You’ve begun to ask yourself if it’s time to downsize. But moving into a retirement community is out of the question because you can still take care of yourself. You start looking at condos and townhomes.

Before you make any final decisions, here are some important things to consider.

 
LeadingAge.com published an article touching on some of these same points. They said, “A (Senior) Housing Options Service Comparison Overview chart provided by Legg Mason really drives home an important point: The only senior housing that provides all levels of senior living is a continuing care retirement community.” 

As much as we don’t want to admit it, there are some physical limitations that come with growing older. Planning ahead to accommodate for those limitations can help bring to light the benefits of community living.

Retirement community living offers many benefits:

• It embraces its resident’s independence. Just because you are moving into community living, does not mean you have to become part of a community.
• You can keep all of your stuff. Often times community living is mistakenly seen as giving up everything to move into a small space. It’s important to look for a retirement community that offers a variety of lifestyle options and floor plans.
• If you move into community living now, you are opening yourself up to all the services that you may need down the road and you won’t have to move again!
• It offers many socialization opportunities, where you can choose how involved you’d like to be.

“They’re not really giving up their independence or their things when they move to a retirement community,” Meth-Wick president Robin Mixdorf noted. “They’ve just looked down the path and have seen that there might be other needs that they’ll have in the future. All of those things can be taken care of in one spot when you come to a retirement community.”

Planning for your future is a daunting task. It’s important to look at all of your options before you make the decision that’s right for you.