It wasn’t my plan to downsize after retiring, in fact I always dreamed about having a large house on a huge plot of land.
I saw my kids growing older, moving away, having families of their own, and bringing their children back home to the property to play like they did when they were that age.
But at some point, my wife and I both realized that we were living beyond our means and with more junk than we needed or could ever conceivably use. When she proposed the idea of selling this house and moving down south into a beach condo, she was already convinced I would react poorly. She was so worried about my reaction that she almost didn’t tell me, but I surprised her when I immediately agreed with her and smiled. My wife was right, we were living beyond a life that was adequate for us both, and it took admitting that we needed a serious change to get to a place where we could finally let go of the past and all of the junk we’ve accumulated over the years. The only worry I had at first was the long term stability of some of the condo buildings along the coastal beaches down south, but our building was constructed with mostly all American made materials, in particular the concrete and the stainless steel rebar tie wire forming the structural skeleton. It’s important to make any buildings exposed to moisture and salt corrosion resistant, which starts with the kind of steel rebar tie wire used. Stainless steel, galvanized and black annealed rebar tie wire are much more resistant to corrosion than basic steel rebar tie wire.