Seriously, the down sizing idea is a good one. My wife and I did that last year. We moved from a 3000 square foot home with 3 acres of mowing to a 2500 sq. home on .2 of an acre. That alone practically saved my life. We purchased a brand new home with high energy efficiency and our electric bills for heat, hot water, cooking, and A/C are less than $150 per month and in Texas that is very good. All of our expenses are lower. And, everything is under warranty bumper to bumper for the next 3 years. It takes me 30 minutes to mow the yard and that is because I am limping around following the self propelled mower. What made this even sweeter is that we after we sold the old home and purchased this new one, we put $100,000.00 in the bank.
Just another thought, living within proximity of children is fine. Living next to children is not such a good idea. We are 12 to 15 miles from our kids which is a safe distance in the same town. We are close enough to enjoy them.
By the way, my wife and I have been married for 30 years. She was 24 and I was 40 when we got married. I was a widower raising 3 kids and she became their Mom and raised them. There is something to be positively said for being a horny old man of 70 with extraordinary high levels of testosterone and having a smoking hot wife. Gives me something to live for.
Just saying,
Ed
