> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.markmyview.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Downsizing After 60 - URL: https://www.markmyview.com/downsizing-after-60/ - Published: 2026-09-05T22:22:27.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-05T22:22:27.000Z - Description: I started planning to downsize in my 30s. The original plan involved retiring at 53 and living on a big boat. Life had other ideas. Thirty years later, the boat has wheels, we’re raising a grandson, and we’re finally going. - Author: Mark Earl - Tags: Daily **Downsizing After 60** I actually started thinking about downsizing sometime in my 30s, which seems a little ridiculous now because when you’re in your 30s you’re usually doing the exact opposite. You’re buying houses, filling garages and collecting enough stuff to ensure that someday, when you finally decide to simplify your life, it will take several months and possibly a dumpster to accomplish it. But I had a plan. I always said I was going to retire when I was 53\. I have absolutely no idea where I came up with 53\. It wasn’t based on a financial plan. There wasn’t a spreadsheet involved. I don’t remember consulting an accountant. Apparently I just picked an age and announced it like I had some authority over the matter. The rest of the plan was considerably more specific. I was going to buy a big boat and live on it. In the winter I’d head south toward the Gulf, and when things started getting hot I’d point it north again. I liked the idea of taking my home with me and following decent weather around the country. Then I turned 53. I did not buy a boat. Funny how life works that way. By the time I got into my 50s, life had developed plans of its own. Family needed us, responsibilities changed, and the Boss and I ended up helping raise a couple of what I call our grandtreasures. Today we’re raising one young grandson full time, and somewhere along the way that old dream of taking our home with us got pushed into the same corner where most perfectly good plans end up. “Someday.” Then another property-tax bill showed up. I looked at it and started thinking about the fact that I was getting within a few months of being able to draw Social Security. We owned the house, yet every year somebody sent me a bill for the privilege of continuing to own it. Apparently paying the mortgage off just means you graduate to a different landlord. I was getting tired of paying rent on a house we already owned. I was also getting tired of Illinois winters. I have seen enough snow. I have shoveled enough snow. I have driven through enough snow. And if I live the rest of my life without seeing another icicle hanging from anything, I believe I can somehow find the strength to carry on. So I started working on the Boss. I told her I didn’t want to spend our later years sitting in the same house talking about all the places we ought to go someday. More importantly, if we were going to raise our grandson, I wanted him to see some of this country instead of just looking at pictures of it in a book. If we’re learning about Yellowstone, why not go see Old Faithful? If we’re learning about the Civil War, there are battlefields. If we’re learning about American history, there’s an entire country sitting outside the window. We can teach reading and math at the kitchen table. The rest of the classroom has 50 states. Somewhere during all of those conversations, my old dream from my 30s came wandering back into the room. It had changed a little over the years. The big boat was gone, but the idea really hadn’t changed at all. Take our home with us. Go south when it’s cold. Go north when it’s hot. See things. Meet people. Live while we’re still healthy enough to enjoy living. So we did it. We sold the house. We got rid of an unbelievable amount of stuff. We bought a motorhome and a SylvanSport GO trailer, which is going to be responsible for enough stories of its own that I probably shouldn’t get started on that here. We kept what we actually needed and started trying to figure out just how little we could comfortably live with. I say “minimalist,” although I should probably explain our particular definition of minimalism. We have a microwave. And hot showers. And satellite TV. And internet. There are limits, people. We’re simplifying our lives. We aren’t animals. The funny part is that somewhere around 30 years after I first imagined it, I ended up surprisingly close to that original dream. I didn’t retire at 53\. Life didn’t follow the schedule I made when I was young enough to believe life cared about my schedule. The big boat became a motorhome, and instead of cruising up and down the waterways, we’re rolling up and down the highways with a little boy along for the ride. And I think I like this version better. There will be campgrounds, Florida winters, trips north, places we’ve never seen, things that will break at the worst possible moment, and adventures involving that little GO trailer that I’m reasonably certain haven’t even occurred to us yet. There will probably also be moments when the Boss looks at me and reminds me that this whole thing was my idea. Those should make particularly good stories. So that’s where we are. A couple of people over 60, a grandson, a motorhome, a tiny trailer and considerably less stuff than we used to have, heading out to see what happens next. And that’s really what Mark My View is going to be about. I’ll tell you about our travels and the ridiculous things that happen along the way. I’ll share my take on current events, tell some Bible stories the way I see them, and occasionally wander into whatever else happens to be rattling around in my head that morning. I don’t know exactly where we’re going. For the first time in a long time, that’s kind of the point.