I am 70 years old, single and I have to choose between retirement or keep my house: “I need an angel”

By Beth Pinsker

“ I owe money on my mortgage and I cannot afford to retire and keep my house ”

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Dear fix my portfolio,

I am 70 years old and single. I am a teacher and always teaches because I cannot afford to retire. I owe money on my mortgage and I cannot afford to retire and keep my house.

I took care of my mother for six years to prevent her from having to enter a nursing home and that took all my accessible money. I need an angel who could help me get into a better situation.

Are there any ways available for singles like me?

Stuck in class

Dear stuck,

It seems to me that you are the one who is the angel: you help the children every day and you have helped your mom. You deserve a break and the possibility of focusing on yourself.

For this, you don’t need someone to save yourself, and there is probably no cavalry ready anyway. Fortunately, you are everything you need, but a good plan will greatly help help you feel better in things like one of the five million people solo. And don’t worry, 70 is not too late. You are obviously strong and energetic if you always get up for school every day and treat with children to make a living.

It may seem that age slips on you, but you have three very important things for you that you mention in this letter:

1) You always work and have had a career teaching. This means that you have any income for the moment, and you probably have any pension that you have maximized after working so many years.

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2) You are the owner. Even if the costs are high, you have equity, which offers you options.

3) You can start to claim social security services now, even if you were previously limited due to provisions that prevented teachers and other officials from receiving services and pensions, called WEP and GPO.

To take these elements and transform them into an aging plan into two very simple parts, here is what you need to consider:

Your income strategy

If you retire, you must be really effective in managing all your sources of income, because you say that you have exhausted your savings by taking care of your mother. If there is nothing more than Social Security and a pension, you must make a budget that works with this amount. If possible, budget below your monthly amount so that you can save for emergencies.

If your teaching skills are something that you can monetize, you may be able to win an additional tutoring. You would be surprised to see how ready to pay for experienced help for their children in all kinds of areas, which is most happening for preparation and SAT and college help. Some parents even need help to navigate the administrative formalities of the school system to get services for their children, which you can probably help.

Another source of income to consider is the provision of care, perhaps not full time, but perhaps as older companion or other type of help. You obviously have a lot of experience in this sphere too. You can even teach others how to be caregivers, which is a precious competence to transmit.

All this is to say that there are ways to make this work. It may seem impossible, but you already do it. You have succeeded at 70, still working in a difficult profession. You are a success in my opinion.

Your accommodation and long -term care

Regarding the advice for Solo Agers, the resource in which I turn the most is “which will take care of me by Joy Laverde when I am old” in order. Have you taken care of your mother, but who will take care of yourself when you need help?

One thing LVERDE suggests is to assess whether your current darling house is safe and practical for aging in place, which is not only to offer maintenance costs. Are there stairs? Do you have bars in the bathroom? Is there a lawn to mow or a stroll for shovel?

If you take a realistic aspect and you do not think that you can manage it for yourself, you can make your whole decision on long-term care needs and the accommodation in a single stroke. I know you like your house. People usually want to age in place. But it’s not always the best choice.

You now have time to explore other options, such as assisted life, continuous care retirement communities or nursing houses. These can grow with you as your needs change. Other informal shared life situations could go from you by admiring a resident to pool resources with a friend and move together. The way of making the best use of these is to take precedence over before being in crisis, in this way, you can use equity in your home as a lever effect at your next step.

If this concerns you unpleasant, there are other ways to use equity in your home to help your finances. As you are over 62 years old and you own, you can withdraw an inverted mortgage on your home. This would allow you to go beyond what you could glean from a home credit line and not to worry about having to reimburse the privileges. An inverted mortgage uses your home as a guarantee for a loan that pays you, generally monthly, rather than paying. The ticket is paid after your death, and as you are not worried to leave your home for heirs, this could be a good way to extract from the value of your home now and reduce your monthly bills, because you will get money instead of paying a mortgage.

Reverse mortgage contracts can be complicated, so be sure to speak first of all to a credit advisor or a defender of a social service agency such as the National Council on aging. They can help you understand all the risks involved and can also connect with other resources from your community. There are other angels like you if you are going to get them.

You can also join the retirement conversation in our Facebook community: you get better with Marketwatch.

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-Beth Pinsker

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