Reasons For Choosing A New Location (relatives, twin, housing, husband)
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That was a really good post, Robyn. Reading about your mother brought tears to my eyes.
Mine too. Thanks.
One thing I find odd in reading this thread is trying to make life choices based on a spreadsheet. Now I use spreadsheets for different things - but I think there are many factors that come into play when deciding where to live that can't be quantified and put into a spreadsheet. If I had Excel when I met my husband - I probably wouldn't have married him . Robyn
One thing I find odd in reading this thread is trying to make life choices based on a spreadsheet. Now I use spreadsheets for different things - but I think there are many factors that come into play when deciding where to live that can't be quantified and put into a spreadsheet. If I had Excel when I met my husband - I probably wouldn't have married him . Robyn
The factors listed on the spreadsheet are quite humanistic and take into account emotional factors such as family & friends as well as intensely practical factors such as getting around in old age. What's not workable with that approach? It's one highly valid approach to decision making.
When I was younger I was a "teacher" in a "decisional program" for prison inmates on work release. Many had no idea how to approach life when they got out. That training and involvement over several years taught me valuable skills in life--how to balance heart and head decisions. You can hardly go wrong if you think about what you're doing...usually, unless the universe throws you a real curve ball, which in any event you could not have anticipated.
One thing I find odd in reading this thread is trying to make life choices based on a spreadsheet. Now I use spreadsheets for different things - but I think there are many factors that come into play when deciding where to live that can't be quantified and put into a spreadsheet. If I had Excel when I met my husband - I probably wouldn't have married him . Robyn
I think this is just a modern way of doing the "Pros and Cons" list when trying to make a decision. Whatever helps put the decision making into perspective.
Just an aside, I was watching TV this morning and I saw a commercial that was very appropriate for this subject. A young woman in a chef's apron approaches a man at work (an accountant?) with the suggestion that she make more cookie-cream cupcakes.
The man tells her he will consult his spread sheet for the stats on cookie cream cupcakes. So you see a flash of a graph the man pulls up on his computer and then he is shown looking around him where he sees people around him eating and enjoying cookie cream cupcakes. He turns back to the young woman and tells her that would be a good idea.
I think this is just a modern way of doing the "Pros and Cons" list when trying to make a decision. Whatever helps put the decision making into perspective.
Just an aside, I was watching TV this morning and I saw a commercial that was very appropriate for this subject. A young woman in a chef's apron approaches a man at work (an accountant?) with the suggestion that she make more cookie-cream cupcakes.
The man tells her he will consult his spread sheet for the stats on cookie cream cupcakes. So you see a flash of a graph the man pulls up on his computer and then he is shown looking around him where he sees people around him eating and enjoying cookie cream cupcakes. He turns back to the young woman and tells her that would be a good idea.
Nothing like pure observation!
i agree, minervah - it's just the modern mode. I have always been one to use different color notebooks, pens, etc to make the decision process or whatever more fun....now we have excel, different fonts, cut and paste & instant ordering by just changing a single column. if i had been better in my research classes, i would remember how to even get more out of the method. (although excel isn't the preferred statistical model)
the spreadsheets create a good way to revisit data, add/change/etc - i cut and pasted both your list of criteria as well as the notes by NEG/then i put them on a word doc and used them as an idea starter. Funny how it made me really think, reflect, reconsider. And the excellent part was knowing that any plan i make will change because change is constant. I love to go back and look at sheets i've created on any number of issues/i see changes in my thinking, my attitude, find things that make me laugh, an occasional one that makes me cry (i.e. my best mortgage rate comparison for my height-of-the-housing-bubble dream house in florida).
observation and real life experience plays in nicely but sometimes putting things on paper makes us really think about what we feel and what we think we are supposed to feel. The older i get the more i challenge what i'm supposed to feel, accept, desire. what is true today will likely be different down the road/i believe that climate/beauty of local will be major issues for me - i've made decisions based on such different criteria so many times and now i feel like maybe i'll take a year or more of something that i believe is important. if it doesn't rate the score i presently give it, then i can always rearrange the ratings. - sometimes we do complicate things or try to quantify things that are hard to quantify. and yet, i felt like the comments by so many do reflect that knowledge that some things are applicable only to us. i found it amusing that when i put the family/friend value in my matrix, i had to consider if i wanted to put family and friends in the same column because there were seriouis pros and cons of living near family . LOL. these are the spreadsheets that perhaps i should order sealed upon my death................
this has been an excellent thread - a sub-topic it would seem of the women relocating to a different city for retirement by wisteria. i love getting inside all of your heads.
Last edited by mzfroggez; 12-12-2010 at 02:39 PM..
Reason: sent before i was finished writing
OK, Minervah, I hadn't seen this thread before, so now I'm caught up on your decision-making process. I think once someone has made their decision, especially with such obvious care, research and data, there's nothing we can do but support the decision and cheer them on!
I'm an Excel person too. When my Mom (88) was in the hospital, I had access to her online bank account info and did a quick spreadsheet showing income v. expenses, which unfortunately were just about equal. I sent her a copy, and she was less than thrilled. She said that I am more of a "bottom-line" person, while she would just prefer to call her bank's automated system every day and keep a running tally in her checkbook. I thought that was kinda funny. Guess she doesn't want to see her sorry financial state in black-and-white.
OK, Minervah, I hadn't seen this thread before, so now I'm caught up on your decision-making process. I think once someone has made their decision, especially with such obvious care, research and data, there's nothing we can do but support the decision and cheer them on!
I'm an Excel person too. When my Mom (88) was in the hospital, I had access to her online bank account info and did a quick spreadsheet showing income v. expenses, which unfortunately were just about equal. I sent her a copy, and she was less than thrilled. She said that I am more of a "bottom-line" person, while she would just prefer to call her bank's automated system every day and keep a running tally in her checkbook. I thought that was kinda funny. Guess she doesn't want to see her sorry financial state in black-and-white.
At eighty-eight years of age, does it really matter?
At eighty-eight years of age, does it really matter?
LOL...well, I should've said, the reason I did it was that I had just paid off her mortgage with her IRA and mutual funds, in anticipation that she may need to apply for Medicaid for nursing home care. She owed more on her mortgage than she had in those funds, plus her mortgage rate was 6.5%....way more than the interest she was getting from those investments. That's what I'm saying, she never looked at things that way....like, "I'm losing money every month". Anyway, she hated my getting rid of her "nest egg" (small as it was) and I was trying to show her that she was saving money by not having a mortgage anymore that never had the principal reduced. At age 88.
OK, I did my own "Top 10 List" as Minervah did. I was surprised at how I ranked some of them. For example, "weather" was not as high a priority as I had thought, and "family" was WAY down the list. Here it is (I tried to post it from the Excel spreadsheet but it didn't translate well, so I'll retype it real quick):
1 - Housing prices
2 - Social activities I enjoy
3 - Quick access to a major large city
4 - Quality medical care
5 - Political and religious climate in the area
6 - Weather
7 - Friends
8 - Family
9 - Topography / scenery / beauty of area
10 - Proximity to an ocean
OK, I did my own "Top 10 List" as Minervah did. I was surprised at how I ranked some of them. For example, "weather" was not as high a priority as I had thought, and "family" was WAY down the list. Here it is (I tried to post it from the Excel spreadsheet but it didn't translate well, so I'll retype it real quick):
1 - Housing prices
2 - Social activities I enjoy
3 - Quick access to a major large city
4 - Quality medical care
5 - Political and religious climate in the area
6 - Weather
7 - Friends
8 - Family
9 - Topography / scenery / beauty of area
10 - Proximity to an ocean
I bet it wouldn't have been the same order of priority 20 years ago! Exactly my purpose in doing my spreadsheet of factors--I still think like I do 20 yrs ago and am often in denial about my situation today. Actually, I found it kind of fun to do this exercise. And as someone else here pointed out, doing this kind of analysis doesn't have to be static. The ratings can change over time (but not too much time, as we have to make a decision sooner or later!)
I think there's a big difference between using a spreadsheet to do money stuff - and emotional stuff. I can put our investments on a spreadsheet - not my husband.
And you have to be real about stuff. Like a spreadsheet with cheap housing as #1 - but it's in a major metro area with great medical care where you like the politics and the religion and the weather is ok? It would make more sense to take the top 100 metro areas in the US and exclude most of them because you can't afford them - don't like the weather or the religious atmosphere or the politics - etc. - etc - and see what's left. Robyn
P.S. What about physical activities? You're all going to be couch potatoes when you're over 60?
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. Robyn
