My 94 year old mother lives alone in the house I grew up in, 400 miles away from where I live. She has help one day a week. Her only sister is 86 and lives in her condo, with paid assistants, 500 miles from my mom. My mother's 94 year old cousin, with whom she was raised, lives in her own home with a paid live in caregiver, 800 miles away. None of them have been willing to move into any sort of retirement community/assisted living, or to another city to be near family. But all of them lived well within their means and have enough assets for the assistance they need. Having known these women, I would have expected each of them to move into retirement communities once widowed. I think they planned to. But my aunt and mother were in their 80s when they lost their husbands and they were totally resistant to change then. My takeaway from all of this is to plan to have substantial assets to use in my later years, but also to move in my 70s to where I can age in place with support as needed (though I, like them, may change my mind). I know I am fortunate that none of them need my financial support. None of them needed any assistance at all until the last four years. I attribute that to the fact that they all did exercise, eat sensibly, engage in their communities, maintain long friendships, have colonoscopies, etc....all the things research says we should do. And of course I realize some of it is genetics and some of it is luck. My sister and I would be much less stressed if they were in assisted living communities, and I really wish my mother had agreed to relocate near me, but they are all still mentally competent to make their own choices. "Growing old" really can mean many, many different experiences.