Overdoing Downsizing ?

Now that we are somewhat voluntarily semi-retired, we occasionally consider whether we should downsize.

Recently, while driving through a nearby Mayberry-style town, we went a block off the main drag to see what it looked like. There was a smallish house, a cape cod, on a nice lot, with a “For Sale By Owner” sign and a box with information in it.

Aha! A downsizing possibility.

Reading the information sheet, we saw that the house had one bedroom less than ours, a half-bathroom less than ours, and was cheap enough that we would have some money to sock-away after selling our current home. It was within walking distance of Main Street and had two of its bedrooms on the first floor.

The taxes weren’t that much less, but it had to be cheaper to heat and easier to clean than our current home, so after we got home we examined the details on the sheet.

The garage was only one-car, but we figured as we moved further into retirement and cut down on our driving we would only need one car. The two storage sheds seemed like overkill until we realized there was no basement. The HVAC system – using the word "system" loosely - was an amalgamation of oil, central air, and window air conditioners.

Two of the "bedrooms" were smaller than our master-bedroom closet. The kitchen was 90-square-feet and as we studied the stove in the little picture we realized that it was tinier than the one we had in our vacation trailer.

Sometimes the devil is in the details. We decided we weren’t quite ready to downsize that much and lucky enough not to have to. Yet.