had given them one of your answers......
Thanks everyone else for the comments....much appreciated x

Mattygroves2

We moved from a detached to a semi and due to the layout of the property have had no problems with noise. However, ours is a long thin house and our bedroom is about 100m from next doors bedroom and the main lounge a similar distance so we rarely hear them unless we are both BBQing in the garden. We're fairly rural so it is nice having someone close to keep an eye on the property and feed the cats when we are away. When we started looking we definitely weren't looking for a semi though and it was only this particular property that made us go for it. Keep an open mind as not all semis are the same.

Having said that I can't imagine not driving and having the independence that gives and am not sure how a previous poster got to the £500 a month figure unless you are costing in the depreciation on a brand new car - a decent second hand car would cost nowhere near that. I've also recently completed a historic road rally which involved driving 300+ miles a day for three days with a 70 year old driver (and a 40 year old car) and can assure you that it is perfectly safe to drive as a pensioner ! Next year my husband (who will be 62) and I will do a trip crossing from the east to west coast of America doing 5,500 miles in a month (and in a 50 year old car) and I have no worries about his ability to drive and intend us to do several long distance trips after he retires. I do agree that my grandfather was right to stop driving when he got to 85 though.

When you are retired you will find your lives change and if moving closer to family and friends makes that transition easier then I would say do it particularly if that makes things better financially.

ViolaLass

OH and I save £250 a month, which runs the car, covers yearly bills and is saving enough for us to buy another car after three years. To get through £500 a month would require us to drive a LOT more than we do (I use the car to commute to work plus OH uses it for intermittent work, shopping, holidays etc)

moneyistooshorttomention

As I recall (it was some years ago) the AA took every single cost into account of a car and that included parking fees. As a non car-owner I don't know how much these are, but would have taken them into account myself. These will vary from area to area but, even in the much cheaper and more rural area I have moved to, a friend and I were having to find £2.50 to park in a local carpark recently (even if we only wanted a very short time there) for instance. £2.50 a time several times a week would soon mount up.

In my last location, I can recall all the palaver amongst work colleagues re car parking costs and they would have come to tens of £s per week, if they hadn't been busily fighting for allocated spaces/working out various "fiddles"/etc to try and keep them lower than they were really due to be.

jmt

We are doing what you are thinking about and I am slightly younger than you at 47 although my DH is also 55.

We currently live in a 3 bed and are moving to a 2 bed semi closer to a town. We have lived in our current home for nearly 25 years and since being made redundant I now realise how remote I feel (and I drive!). We have one bus every two hours and our nearest shop for a pint of milk is about 5 miles away, the large supermarket 9 miles with no direct bus.

Although we are downsizing slightly we are down valuing by £100K and this along with a nice payout from a share scheme in the next few months we think we will be OK till retirement. My DH hates his job and although he won't resign yet, he will when he has had enough.

Many people of my age would be looking to upsize and drive nice cars (most around us drive nice cars, BMW's, Jaguars, Lexus and even an Aston Martin!) but they have to put in the hours that we no longer want to do. I don't want to be paying large bills for rooms we don't need and my council tax will be half that of my sister who has a 4 bed detached.

Am I retiring too early? many on here would think so, but I am happy with a simpler life, less stress and paying less tax will make me very happy as I hate to see the wasteful ways in which the tax I have paid over the years is spent.

moneyistooshorttomention

Been googling re car running costs and the AA certainly still work out how much cars cost to run for people still and its possible to put in specific personal details to work out.

A general article of interest:

www.everymanracing.co.uk/blog/?p=534

and that article doesn't seem to take any account of parking costs, depreciation.

arthurdick

good luck jmt.. hope all goes well..i can totally understand where you are coming from, i have been having the same thoughts over the last 2 yrs.
we have a small mortgage and a 3 bed house, kids left home a few years ago, we do not need the space or the larger bills...15 months until i am 55, then maybe i will do it..i just need the bottle. have hated my job since they altered our shift hours around almost 3 yrs ago, but need to keep it because of the mortgage, would be nice to have a not needing to work feeling but a work in a little part time job somewhere feeling that i would enjoy..anyway, i have started rambling on here, my main point was to wish you luck.

trailingspouse

Sorry Gilly - not rude. But you'll be old for a long time if you think 55 is old. It's barely middle-aged!!

And 10 years isn't a long time, I agree. All the more reason for making the most of it and not wishing it away.

I agree, not everyone wants to drive. But why wouldn't you want to have the freedom and flexibility that it brings? Does your husband always want to do all the driving? As you've already found, a couple of weeks when he couldn't drive had a major impact, and made what would always be a stressful situation even more stressful. My mother never wanted to drive, but now that my father is having a few health problems and for the first time is temporarily unable to drive, she's is regretting it big time.

I hope you find somewhere suitable if you decide to go ahead with down-sizing.

irishjohn

Being "OLD" can be great - I took the decision to downsize both job and home at 54 and then fully retire at 58. Living a nice simple life, placing myself in a convenient area for services, giving myself the time to do what I want - not try and fit everything into evenings and weekends because of the pressures of the job.

Weigh up the pros and cons of moving from detached to attached, along with locality, convenience, and all the other aspects of your life which will be impacted by moving.

I genuinely believe many more people would benefit from taking a hard look at how they currently live, including everything which is a cost, and ask themselves could they perhaps do without some of their "wants and needs" they could live a much more satisfying life.