The Downsizers:Terry Kuhlmann, 74, and husband Doug, 78.
Could they find what they were looking for in California?
Terry tells the story.
First decision: where to live
Our daughter asked, Do you want to age in place?
Do you want to move to a continuing care community in Massachusetts?
Or do you want to come out here?
I thought, Where do I want to be at the end of my life?
I wanted to be with my daughter.
She is our only child, and she has three children who are 4, 6 and 8.
We want to get there before grandparents become irrelevant to them.
Second decision: housing punch in
We wanted this to be the final move of our lifetime.
We looked at continuing care communities.
Once youre in the community, if you need more care as you age, youve got it.
I researched places within about 30 minutes of Georgiana because Californias cost of living is so expensive.
They live in Palo Alto, which wasnt affordable to us.
Some of the entrance fees to those communities were more than a million dollars!
Third decision: community
Choice 1:A community closer to Palo Alto.
Beautiful you could walk out your door and hike.
But it was up in the hills and a bit isolated.
My husband liked the idea of being up in the mountains, but I wanted to be in town.
We could walk to a coffee shop and grocery store.
Our pick:The more isolated place made the decision for us.
We wanted a two-bedroom apartment.
We both do a lot of things on Zoom.
Doug tutors online, and I take Italian classes, so we wanted a second bedroom for an office.
But they only approved us for one bedroom.
So, Los Gatos it was.
[They ended up with a two-bedroom, 1,070-square foot apartment on the third floor.]
We hired senior move managers, relocation experts.
They did the packing and helped usget rid of thingsby delivering them to charities.
Its nice to say, Heres a special thing.
Now you have a piece of us.
Those were special memories that we wanted to keep.
Letters:I had lots of letters from college and from former students and their parents.
I spent days reading through all of them.
I had to keep one or two just to remember thats what I did.
People appreciated my work, and its nice to know.
Mothers silver:I had a lot of stuff from after my mother passed away.
Her silver had been in my basement for 12 years.
Dog couch:Definitely.
