{"id":289022,"date":"2025-11-13T11:33:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T11:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/289022\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T11:33:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T11:33:20","slug":"my-biggest-retirement-mistake-independent-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/289022\/","title":{"rendered":"My Biggest Retirement Mistake: Independent Living"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caryl Ernest\u2019s life was about taking care of her daughter. Having severe disabilities since childhood, Jessica was nonverbal and couldn\u2019t walk. Ernest would routinely carry her daughter around the house. One of the happiest days of her life was when she realized Jessica could communicate with her by blinking and moving her eyeballs.<\/p>\n

Jessica passed away in 2022, at the age of 32. That same year, Ernest lost her husband, John, who had spent the previous six years in nursing homes following a hemorrhagic stroke.<\/p>\n

Ernest, now 69, felt alone. She wanted people around her\ufeff, to help her feel safe and secure. She moved from her family home in the St. Louis area to a nearby apartment complex, but it didn\u2019t help. She had plenty of neighbors but didn\u2019t make many friends, and her unit was broken into multiple times. \ufeff<\/p>\n

Her attorney suggested she check out Avalon Park, an age 62-plus independent living community west of St. Louis that provides transportation and meal services for its residents. Ernest liked what she saw. \u201cThe people that run the place are so good, so nice and so caring of everybody,\u201d \ufeffshe says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t pass it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Your Biggest Retirement Mistake?<\/p>\n

Retirement isn\u2019t just about leaving a job. It’s about changing your life \u2014 your routine, your budget, your priorities, where you live. It’s decision after decision, and you don’t always make the right one. Is there something you wish you\u2019d done differently?<\/p>\n

AARP Members Edition wants to hear about your retirement regrets. A mistimed exit from the office? A move to the wrong place? A relationship you gave up? Spending too much, or too little?\u00a0Share your story at\u00a0retirement@aarp.org<\/a>\u00a0and we might feature it in this series.<\/p>\n

She settled in and made friends, but she also came to feel like a bit of an outlier. Most of the residents were older and had health conditions that required greater care and attention.<\/p>\n

Staff members took notice, too. One day, while Ernest was having coffee at a social event in Avalon Park\u2019s community room, an employee teasingly told her about a new arrival who was in his mid-60s: \u201cOh, there\u2019s somebody younger than you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She turned around to see Scott Knickman, \u201csitting in the back, way in the back, not talking to anybody and on the phone constantly.\u201d Over the coming weeks, Ernest continued to see him talking on the phone in the back of the community room, arranging the sale of his former home.<\/p>\n

Bonding over loss<\/p>\n

Eventually they got a chance to talk. Knickman, now 67, had come to the community under similar circumstances.<\/p>\n

His wife, Michele, had died three years earlier after having surgery on her leg. The surgery was successful, but Michele had complications due to clogged arteries throughout her body and never left the hospital. \u201cWith the help of my kids, we decided it was God calling her, and it was time for her to go,\u201d Knickman says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caryl Ernest\u2019s life was about taking care of her daughter. Having severe disabilities since childhood, Jessica was nonverbal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[151926,151927,28,151922,151921,151928,147,530,151925,151920,151923,151924],"class_list":["post-289022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-55-community","tag-active-living-community","tag-business","tag-independent-senior-living","tag-my-biggest-retirement-mistake","tag-older-adult-community","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-retirement-housing","tag-retirement-mistakes","tag-senior-independent-living","tag-when-to-move-to-independent-living"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}