You need to check your LOCAL laws for permit requirements. Every municipality is different and you are wasting time asking strangers on the Net. Until you know what your local laws and zoning codes permit, it is again a waste of time to draw up any plans. Investigate modular housing and how your local codes handle these types. Also investigate manufactured (mobile) homes; if your local codes allow, it is the fastest and cheapest housing you can find. Make a ramp to go up to the front door for accessibility, or create room for a chair lift off a front porch. You also need to talk to Social Security or at least start reading their website. When and if your mother becomes disabled, disability might pay her more than SS might. Also, you need to become aware of the Medicaid asset limits and how they would apply to your parents. Most (80%)nursing home residents are there under Medicaid. However, any home health services used prior to failing the 3-ADL definition of disability; e.g., before she becomes disabled from MS, must be paid by the person/family's own funds (Medicare nor Medicaid never pays for home health care except under very limited circumstances). It is a great shame your brother is being so uncooperative. You need to start getting Power of Attorney and a Durable healthcare Power of Attorney on both your mom and dad immediately. Good luck and keep notes! Your brother may very well turn into a problem down the road, and you need to be thoroughly documented on any actions you take on your parents' behalf.

Don't know if there is a perfect answer. But flushing more money down the toilet is not the big fix for sure. Lets see...the little guy has created too much debt, has lived beyond his or her means and can't pay their bills. So we need the bailout, so the little guy can borrow more money, continue to live beyond their means and create more debt that they can't pay? Sounds like the bailout, is more of a Ponzi scheme not meant to bailout the taxpayer, but instead reamout the taxpayer as it makes the rich...richer. Would an alcoholic be fixed if he inherited a whiskey factory? Would a limitless supply of free alcohol cure what ails him? Or would it just increase the sickness? We have learned nothing from our bailout mess. We can see this from the debate on how to water down the 'mark to market' accounting standards. Instead of restoring high financial and accounting standards, we are further relaxing them, in effect increasing the sickness that got us here. I would add that any accounting standard that discards mark to market accounting would be off my screen for investments. Even with mark to market, we have all these accounting lies. Can you imagine how it will be when asset values can be assigned by the holders of those assets with no reckoning with what the 'actual market value' of those assists are? One of CNBC's commentators chewed out Rick Santelli a while back telling him there is 'no time' for discussion of ideology in the bailout crisis. We must have the $700 billion NOW! At CNBC they seem to think that if money is just thrown at the problem all will be fine. If there is no time to change the underlying sickness in our broken capitalist system, how will more alcohol fix the alcoholic...or in this case more money fix the dishonest, greedy thrives of Wall Street CNBC? Every once in a while CNBC offers some words of wisdom other than the poker playing, crap shooting, compulsive gambler mentality of trading that you promote. Rick Santelli offered one such pearl of wisdom when he said the powers that be in America need to 'take their medicine like men' and stop trying to avoid the penalties of their financial shenanigans at all cost. To avoid taking their medicine is just making matters worse. Fix the underlying sickness before you loan out a dime. Take your medicine like men CNBC as well as thieves of Wall Street. Don't give taxpayer money out, not a dime - loan with high grade collateral and interest. But only loan if absolutely necessary. But don't force the taxpayer to buy toxic waste that no one in their right mind would buy. Put the rich, greedy, lying bastards of Wall Street on the line and not the taxpayer that can hardly make ends meet. Paulson had over 30 years on Wall Street. Paulson is said to be worth half a billion dollars and we never heard a peep of warning out of him until the crisis was full blown. This seems to be a case of honor dies where the interest lies.

Kittenn - I am the OP and I haven't been back to this thread for awhile. I hope that you didn't really intend for your post to be as lacking in compassion as it sounded. You certainly seem to have every reason to be as satisfied with your life as you say you are. All those activities indicate that your health is pretty good. You have a partner who can help you and share with you. You live in a lovely rural area which is probably crime-free. All reasons to count one's blessings. My friend is 67 and in poor health, with advanced diabetes and its attendant neuropathies, severe arthritis, and uncorrectable vision problems. She cares for her sister. Her sister suffers from a rare and complex form of fibromyalgia which has turned her, over the past 30 years, into a near bed-ridden invalid. Her pain is so severe and intractable that she's now talking about going overseas for legal euthanization. Medicaid does not begin to cover all her bills, which are astronomical. SSI does not allow her to use anything but Medicaid. She recently had experimental surgeries by docs at one of the best medical facilities on the East Coast. Those surgeries failed and, in fact, did nerve damage and made her pain worse. She can barely use her upper body - can't use a computer, can't cook, can't fold her own laundry, make a bed, nor even hold a book or magazine. Her only pleasures are watching TV and talking, when she isn't crying, to my friend. These are two women in dire straits. Their money is eaten up by medical bills, house taxes, payment on the home equity loan, and my friend's monthly costs for carrying insurance. They cannot do their own house work or repairs. Not only do they not DIY, they don't have the physical ability that most of us take for granted. When I posted it was to ask for financial advice, not to have judgement passed on how to manage on $2000 or so a month in a huge East Coast city, in light of horrible medical problems. My friend's mistake was not to pay attention to the realities of investing when she was much younger, and I was looking for a solution. And BTW. When my friend dies, her sister will be left with one of two things. Either the SSI, which alone will in no way cover all her needs, but nevertheless does not permit her to inherit a penny. Or she can abandon SSI and inherit what my friend and her useless brother have managed to save. She will need at the very least assisted living. $300,000, annuitized, will not generate enough for that, given a normal life span, let alone the possible nursing home requirements down the road. Or she can go into a Medicaid facility. I've seen those and frankly, I'd rather be dead. Thus her talk of euthanasia. I am grateful to the posters who gave me useful information about TIAA CREF and other financial possibilities. Sometimes all you can do in situations like this is provide suggestions, and pray. The reason I came here rather than to the Caregivers Forum is because money is the main issue with this problem.

I'm a teacher too, and I can give you some advice on some of these topics. I am 100% sure we're not in the same state because you make more money than I do (though I have 24 years experience). - First, you sound like you're doing very well for your age. You should pat yourself on the back for realizing the importance of saving and thinking about retirement well before most people your age. - I'll second the point about talking to your potential fiancée about finances ahead of time. Do not just assume it'll all work out. - Buying a house is a sound investment. I assume you'll sell your current paid-for house, so you'll have about 120K to put down on a new one -- excellent. Even if she brings little to the table for this project, the two of you should be able to knock out the borrowed 100K within five years (even if you have a baby soon). With no mortgage, you'll be amazed at how much easier it is to live comfortably and still save! - Do you have a savings account for a new car? Since yours is paid for, I suggest you begin paying a car payment into a savings account. Once you get yourself "a car ahead" (meaning that you're ready to buy a new car when you need it, so that you're not wasting money on interest), it's easy to STAY "a car ahead". - I have the impression she's a teacher too? If the two of you work at the same school, consider becoming a one-car family. We did it for several years (until I started teaching, and our schedules were completely incompatible), and it was a MONUMENTAL money saver for us. It was the single biggest thing that allowed us to get off to a good financial start in our 20s. - If you hate your job (I do at times, really, I do) but want to stay in the pension system, could you do something else within the school system? Could you be the tech guy? the athletic director? could you do something different as a state employee -- a possibility, if your pension systems are linked? - I don't think you need to think about life insurance at this moment. Not to be crass, but if you died today, would anyone be worse off financially? With no wife or children, probably not. Once you're married, you probably won't need it yet. If you were to die, your wife could use your pension pay-out and your other investments to pay off the modest house payment you anticipate taking out, and she'd still have her job to sustain her. You WILL need life insurance once you have a child. If you were to die and leave your wife with a toddler, she'd have years ahead of her in which she'd be a single parent, and although her salary would be enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs, your life insurance would be there to educate the child in the future. The life insurance would also assure you that your wife would be able to take some time off work, and that she'd be able to put aside a good chunk for retirement. Remember, she too will need life insurance. If she left you with the toddler, you'd need the same help. - The two of you probably need disability insurance more than you need life insurance. Statistically, you are more likely to be disabled than to die young. And becoming disabled is the real nightmare scenario (from a financial standpoint). Consider: You're in an accident or you become sick. You cannot work, so your household income's slashed in half. Yet your medical bills are sky-high. Your wife is still working, but she's also doing ALL the housework and ALL the childcare AND is trying to help you with your physical therapy. She's burning through her sick days taking you to the doctor. THIS is the nightmare scenario: She's overworked, AND she can't take advantage of your life insurance. Avoid it by signing on for disability insurance. - Another thing you should do after you marry is to write wills. As a teacher, you probably have access to your an employee's credit union? They probably offer such services for a low price. - About your pension: Do you know the details for the pension in your state? In my state you're fully vested at 10 years (so, yeah, you'd be a fool to leave at 9.5 years), and you can collect a full pension at any age once you've put in 30 years. You can collect a reduced pension at 20 or 25 years, though the dollar amount is reduced, and you can't begin collecting until 65 (65?) if you don't put in the full 30 years. Once you find out the details for your own state, you can "run the numbers" and see when it makes sense for you to leave teaching. It might be sensible for you to aim for 20 years, then do something else -- but you have to get the facts, then do your homework. - How secure is your state's pension? This is public knowledge, so look into it. You do not want to put all your eggs into the "staying in teaching" basket, if your state's weak in the pension department. As the people in Detroit! - In my state the pension program (defined benefit program) is being exchanged for a defined contribution program. This has its pros and cons, but overall it means that the new, younger teachers aren't going to get a pension. Why does this matter to you? Because if you ever leave, then return to teaching, you'll come in under those new rules! - An above poster mentioned Social Security. In my state, teachers DO pay into SS, so I will collect an SS check one day. You seem rather financially savvy, so I assume you know whether you've been paying into this or not. - I disagree with the above poster who says you're essentially screwed if you choose to have children AND want to retire at a reasonable age. The key is that you have to choose to live FRUGALLY. My husband and I are 48 and 51, and we have two college students. When we married, we had between us $200, college degrees and jobs, one car, and a brand-new mortgage. We chose to be frugal from the very beginning: We maxed out our 401Ks, even though it meant we couldn't afford vacations. We built an emergency fund, then started a savings account, putting away 1/4 of our after-taxes paychecks, even thought it meant we rarely ate out or bought new clothes. When our savings account grew, we started investing, even though it meant we had to remain a one-car family. Today we live in a house that's paid for, have significant investments, and are easily able to pay for our two college students' expenses -- they will graduate debt-free. My same-aged friends who wail that they can't afford their kids' college tuition don't like to hear that we buy used clothing, drive an 8-year old car, etc. The key is knowing the difference between needs and wants -- and being self-disciplined enough to stick to a budget. - Finally, I think you're off to a good start. If you and your wife are both about 10 years into teaching, then 20 years from now the two of you can expect the following: 1. You'll be about 55 years old, and as a person who can "see 55 from where she's standing", it's not "old" -- at 48, my knees hurt sometimes, but I can still hike all day and can pretty much still do whatever I want. 2. You'll live in a house that's paid for. 3. You'll have two teacher pensions. 4. You'll have teacher health insurance in retirement. 5. You'll have two Social Security checks. 6. You'll have the investments you've already begun. 7. If you have a child soon after your marriage, that child will be finishing college (and beginning to support himself) about the time you retire. You'll be able to have all these benefits AND you can work part-time (or seasonally) so you can avoid dipping into your investments too early. Though you're not earning big bucks now (or ever), you'll be well prepared for retirement. If the two of you put in a total of 60 years of teaching to earn these benefits, you'll have WORKED for every penny, but you'll have a comfortable retirement.