Senior Living Options in Florida | Living in a Retirement Community vs Staying at Home

Whether you’re moving towards retirement or have already begun enjoying the perks, determining where you’ll live is one of the biggest decisions you’ll face as you embrace this new chapter of your life. Though the task can feel daunting, simplifying your choices can help minimize feelings of being overwhelmed. For most older adults retiring in Florida, there are two main options for retirement: staying in your current home or moving to a retirement community. Let’s explore these two choices to help you determine which best suits your retirement vision.

Choosing Between Senior Living Options and Staying At Home

Retirement is a reward. After spending so many years doing the things you had to do to make retirement a reality, now is your chance to do the things you want to do. There’s only one question you have to ask yourself: How do you want to spend your golden years? How to spend your retirement is a question easier asked than answered, but straightforward comparisons of key wellness factors can help.

Social Interaction

Socialization and emotional wellness go hand-in-hand, so one of the first steps you can take in assessing your ideal retirement lifestyle is to explore what you’d like your social life to be in retirement.

Social Interaction for Seniors at Home

Take stock of where your social interactions mainly occur now. Do you have weekly get-togethers with friends? Is your family near your current home? Are there locales that you would rather not lose proximity to? For some older adults, social interaction is just a few steps or a quick drive away. For others, finding a social community and spending quality time with friends and family requires much more effort. Consider how much social interaction you want to have and how easy meeting your social needs is in your current living situation.

Social Interaction for Seniors in a Retirement Community

When you live right next door to your peers, finding people you connect with is easy.  At Florida senior living communities like Abbey Delray, your fellow residents are more likely to align with where you are in life and how you’re used to living. This lowers the barrier to socialization and helps establish a rich senior living community life. Often, retirement communities offer a calendar of events as well, providing ample opportunities to socialize and connect with your fellow residents while participating in activities you enjoy.

Mobility and Maintenance

Both the level of maintenance your space requires in day-to-day life and your level of mobility are critical factors in determining which style of living is best for you. Are you someone who takes pride and satisfaction in caring for their home? Would you prefer to let someone else carry the burden of upkeep? These questions are at the core of understanding how the demands of daily living can influence your preferred senior living choice.

Mobility and Maintenance for Seniors at Home

For some, the idea of living in a two-floor home as they get older is a mobility nightmare. For others, the care and effort it takes to maintain a home’s yard, landscaping, or other home maintenance projects is too much. Whether these apply to you or not, considering your current mobility levels and the work required to keep your home looking the way you like is an important part of deciding whether living in a community or staying at home is the right fit for your future. Tasks you may want to consider in this evaluation of your home maintenance and mobility include but aren’t limited to:

• Stairs or other hindrances to mobility
• Outdoor maintenance
• Regular cleaning
• Deep cleaning
• Handling unexpected home maintenance surprises (e.g. a broken fridge or washer, a sudden leaky pipe, etc.)
• Typical daily chores

Mobility and Maintenance for Seniors in a Retirement Community

Choosing a Florida retirement community like Abbey Delray can mean gaining the benefit of services that take home maintenance off of your plate. Though any retirement community worth its salt will provide a certain level of maintenance and care services, things like lawn care, laundry services, and house cleaning are all excellent perks to ask about at prospective communities. Other maintenance and repair costs are covered by your monthly costs, taking the burden of home maintenance entirely off your shoulders.

If your main priority is to embrace low-maintenance retirement living while remaining independent in retirement, opting for a senior living community with services and amenities can be a perfect fit.

Are Retirement Communities Worth It? Added Benefits of Choosing a Luxury Senior Living Community

Among the more nuanced things to consider for retirement, determining the level of luxury and convenience you desire in your lifestyle is a key component to not only choosing between staying at home or moving to a retirement community, but also differentiating which retirement community will be the right fit for your goals.

It’s hard to look at a big decision like where to live in your retirement years objectively without truly knowing what each option offers. While you’re likely to be familiar with the pros and cons of staying in your current home or living situation, you may be less familiar with what moving to a retirement community offers.  To give you a better sense of what amenities you may want to look for when selecting a community, here are a few examples of the major perks available at Abbey Delray:

• Lifelong learning opportunities in our Performing Arts Center for lectures, banquets, performances, and more.
• A renovated state-of-the-art fitness center featuring Helsinki University Research (HUR) equipment specifically designed to provide safe and effective full-body workouts for older adults.
• More time to enjoy the fresh air and aquatic exercise with our new, resort-style heated outdoor pool.
• Lavish pampering that you deserve with new spa and salon services.
• Enhanced restaurant-style dining featuring an open-kitchen concept and outdoor Terrace table service.
• A serene new outdoor garden that adds more beauty to our already gorgeous grounds.
• Fully updated independent living apartments and villa homes with stainless appliances, crown molding, space for an in-home office, and most include a washer and dryer.
• New private and semi-private apartments and suites for assisted living and memory care, designed to enhance your independence and quality of life.

The amenities that mean most to you will impact the choice of community you might make.

Florida Senior Living | Choosing Abbey Delray for Retirement

At the end of the day, independent senior living communities offer one thing that you worked hard to afford: convenience. Abbey Delray’s focus is on providing a wide array of amenities to make living your best life as easy as stepping out your front door.

When you visit Abbey Delray, you’ll notice a difference right away. Inspiration comes unexpectedly easy at Abbey Delray. Our community is filled with distinctive, interesting people. We encourage every resident to pursue their passions, ambitions, and aspirations. We foster a community that embraces possibility, where residents can enjoy the abundance of resort-style lifestyle options that make life at Abbey Delray unique.

Delray Beach Senior Living | Get in Touch with Abbey Delray

Whether you’re just starting your journey toward making this decision or you’re working on narrowing down your senior living community options, we’re here to help you find the right fit. Step into the future with complete confidence that you can live them precisely how you had always hoped. After all, that’s exactly what you deserve!

To learn more, tell us a little about yourself in the form below, or contact us today.