Why We Built SetToRetire
This wasn’t a business idea. It was a problem we couldn’t find a solution to anywhere online. So we built it.
Where This Started
I grew up very close to my maternal grandparents. From the time I was a young teenager, I tried to help however I could. Stacking wood, mowing the lawn, clearing brush, helping my grandfather with whatever he was building. Picking strawberries and apples with my grandmother, by the quart and by the bushel.
As I got older, I wanted to do more. But I kept running into the same two walls: I didn’t have the money, and I didn’t have the knowledge. Both of my grandparents passed away before I had either. I felt like I’d learned and received so much from them, and never found a way to give any of it back.
That kind of regret doesn’t leave you. It just quietly changes what you pay attention to.
It wasn’t one hard question. It was dozens of questions, none of them clearly connected to each other. Medicare or Medicare Advantage? When should she think about downsizing? Does she need an estate planning attorney, or is a will enough? What does “reverse mortgage” actually mean? Should she stay in her home, or is moving to something smaller the better call?
I started searching. And then I kept searching. And then I started a list of how many searches it actually took just to understand the landscape. Not to make decisions. Just to understand who the right people to talk to even were.
The results were a mess. Ads. Lead-generation farms. Vague listicles. The same recycled content dressed up in a hundred different ways. No single place that laid out the whole picture: here are all the professionals involved in this transition, here’s how they connect to each other, here’s when you talk to each one.
The Map That Didn’t Exist
What I needed wasn’t more articles. What I needed was a map. Something that showed the full journey a family goes through when someone they love is approaching this stage of life, with all the professionals and decisions laid out in a way that actually made sense.
It didn’t exist. Not in one place. Not in a format that felt designed for a person who was just trying to figure out where to start.
So we built it.
SetToRetire.com is the educational half of that map. Plain-language guides on every major topic families navigate during the retirement transition: estate planning, Medicare, downsizing, senior housing options, caregiving, financial planning. Written for real people, not for search engine crawlers.
MovingToSeniorLiving.com is the professional directory we wished had existed when we needed it. Verified local professionals across the categories that matter most, searchable by the city where you actually live.
Together, they’re the resource my family was looking for. The one that didn’t come up in the first twenty searches.
Give every family a clear map of the retirement transition and connect them with the right professionals at the right moment, without the noise, the lead-gen spam, or the runaround.
What You’ll Find Here
Plain-language pillar guides on every major topic
Estate planning, Medicare, downsizing, senior housing, caregiving, and financial planning. Written to help you understand the full picture, not just one corner of it.
A visual roadmap of the full retirement transition
Every phase, every professional category, in the sequence that actually makes sense. So you know where you are, what comes next, and who to call.
Free checklists and planning guides
Downloadable resources you can actually use: transition checklists, estate planning guides, Medicare in plain English, a room-by-room downsizing guide.
Connections to verified local professionals
When you’re ready to talk to an expert, MovingToSeniorLiving.com has a searchable directory of professionals in your area across every category on the roadmap.
Who This Is For
This site was built for two overlapping groups of people.
The first is someone approaching retirement who wants to understand the full picture before making any decisions. You’ve probably been putting off some of these conversations because it’s hard to know where to start, or because no one has laid it all out in one place yet. This is that one place.
The second is the adult child or family member who has started noticing the signs that a parent needs to start planning, and who has stepped into the role of researcher by default. You’re doing the searching. You’re trying to make sense of a landscape that wasn’t designed to make sense easily. We built this for you too.
If either of those descriptions sounds familiar, you’re in the right place. Start wherever makes sense. There’s no wrong door in.