difference of opinion on use of retirement savings
wkate640
10 years ago
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patty_cakes
10 years agomaifleur01
10 years agoRelated Discussions
Mom with MS and no retirement saved plus cheap brother
Comments (13)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....See MoreRetiring to vs. Retiring from
Comments (35)Hi cheery one, I'm pleased that you're happy with the "pro"s of your retirement. And somewhat sad that you're feeling that you're not keeping up to the mark of what you'd hoped/planned to do. If you feel the need to beat yourself over the back about that - make sure it's with a wet noodle ... and only five strokes, O.K? As for the "average" retiree, I don't feel that I have too much of a handle on that ... and wonder what level of expertise you may claim in that department? I think that it's important to do things that we can be pleased with ourselves for having done, at the end of the day ... week ... month ... year. Something that I note to have been scarcely mentioned in this thread so far is the need that all of us retirees have to concern ourselves about (as well as people in the workforce) is the erosion of the value of our income (and, for us retirees, our assets) due to inflation, every year for about the last 80. There hasn't been much increase in incomes in recent years, except for the wealthy few ... but the prices keep going up ... and for most of us, those prices of much of the goods and services that we buy have been and are going up faster than the official rate of inflation. When we put money in the bank, or buy bonds, etc. which pay us the same number of dollars after several years that we gave them in the first place, apart from the "rent" on the money, it isn't only taxes and living expenses that much come out of the earnings ("rent on the money"), but an allowance for inflation, as well, in order to keep the purchasing power of those assets equal in ten years to what it is now. Good wishes to you for dealing well with the days ahead: may they be as many as please you, with good health, friends, enough bucks to meet your needs, things to do and a few challenges, here and there. ole joyfuelled...See MoreUsing Different Criteria When Shopping for Future Retirement Home
Comments (26)"Sadly, our current home meets 90% of the requirements in your suggestions: one story, easy access, plenty lighting both indoor and outdoor, wide hallway & door way, wide space in the kitchen, all 3 bathrooms designed for aging...etc. We love our neighborhood. It seems we do not have sufficient reasons to move if it is not because the house and yard are too large for us." Do you want to move, or do you think you should move just because you're aging. If you love the neighborhood, love the house and it's designed for aging, there's really not a big argument in favor of moving. As someone above suggested, can always hire out the lawn work, and if you think the house is too big for you, just close off some rooms, leave them empty or use them for storage, that way you won't have to clean them, and you can shut off the vents to conserve air conditioning costs (heck, a lot of people do just that with a basement...). Not a big deal in my book. Filling in a pool would probably cost less money than paying a commission on the sale of your house combined with closing costs on a new house and the other associated costs with a new house (paint/decorating, minor repairs, etc). DH and I did think about the ability to age in place when we purchased our current house, although not to the extent of the some of the suggestions above (which are great and definitely things to think about down the road - our house is adaptable to a lot of the above). I had a tri-level for a long time, and we were adamant about a ranch. Period. I didn't care about a basement, but DH wanted a basement - man-cave and all that. We did think about ability to access necessities (grocer, drugstore, etc) when we're older and driving becomes more difficult. But, I wonder if that even matters -- in the next 10-15 years or so (if that) self-driving cars will be the norm, so if you're not at the point now where you can't see yourself driving in the next 10 or so years I wouldn't worry about transportation as a criteria for housing for seniors....See Moredoor installs-retired NY union contractor or Lowes-$1k difference
Comments (29)Funny, it seems as if the ones bashing unions are the ones in management - people who own businesses in the trades. Who would have thought it? :) MamaSage, if the referrals came from the tradesman himself, I'm sorry to say that they're not worth any more than online reviews. He's going to omit any negatives. The sad fact is that unless you can get a direct recommendation from a disinterested friend, relative, or co-worker, there's no really good way to predict how things will turn out. Even then, you sometimes get burned. Without that, you just have to trust your instinct. If possible, start by hiring the person for a small job. If you're satisfied with the results, hire him for a larger one. If you find someone who keeps doing good work, for goodness sake, hang on to him! Marry him if you have to. (Just kidding.) But you can't do this test with a large company, only an individual. When you hire a large company, the actual work will be done by an employee, or even by a subcontractor. You have no way to know who you'll get. You can read lots of examples of the potential results right here on GW. And to be fair, I'm sure we hear far more about the disasters than about the successes. But to show you what surprises can turn up, here's a personal one. Several years ago, I had a mini-split heat pump installed by a fairly large local HVAC company. They were well reviewed online (this was before I'd fully learned my lesson about that), and their bid was competitive. At the time, mini-splits weren't common for residential use in the USA (they still aren't really). The company assured me that they'd installed "hundreds" of them for businesses. That may have been true. But watching him, it hit me about halfway through the job that the specific employee they sent had never installed one before....See Moremaifleur01
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10 years agopatty_cakes
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10 years agofeedingfrenzy
10 years agomaifleur01
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10 years agojoyfulguy
10 years agowkate640
10 years ago
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