March 20, 2025 • 27 mins
It's the dream every MID woman has discussed with her best friends. You know the one. The one where you fantasise about living in a big house together, or maybe a bunch of tiny-houses on land, but the gist is the same: When we're older, we will live together and pool our resources and care for each other.
But for most of us, this dream remains a dream. For Eve Grzybowski and Heather Bolstler, two of the six people, all over the age of 70, who are living together on a beautiful property on New South Wales’ mid north coast - it is their reality. But, as you'll hear, this isn't the kind of thing you just "do."
Making this dream a reality takes planning, lots of conversations and communication and transparency - but Eve and Heather have a blueprint, and they're sharing it with you here, on MID with Holly Wainwright.
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CREDITS:
Host: Holly Wainwright
Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Senior Producer: Grace Rouvray
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a mother mea podcast. Mamma Mere acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on. Hello, my friends, I'm Holly Wainwright and
I am mid midlife, mid family and mid post work fantasy.
Today I'm bringing you a different kind of conversation, one
(00:32):
with three couples who all live together. But please don't
call them swingers. We'll get to that in a minute.
We said we're going to drop you a few little
extras in Mid this season, and this is one of those.
As you might have noticed, this season of Mid has
been supported all the way through by a ware super. Now,
if you're like me, you might switch off a little
(00:52):
bit at the word super. But then, also if you're
like me, and as the year's click over, you are
starting to wonder about what a post work life might
look like. Yes, a post work life is what I'm
calling retirement, because retirement can sound a bit passive, a
bit retreating, a little bit like giving up, when actually
(01:14):
this third act can be anything but retiring. Also because
for plenty of us, giving up work entirely is not
going to happen, maybe because of necessity, maybe because you
love your work and it gives you meaning and energy.
Maybe rather than not working at all, you just want
the freedom to pick and choose when and weather you
put the grind behind you. But maybe, of course you
(01:37):
are dying to ditch anything and everything to do with
work and focus on doing everything else whatever blows.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Your hair back.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
But as part of these seasons of mid we're bringing
you conversations with women who are doing their post work
lives a little differently, not because you're there yet Mids,
but for a little future in slow. If you've ever
said to your best mate that when you're old you're
going to live together, build a compound, or tear up
(02:05):
the over fifties lifestyle village, this conversation's fee. It's with
two women called Eve Grisbowski and Heather Bolster, two of
the six people who are all living together on a
beautiful property on New South Wales's Mid North coast. These
three couples have been friends for years, and, like a
(02:26):
lot of good mates, over the years, they'd go on
holiday together every year. On one of those trips long ago,
they began to talk about how they all saw their
next phase and weather pooling their resources would make everyone's
third act a lot more fun. This is the kind
of conversation that women have with their girlfriends all the time.
(02:47):
They say, when we're old, we should live together. Back
to the sleepovers, back to the girl's trips. But how
many of us might actually do it well with the
right planning, As Eve and Heather are about to tell us,
it's possible. So how the hell did they do it
living in a purpose built house and a beautiful part
of Australia. Well, they're going to tell us, and they're
(03:08):
going to give us advice about how we could too.
Heather and Eve, thank you so much for joining me today. Now,
lots of people say that they would like to live
with their friends when they get older. What took the
idea that you guys have from an idea to a reality?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Good question.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
We started as friends and we would get together. In particular,
we got together around Christmas joenerally for a week or
two and they were really sublime times.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
How long has it been that you guys have been
hanging out together as a group.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
That was early in the century, so maybe two thousand
and one, two thousand and two, two thousand and three
like that. So that was the idea part of it,
and then what took it to reality was, well, you know,
one hundred meetings for one thing. We left our we
left our last holiday having kind of generated the idea
and talked it through a lot, and then we thought, well,
(04:11):
we'll sit on it for a few months and see
if anything incubates in this. And then sure enough, a
few months later we said, well, let's get together and
talk about it again. So that was kind of meeting
number one.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And this is the six of you, right, So tell
me who's in the shatters?
Speaker 5 (04:29):
I have apart our husband and that's Daniel. So there's
three couples that are the shutters. Probably at some point
you need an explanation of what is a shudder? Yes,
and then Heather and Rick a couple, and Michael and
Judy are the third couple.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And so the three couples would go on these holidays
that you're talking about, and then one year you were like,
you know what, maybe this would be it. Our six
people is quite a lot of people to get to
agree to see things the same way, to want to
commit to have the same vision. Was it difficult for
everybody to get on board or.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
We discovered that numerous times you've been looking through the keyhole.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Well, yeah, yeah, there were, I mean everything, just you
and your partner. It's difficult to come to agreement about things.
So when we started looking for property, looking for a
place we were going to live, it was, you know,
where do we want to be in the country or
in the city, and how far in the country, and
do we want to go north or south? And do
we want you know, a little a little spot in
(05:38):
a small town or do we want a massive acreage?
And we had to work through all those decisions. And
so the process of finding a place took us about
a year and a half, and we looked at everything
from little city lots to two hundred acre two hundred
(05:58):
acre properties and we started to get an idea of
what we didn't want and what we liked.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And am I right in thinking that one she decided
you guys were gonna live communally, I suppose is that
you rented a place together to try it out in
the city first.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Yes, and one of us, Judy, remarkably found this place
and it had three levels to it. It was a
waterfront property in Sydney, and it meant that each couple
could have a separate space like that, which is what
we have now that we've purpose built the house.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Obviously it went all right because you made the move,
But how did you decide to and how did you
choose where to go after that?
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Well, we'd been looking a number of places. We'd looked
at a lot of places. Every week we would go
out somewhere, we'd find something and research it. This area
we liked. We we'ld gradually gravitating here, and we had
a friend who lived on the island and she invited
us to stay at her house, and we thought, well,
this is all right. It was a beautiful place. And
(07:08):
then something came out for sale here and we thought, well,
we'll have a look at it. You tell the story
from there, Eve, Oh.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Yes. And the property that we got to look at
with the real estate agent was four acres three and
a half acres. It was very beautiful and it had
a big green shed on it, and we thought that
even if we didn't decide on a permanent move here,
(07:36):
that it was a good investment. We got it for
a good price, and that that shed could be the
place where we got to come and have our Christmas holidays,
Easter holidays. We called it the tow in the water, right,
and every step that we took on this journey, even
though it seems like a really radical thing for you know,
(07:58):
retirees to do move in together, was very well prepared for.
So it never felt like we were at a huge
risk that we could always recover if, you know, like
it didn't work out.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It sounds like exactly the right way to do it,
because this is a big commitment. Once you've decided that
you're going to build a house on this beautiful spot,
that's a massive financial commitment, a lot of logistics involved,
So it's obviously sensible to do it in a step
through way. But did you all fall in love with
the place and was it an easy ish decision to
(08:34):
build the house there?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I would say so, yeah, Yeah, it was not without
its challenges. You know, I think we all got cold
feet about it at some point and it needed to
push ourselves or push each other back into the a
relook at what we were doing. Because that was the
big step. We know it was going to be a
(08:59):
sizeable house and a sizable investment and a direction for
a whole the rest of our lives. So that was huge.
And then once that DECEI was made and thoroughly made.
Then then we just we just got into it. We
just slid into it. We got the we found that
(09:19):
just exactly the right designer and exactly the rate builder.
And Rick and I retired the earliest of the lot
of us. And so we were up staying in the
green Shed, which was nice, nicely furnished little you know,
it was almost a cottage, and we stayed there while
the house was being built, and then as soon as
(09:39):
it was done then I shall on the day that
it was done, even Daniel moved up. And then a
year or two after that, Michael and Judy moved out.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Fully I'll be back with Eve and Heather in a
moment right after this break. When I have this fantasy
with my friends, and I know, as I say that,
a lot of people do we go, Oh, maybe we'll
live on a compound, you know what I mean, maybe
we'll have like little homes close together. How did you
(10:08):
make that decision? Was it because of the way that
you'd lived when you were in Sydney that you would
live in one big house together? And what does a
house that is going to be three different couples home
need to have to make that work.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
Obviously, it's probably different for each group that would decide
to do this crazy thing, but in our case, we
have the most. Sometimes people call this an intentional community,
I think is too formal a name for what we
do and how we are.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Is that it's an intentional community kind of like a commune.
Is that a similar thing?
Speaker 5 (10:47):
Yeah, but we definitely we have lots of differences.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
An intentional community.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
The intentional would refers to kind of a purpose like
you know, growing growing organic gardens.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
But we just wanted to hang out together.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Really, so you knew you would all need your own
spaces as such, and so that you would all be
comfortable in your own spaces, and so you built this
house that Do you all have a level each? Is
that how it works?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
No, we have a suite of rooms.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
We have a bedroom, an office, an en suite, bathroom,
and a deck, and each of those suites our designer
faced them in different directions. So it's really a very
clever design.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
So that you have privacy, Like you can sit out
on your deck and it's not like you're sitting underneath heather.
You can bet you're like, hey, that's so clever.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah, it really is one one floor, except that right
now we're down in the basement.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
We relegated the TV to the basement.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Yeah, that's it was really an important question for us,
the one the one that you just ask, like, how
do you organize to give to live together? We share
the kitchen and a large comfortable lounge room and living area.
So and that's that's a significant thing to share. Really
it is to three households with kitchens, but then we've
got our own space. I personally thought at first, I
(12:16):
sort of taking it for granted we have little cabins
and then we'd have a central area that we might
come to and share. But I softened to the idea
of sharing in the more comprehensive way.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
It meant that the council was more friendly with that
kind of construction. And also if something happened, as you
know it does, that it had better resale value instead
of having those separate accommodations.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I was just thinking that because it works for different
kind of configurations of family groups, really doesn't it's that
a way. So how together do you live? Do you
eat your meals together? Do you pull everything? Like how
what's together and what's separate?
Speaker 5 (13:01):
That's probably the most common question that we did ask.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Everybody's like, who's cooking?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
It's fun, isn't it? To getting a lot? It is
food and shopping.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
I think we just worked out some of these things
as we went along, and people sometimes buy cooperatively, you know,
for various reasons. Well, we had established habits as being older.
You know, we were sixty and then seventy years old together,
and we already had our preferences in food. So when
(13:36):
the pantry was designed, it has three separate areas for
the kind of foods we like, but they're pretty common
because we're all interested in good health and longevity. So
we have a roster that goes up on a fortnightly basis,
and on it it has everybody's name and a space
(13:58):
for them volunteering whether they want to cook a meal
or even whether they're going to be there for the meal.
So we've done that and it's worked ever since we
lived in the rental property.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I think it's worked really well.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
It works just brilliantly. So the only meal that we
have together is dinner. But if we're all here, and
you know now that we're all living here and retired,
most of the time. Most often we would be here
and so one couple will will be responsible for a
meal and generally we just roster it.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It's just one two.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Three, one two three, and so you only have to
cook once or twice a week.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And how good is that?
Speaker 4 (14:42):
And then you get to you know, you get to
schmick it up a bit because it's fun to actually
fun to design a meal and have four other people
enjoying it. So that really works.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So there isn't one person who is like the boss,
who is the one who does the rosters that chases
people up, that says, Daniel, you said you're gonna tidy this,
you have a tiler.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
It doesn't work that way, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It doesn't work. That don't work very well that way.
We try every now and then, but it doesn't work
that way.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
We fall into responsibilities and accountabilities of course, so my
husband Rick does the mowing every week, and Daniel does
the whipper snipping, and even I look after the gardens
and like that. So we have our accountabilities.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
But Blody your strengths as well, I assume, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
That's right, and interests.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You know, we're doing things that we love to do.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, what did your friends and family say about the
choice for this community living. I think I read that
somebody's adult child asked if you were swingers. Now, now
that's none of my business whether you swingers or not,
But have people been quite shocked about it? Do you
think it's still something that people are a bit surprised about.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
I think people either love the idea, like you've spoken
about it that way, it's great, or they're completely turned off.
They would never even entertain the idea of living with
other people. You know, they might be a couple, and
then they wouldn't want to live with other couples.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
I can remember one of the women in Eve's women's
group saying, I could throw up at the idea of
doing this.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Okay, strong Felix, So what you what would you say?
I think I've read that you say in communication? Obviously,
because for all shared living situations, no matter what, even
when it's just you and a partner, and certainly and
children and whatever, what would you say is the key?
It must also be that you fundamentally have shared values
(16:54):
or shared you know, have a shared sensibility. I think
I seen that you were all you know, you came
together because you were all interested in searching, exploring yoga.
As you say health longevity, do you think that that's key?
You've got to have shared value systems. What else do
you need for this kind of harmonious living to work?
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Well?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I think communication is really the main thing, and I
don't know that we're especially great at it, but we certainly,
we certainly understand that without it, without saying what you
need to say and hearing what you need to hear,
it's not going to work. So that commitment to communication
is a really key thing. And also respect, just a
(17:38):
commitment to respect for each other. What else would you
say you.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
I think there's an expression, and I'll probably do a
lot of damage to it, but it's like all ruugh
stones get polished by rubbing against each other. And so
I would say that from where we started, that we're
better at communicating than we were in the early stages.
And part of it, I don't know whether it's just
about getting older and maybe wiser, that you don't want
(18:07):
to carry things that are uncommunicated because it we'll interfere
with your relationship with people that you know, we basically
love each other.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Of course, I wonder I don't want to project, but
I know that for a lot of people, their later
years can get lonely and isolating, right, I mean I
often hear people talk about their lives getting smaller. Was
part of the impetus for this idea of the communal
living to sort of battle that possible loneliness. And has
(18:41):
it worked that way?
Speaker 4 (18:43):
I would say that was ninety percent of where we
started with it. It began well had we all had
parents who were aging at that point and you know,
looking at them and thinking about what worked and didn't
work in their lives, and so we were very we
were very attuned to, you know, for at least the
(19:04):
active part of our lives, to be able to have
people around to be stimulating our in that fashion. And yeah,
I think it's worked out of site. It's been very
very good for us to It's been very good for
me to have to deal with things and now when
I'm not feeling like catching up with anyone, to just
(19:27):
be there, you know, and there's someone in the kitchen
making coffee in the morning, and you know, you say hi,
and that's gets today going.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Absolutely in the beginning, I guess what we're talking about
is something more aspirational. You know, we saw that that
was a good idea, but then in the way that
it developed, it meant that we have activities that we've
been able to share with other people. Like we all
of us belong in a community choir, and it doesn't
(19:57):
mean that we go around doing the same things. It
means that we share the stories and the inspiration that
we get from our various activities with each other.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
It enriches our lives.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I'll be back with Eve and Heather in a moment
right after this break. I'd like to ask you your
advice for anyone who's listening to this and who like me,
might have had those conversations with their friends who go
one day, you know, that's what we should do. What's
(20:31):
your best advice? And on a very practical level too,
And I don't want to pry into your arrangements, but
is it like you all have to sort of be
on an equal financial commitment. Is there a way that
you know those kind of things like what would you
say is the best advice to avoid conflict in this situation?
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Wow?
Speaker 5 (20:50):
No, you said some wise things there. Well, we usually
what we say is start early.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, you started planning quite early, didn't you, Like in
terms of that you move, as you said earlier, Eve,
moving from conversations on holiday to meetings about it to
testing the water to the toe in the water, like, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
It took us a long time. We took many years.
So patience is certainly is certainly a key ingredient, a
key personal ingredient. You talked about finances.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
We early on.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Decided we needed to have a conversation about our finances,
a public conversation with each with each other about that.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Which is not a normal thing to do.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
You don't tell people you know how much you have
in your bank accounts and what our sets you've got.
But we decided we needed to do that so we
could understand where we were, where everyone was, and so
it was helpful in that meeting to discover that we
were in similar in similar positions. So there were no
sugar daddies among us or vagrants or like.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
That, because those are the kind of things that can
easily build resentment on there. If you'd need something doing
to the house or even at the building stage, if
you'd have wanted somebody wants this and somebody wants that,
likely so you do have you had to be very
honest I assume about laying out what everybody's expectations were.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Do you think that one of the advantages to this
for people is that by pulling resources like this, you've
actually been able to have a better kind of lifestyle
at this stage of your life than you may have
been able to do by yourselves.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Completely.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
Yeah, and especially if we tried to live in Sydney
in the same kind of lifestyle that we have here.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Oh we've got we've got four acres, we've got a
beautiful property, we've got you know, six people to work
on it together, and we've got one washing machine and
one dishwasher. And yeah, it has saved us an enormous
amount I would say, almost half what we would normally
(23:00):
be spending in this time period to have a similar
kind of lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
If that were your first reason in for doing something
like this, it probably wouldn't work out.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, I think that's a very wise point. It's like
if you were if you were sort of gritting your
teeth to do it because you thought it was a
smart financial choice. Is not enough of a reason.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
You don't want that driving though.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
No, to get you through those rough stone moments. That's right,
and what kind of friends do you think can live together?
Because here's something I was just thinking about. I was,
I hope none of my friends are listening to this.
There are some of my friends I would love to
do this with, but I don't know i'd want to
live with their partners.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
You've got a lot of communicating to you there, So
you think it's the fact that the couples were friends
is one of the things that has made this a
successful mission. That's a really good question, and I think
it hasn't been asked before. But what happened along the
way was that one of the men discovery a men's
(24:10):
group which has meetings once a week, invaded the other
men to join, and so they had this group of
men that they associated like really decent, good men, and
I think that was a forum for them to be
able to talk about things and you know, and have
(24:30):
those conversations.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
But you know, if.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
I was just thinking about your question, and I was
thinking of a couple of men that people's husbands that
I could not live.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
With, you would not want to live with exactly you've got.
So you can't be just like, oh, I'm sure I
could put up with Bob, like I think that you're
not going to be able to put up with somebody
through this level of process, right, it has to be
you have to be able to get along. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Any other good advice you said? Start early? Communication is key?
What else would you say to someone who's thinking, I
(25:01):
think that would be great?
Speaker 4 (25:03):
I sometimes think the best thing we did was live
together for two years. We gave it a really thorough
road tests, and it's nice to say, you know, two years,
we're going to do this for two years. You can
put up with anything for two years, but at the
end of that time, you can think do I want
to keep.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Doing this or not?
Speaker 4 (25:19):
That was I found that really a useful thing to
be able to settle my mind into it, because then
came the hard stuff, and at that point I'd thought, well, yeah,
we can do this and be a great thing to
just keep pursuing.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
And I think something about cultivating kindness and compassion and
understanding for the other because we're not the same, the
six of us. If that weren't the case, then we
wouldn't be able to, I guess, learn from each other
(25:55):
along the way, and so it's not always a helpful
easy thing to practice. I have done a practice called
loving kindness meditation, which is a Buddhist practice, and I
think that's something that you can do on your own
(26:15):
and doesn't have to involve other people, but it makes
a huge difference in terms of how you relate to
people because something in you shifts.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, thank you very much, father I
need for sharing this story with me. I find it
really inspirational.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I do.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
And it looks like it looks like a beautiful life
that you've built there, and no good luck to you.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Thank you MIDS for hanging out with us for this
conversation about what third acts might look like. I can't
tell you how full of energy these two women were,
how great they look, how happy and connected they all
seem in their post work commune. I'm immediately making a
list of friends whose partners I reckon I could stand
to live with and who could stand to live with me,
of course, and for more information about all the ways
(27:06):
that Aware super makes your dreams for that part of
life a little more attainable, please support Mid by following
the link in the show notes or going to Aware
dot com, dot au, forward slash retire, and a huge
thank you as always to the MID team. The executive
producer of this episode and all the shows is Niama Brown.
(27:27):
The senior producer is Grace Rufrey, the producer is Charlie Blackman,
and we've had audio production from Jacob Brown.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Bye.
You're listening to a mother mea podcast. Mamma Mere acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on. Hello, my friends, I'm Holly Wainwright and
I am mid midlife, mid family and mid post work fantasy.
Today I'm bringing you a different kind of conversation, one
(00:32):
with three couples who all live together. But please don't
call them swingers. We'll get to that in a minute.
We said we're going to drop you a few little
extras in Mid this season, and this is one of those.
As you might have noticed, this season of Mid has
been supported all the way through by a ware super. Now,
if you're like me, you might switch off a little
(00:52):
bit at the word super. But then, also if you're
like me, and as the year's click over, you are
starting to wonder about what a post work life might
look like. Yes, a post work life is what I'm
calling retirement, because retirement can sound a bit passive, a
bit retreating, a little bit like giving up, when actually
(01:14):
this third act can be anything but retiring. Also because
for plenty of us, giving up work entirely is not
going to happen, maybe because of necessity, maybe because you
love your work and it gives you meaning and energy.
Maybe rather than not working at all, you just want
the freedom to pick and choose when and weather you
put the grind behind you. But maybe, of course you
(01:37):
are dying to ditch anything and everything to do with
work and focus on doing everything else whatever blows.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Your hair back.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
But as part of these seasons of mid we're bringing
you conversations with women who are doing their post work
lives a little differently, not because you're there yet Mids,
but for a little future in slow. If you've ever
said to your best mate that when you're old you're
going to live together, build a compound, or tear up
(02:05):
the over fifties lifestyle village, this conversation's fee. It's with
two women called Eve Grisbowski and Heather Bolster, two of
the six people who are all living together on a
beautiful property on New South Wales's Mid North coast. These
three couples have been friends for years, and, like a
(02:26):
lot of good mates, over the years, they'd go on
holiday together every year. On one of those trips long ago,
they began to talk about how they all saw their
next phase and weather pooling their resources would make everyone's
third act a lot more fun. This is the kind
of conversation that women have with their girlfriends all the time.
(02:47):
They say, when we're old, we should live together. Back
to the sleepovers, back to the girl's trips. But how
many of us might actually do it well with the
right planning, As Eve and Heather are about to tell us,
it's possible. So how the hell did they do it
living in a purpose built house and a beautiful part
of Australia. Well, they're going to tell us, and they're
(03:08):
going to give us advice about how we could too.
Heather and Eve, thank you so much for joining me today. Now,
lots of people say that they would like to live
with their friends when they get older. What took the
idea that you guys have from an idea to a reality?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Good question.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
We started as friends and we would get together. In particular,
we got together around Christmas joenerally for a week or
two and they were really sublime times.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
How long has it been that you guys have been
hanging out together as a group.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
That was early in the century, so maybe two thousand
and one, two thousand and two, two thousand and three
like that. So that was the idea part of it,
and then what took it to reality was, well, you know,
one hundred meetings for one thing. We left our we
left our last holiday having kind of generated the idea
and talked it through a lot, and then we thought, well,
(04:11):
we'll sit on it for a few months and see
if anything incubates in this. And then sure enough, a
few months later we said, well, let's get together and
talk about it again. So that was kind of meeting
number one.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And this is the six of you, right, So tell
me who's in the shatters?
Speaker 5 (04:29):
I have apart our husband and that's Daniel. So there's
three couples that are the shutters. Probably at some point
you need an explanation of what is a shudder? Yes,
and then Heather and Rick a couple, and Michael and
Judy are the third couple.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And so the three couples would go on these holidays
that you're talking about, and then one year you were like,
you know what, maybe this would be it. Our six
people is quite a lot of people to get to
agree to see things the same way, to want to
commit to have the same vision. Was it difficult for
everybody to get on board or.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
We discovered that numerous times you've been looking through the keyhole.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Well, yeah, yeah, there were, I mean everything, just you
and your partner. It's difficult to come to agreement about things.
So when we started looking for property, looking for a
place we were going to live, it was, you know,
where do we want to be in the country or
in the city, and how far in the country, and
do we want to go north or south? And do
we want you know, a little a little spot in
(05:38):
a small town or do we want a massive acreage?
And we had to work through all those decisions. And
so the process of finding a place took us about
a year and a half, and we looked at everything
from little city lots to two hundred acre two hundred
(05:58):
acre properties and we started to get an idea of
what we didn't want and what we liked.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And am I right in thinking that one she decided
you guys were gonna live communally, I suppose is that
you rented a place together to try it out in
the city first.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
Yes, and one of us, Judy, remarkably found this place
and it had three levels to it. It was a
waterfront property in Sydney, and it meant that each couple
could have a separate space like that, which is what
we have now that we've purpose built the house.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Obviously it went all right because you made the move,
But how did you decide to and how did you
choose where to go after that?
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Well, we'd been looking a number of places. We'd looked
at a lot of places. Every week we would go
out somewhere, we'd find something and research it. This area
we liked. We we'ld gradually gravitating here, and we had
a friend who lived on the island and she invited
us to stay at her house, and we thought, well,
this is all right. It was a beautiful place. And
(07:08):
then something came out for sale here and we thought, well,
we'll have a look at it. You tell the story
from there, Eve, Oh.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Yes. And the property that we got to look at
with the real estate agent was four acres three and
a half acres. It was very beautiful and it had
a big green shed on it, and we thought that
even if we didn't decide on a permanent move here,
(07:36):
that it was a good investment. We got it for
a good price, and that that shed could be the
place where we got to come and have our Christmas holidays,
Easter holidays. We called it the tow in the water, right,
and every step that we took on this journey, even
though it seems like a really radical thing for you know,
(07:58):
retirees to do move in together, was very well prepared for.
So it never felt like we were at a huge
risk that we could always recover if, you know, like
it didn't work out.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It sounds like exactly the right way to do it,
because this is a big commitment. Once you've decided that
you're going to build a house on this beautiful spot,
that's a massive financial commitment, a lot of logistics involved,
So it's obviously sensible to do it in a step
through way. But did you all fall in love with
the place and was it an easy ish decision to
(08:34):
build the house there?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I would say so, yeah, Yeah, it was not without
its challenges. You know, I think we all got cold
feet about it at some point and it needed to
push ourselves or push each other back into the a
relook at what we were doing. Because that was the
big step. We know it was going to be a
(08:59):
sizeable house and a sizable investment and a direction for
a whole the rest of our lives. So that was huge.
And then once that DECEI was made and thoroughly made.
Then then we just we just got into it. We
just slid into it. We got the we found that
(09:19):
just exactly the right designer and exactly the rate builder.
And Rick and I retired the earliest of the lot
of us. And so we were up staying in the
green Shed, which was nice, nicely furnished little you know,
it was almost a cottage, and we stayed there while
the house was being built, and then as soon as
(09:39):
it was done then I shall on the day that
it was done, even Daniel moved up. And then a
year or two after that, Michael and Judy moved out.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Fully I'll be back with Eve and Heather in a
moment right after this break. When I have this fantasy
with my friends, and I know, as I say that,
a lot of people do we go, Oh, maybe we'll
live on a compound, you know what I mean, maybe
we'll have like little homes close together. How did you
(10:08):
make that decision? Was it because of the way that
you'd lived when you were in Sydney that you would
live in one big house together? And what does a
house that is going to be three different couples home
need to have to make that work.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
Obviously, it's probably different for each group that would decide
to do this crazy thing, but in our case, we
have the most. Sometimes people call this an intentional community,
I think is too formal a name for what we
do and how we are.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Is that it's an intentional community kind of like a commune.
Is that a similar thing?
Speaker 5 (10:47):
Yeah, but we definitely we have lots of differences.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
An intentional community.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
The intentional would refers to kind of a purpose like
you know, growing growing organic gardens.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
But we just wanted to hang out together.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Really, so you knew you would all need your own
spaces as such, and so that you would all be
comfortable in your own spaces, and so you built this
house that Do you all have a level each? Is
that how it works?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
No, we have a suite of rooms.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
We have a bedroom, an office, an en suite, bathroom,
and a deck, and each of those suites our designer
faced them in different directions. So it's really a very
clever design.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
So that you have privacy, Like you can sit out
on your deck and it's not like you're sitting underneath heather.
You can bet you're like, hey, that's so clever.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah, it really is one one floor, except that right
now we're down in the basement.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
We relegated the TV to the basement.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Yeah, that's it was really an important question for us,
the one the one that you just ask, like, how
do you organize to give to live together? We share
the kitchen and a large comfortable lounge room and living area.
So and that's that's a significant thing to share. Really
it is to three households with kitchens, but then we've
got our own space. I personally thought at first, I
(12:16):
sort of taking it for granted we have little cabins
and then we'd have a central area that we might
come to and share. But I softened to the idea
of sharing in the more comprehensive way.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
It meant that the council was more friendly with that
kind of construction. And also if something happened, as you
know it does, that it had better resale value instead
of having those separate accommodations.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I was just thinking that because it works for different
kind of configurations of family groups, really doesn't it's that
a way. So how together do you live? Do you
eat your meals together? Do you pull everything? Like how
what's together and what's separate?
Speaker 5 (13:01):
That's probably the most common question that we did ask.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Everybody's like, who's cooking?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
It's fun, isn't it? To getting a lot? It is
food and shopping.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
I think we just worked out some of these things
as we went along, and people sometimes buy cooperatively, you know,
for various reasons. Well, we had established habits as being older.
You know, we were sixty and then seventy years old together,
and we already had our preferences in food. So when
(13:36):
the pantry was designed, it has three separate areas for
the kind of foods we like, but they're pretty common
because we're all interested in good health and longevity. So
we have a roster that goes up on a fortnightly basis,
and on it it has everybody's name and a space
(13:58):
for them volunteering whether they want to cook a meal
or even whether they're going to be there for the meal.
So we've done that and it's worked ever since we
lived in the rental property.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I think it's worked really well.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
It works just brilliantly. So the only meal that we
have together is dinner. But if we're all here, and
you know now that we're all living here and retired,
most of the time. Most often we would be here
and so one couple will will be responsible for a
meal and generally we just roster it.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It's just one two.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Three, one two three, and so you only have to
cook once or twice a week.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And how good is that?
Speaker 4 (14:42):
And then you get to you know, you get to
schmick it up a bit because it's fun to actually
fun to design a meal and have four other people
enjoying it. So that really works.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So there isn't one person who is like the boss,
who is the one who does the rosters that chases
people up, that says, Daniel, you said you're gonna tidy this,
you have a tiler.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
It doesn't work that way, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It doesn't work. That don't work very well that way.
We try every now and then, but it doesn't work
that way.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
We fall into responsibilities and accountabilities of course, so my
husband Rick does the mowing every week, and Daniel does
the whipper snipping, and even I look after the gardens
and like that. So we have our accountabilities.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
But Blody your strengths as well, I assume, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
That's right, and interests.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You know, we're doing things that we love to do.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, what did your friends and family say about the
choice for this community living. I think I read that
somebody's adult child asked if you were swingers. Now, now
that's none of my business whether you swingers or not,
But have people been quite shocked about it? Do you
think it's still something that people are a bit surprised about.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
I think people either love the idea, like you've spoken
about it that way, it's great, or they're completely turned off.
They would never even entertain the idea of living with
other people. You know, they might be a couple, and
then they wouldn't want to live with other couples.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
I can remember one of the women in Eve's women's
group saying, I could throw up at the idea of
doing this.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Okay, strong Felix, So what you what would you say?
I think I've read that you say in communication? Obviously,
because for all shared living situations, no matter what, even
when it's just you and a partner, and certainly and
children and whatever, what would you say is the key?
It must also be that you fundamentally have shared values
(16:54):
or shared you know, have a shared sensibility. I think
I seen that you were all you know, you came
together because you were all interested in searching, exploring yoga.
As you say health longevity, do you think that that's key?
You've got to have shared value systems. What else do
you need for this kind of harmonious living to work?
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Well?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
I think communication is really the main thing, and I
don't know that we're especially great at it, but we certainly,
we certainly understand that without it, without saying what you
need to say and hearing what you need to hear,
it's not going to work. So that commitment to communication
is a really key thing. And also respect, just a
(17:38):
commitment to respect for each other. What else would you
say you.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
I think there's an expression, and I'll probably do a
lot of damage to it, but it's like all ruugh
stones get polished by rubbing against each other. And so
I would say that from where we started, that we're
better at communicating than we were in the early stages.
And part of it, I don't know whether it's just
about getting older and maybe wiser, that you don't want
(18:07):
to carry things that are uncommunicated because it we'll interfere
with your relationship with people that you know, we basically
love each other.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Of course, I wonder I don't want to project, but
I know that for a lot of people, their later
years can get lonely and isolating, right, I mean I
often hear people talk about their lives getting smaller. Was
part of the impetus for this idea of the communal
living to sort of battle that possible loneliness. And has
(18:41):
it worked that way?
Speaker 4 (18:43):
I would say that was ninety percent of where we
started with it. It began well had we all had
parents who were aging at that point and you know,
looking at them and thinking about what worked and didn't
work in their lives, and so we were very we
were very attuned to, you know, for at least the
(19:04):
active part of our lives, to be able to have
people around to be stimulating our in that fashion. And yeah,
I think it's worked out of site. It's been very
very good for us to It's been very good for
me to have to deal with things and now when
I'm not feeling like catching up with anyone, to just
(19:27):
be there, you know, and there's someone in the kitchen
making coffee in the morning, and you know, you say hi,
and that's gets today going.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Absolutely in the beginning, I guess what we're talking about
is something more aspirational. You know, we saw that that
was a good idea, but then in the way that
it developed, it meant that we have activities that we've
been able to share with other people. Like we all
of us belong in a community choir, and it doesn't
(19:57):
mean that we go around doing the same things. It
means that we share the stories and the inspiration that
we get from our various activities with each other.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
It enriches our lives.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I'll be back with Eve and Heather in a moment
right after this break. I'd like to ask you your
advice for anyone who's listening to this and who like me,
might have had those conversations with their friends who go
one day, you know, that's what we should do. What's
(20:31):
your best advice? And on a very practical level too,
And I don't want to pry into your arrangements, but
is it like you all have to sort of be
on an equal financial commitment. Is there a way that
you know those kind of things like what would you
say is the best advice to avoid conflict in this situation?
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Wow?
Speaker 5 (20:50):
No, you said some wise things there. Well, we usually
what we say is start early.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, you started planning quite early, didn't you, Like in
terms of that you move, as you said earlier, Eve,
moving from conversations on holiday to meetings about it to
testing the water to the toe in the water, like, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
It took us a long time. We took many years.
So patience is certainly is certainly a key ingredient, a
key personal ingredient. You talked about finances.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
We early on.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Decided we needed to have a conversation about our finances,
a public conversation with each with each other about that.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Which is not a normal thing to do.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
You don't tell people you know how much you have
in your bank accounts and what our sets you've got.
But we decided we needed to do that so we
could understand where we were, where everyone was, and so
it was helpful in that meeting to discover that we
were in similar in similar positions. So there were no
sugar daddies among us or vagrants or like.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
That, because those are the kind of things that can
easily build resentment on there. If you'd need something doing
to the house or even at the building stage, if
you'd have wanted somebody wants this and somebody wants that,
likely so you do have you had to be very
honest I assume about laying out what everybody's expectations were.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Do you think that one of the advantages to this
for people is that by pulling resources like this, you've
actually been able to have a better kind of lifestyle
at this stage of your life than you may have
been able to do by yourselves.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Completely.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
Yeah, and especially if we tried to live in Sydney
in the same kind of lifestyle that we have here.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Oh we've got we've got four acres, we've got a
beautiful property, we've got you know, six people to work
on it together, and we've got one washing machine and
one dishwasher. And yeah, it has saved us an enormous
amount I would say, almost half what we would normally
(23:00):
be spending in this time period to have a similar
kind of lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
If that were your first reason in for doing something
like this, it probably wouldn't work out.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, I think that's a very wise point. It's like
if you were if you were sort of gritting your
teeth to do it because you thought it was a
smart financial choice. Is not enough of a reason.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
You don't want that driving though.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
No, to get you through those rough stone moments. That's right,
and what kind of friends do you think can live together?
Because here's something I was just thinking about. I was,
I hope none of my friends are listening to this.
There are some of my friends I would love to
do this with, but I don't know i'd want to
live with their partners.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
You've got a lot of communicating to you there, So
you think it's the fact that the couples were friends
is one of the things that has made this a
successful mission. That's a really good question, and I think
it hasn't been asked before. But what happened along the
way was that one of the men discovery a men's
(24:10):
group which has meetings once a week, invaded the other
men to join, and so they had this group of
men that they associated like really decent, good men, and
I think that was a forum for them to be
able to talk about things and you know, and have
(24:30):
those conversations.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
But you know, if.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
I was just thinking about your question, and I was
thinking of a couple of men that people's husbands that
I could not live.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
With, you would not want to live with exactly you've got.
So you can't be just like, oh, I'm sure I
could put up with Bob, like I think that you're
not going to be able to put up with somebody
through this level of process, right, it has to be
you have to be able to get along. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Any other good advice you said? Start early? Communication is key?
What else would you say to someone who's thinking, I
(25:01):
think that would be great?
Speaker 4 (25:03):
I sometimes think the best thing we did was live
together for two years. We gave it a really thorough
road tests, and it's nice to say, you know, two years,
we're going to do this for two years. You can
put up with anything for two years, but at the
end of that time, you can think do I want
to keep.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Doing this or not?
Speaker 4 (25:19):
That was I found that really a useful thing to
be able to settle my mind into it, because then
came the hard stuff, and at that point I'd thought, well, yeah,
we can do this and be a great thing to
just keep pursuing.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
And I think something about cultivating kindness and compassion and
understanding for the other because we're not the same, the
six of us. If that weren't the case, then we
wouldn't be able to, I guess, learn from each other
(25:55):
along the way, and so it's not always a helpful
easy thing to practice. I have done a practice called
loving kindness meditation, which is a Buddhist practice, and I
think that's something that you can do on your own
(26:15):
and doesn't have to involve other people, but it makes
a huge difference in terms of how you relate to
people because something in you shifts.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, thank you very much, father I
need for sharing this story with me. I find it
really inspirational.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I do.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
And it looks like it looks like a beautiful life
that you've built there, and no good luck to you.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Thank you MIDS for hanging out with us for this
conversation about what third acts might look like. I can't
tell you how full of energy these two women were,
how great they look, how happy and connected they all
seem in their post work commune. I'm immediately making a
list of friends whose partners I reckon I could stand
to live with and who could stand to live with me,
of course, and for more information about all the ways
(27:06):
that Aware super makes your dreams for that part of
life a little more attainable, please support Mid by following
the link in the show notes or going to Aware
dot com, dot au, forward slash retire, and a huge
thank you as always to the MID team. The executive
producer of this episode and all the shows is Niama Brown.
(27:27):
The senior producer is Grace Rufrey, the producer is Charlie Blackman,
and we've had audio production from Jacob Brown.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Bye.
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