Fighting over something that, even if split, would be way more than either of them could eat.
There's a message in there.
Read on USAToday.com this morning: The average U.S. household carries $137,063 in debt. The breakdown:
- Credit cards - $16,883
- Auto - $29,539
- Student loans - $50,626
- Mortgage - $182,421
Note: the numbers don't add up because, for example, the student loan figure as the average among households that actually have that burden. Those are the averages for people who have debt in that category.
I would have perpetually poopy pants if we had anything close to that. I would be so anxiety ridden I couldn't function. To make those numbers worse, the average U.S. household (!) income is $59,039. If every dime of that income went to debt reduction it would still take almost three years to eliminate the debt.
In related news: there's a pretty big plot of land being developed on the edge of Veneta, 5 miles from our home. They cleared the trees, leveled the land, and are ready to pour foundations. I asked at the coffee shop what they were building and was told it's a big self storage unit. That will make the fourth such business in Veneta, a town of under 5,000. OK, add in surrounding areas like our unincorporated Elmira and you still have less than 10,000.
People, we're accumulating Too Much Stuff!
We're building bigger houses than ever, having smaller families than ever, and STILL need to pay money to store the stuff we can't cram in our garages.
You know those Facebook messages that tell you who among your friends is having a birthday today? And you see a bunch of the "Happy birthday" messages sent to them by people, many of whom you don't know.
Two of our "friends" have birthdays today so I'm seeing people who are also on their "Friends" list and their happy birthday greetings.
I'm amused by the people sending birthday messages to Kanisa la Neema on her 65th birthday.
Except that's Church (kanisa) of (la) Grace (neema) in Tanzania. It's the national organization of churches in Tanzania that was formally established 65 years ago.
Based on the greetings they've posted I'm guessing a lot of people here just "liked" that page because their church has supported missionaries in TZ and thinks dear Kanisa is being feted on her birthday.
My dad has been struggling with his recovery from Monday's surgical repair of his broken hip. It seems he had a very bad reaction to the pain med they gave him in the hospital and was incoherent, delusional, and combative for the first 36 hours or so at the rehab unit. According to my younger brother Mark who's there he seems to be emerging from that state, but he's not "back" yet and certainly not where he was when this all started Sunday night when he fell.
Not knowing what his future looked like I did some research on Medicare and long term care for the elderly. I quickly learned that every state has its own rules on who's eligible and how much of their assets they can retain and still receive long term care financial assistance. That includes completely different rules in each state on "spend down."
One of the articles I read said the time to think about that is NOW, no matter how old you are. That's because federal regs require that any protection of assets has to be done at least five years before you apply for Medicare help. If you do it later than that or sell assets at less than market value they assume you're gaming the system. Federal fraud charges.
I also read that one of the best ways to protect assets is through a trust. That way they're not "your" assets, they are the trust's assets and you're just controlling them.
Put those together and a trust doc needs to be prepared at least five years before you need it. I'm 67 and Pam is 65. It's very reasonable that one or both of us could need long term care within the next five years.
When we're in AZ in January one of the things on our to-do list is to meet with Chad, our most excellent financial advisor. This will be one of our discussion topics!!
Five miles at a lope. At 44 degrees I could have used another layer.
Freezing again tonight, which means I can start doing some of the winter tasks like pruning the grape vine.
2 comments:
Craig, we enjoy your commentary. Your post contains worthy subjects and your commentary is, as usual, "spot on" as our Canadian and British friends would say. We entered retirement with no debt and have been able to do quite well. But we still accumulate too much stuff, even though the stuff is "stored" on our premises and no rental space is needed. We have too much and we know that.
We are sorry to learn of your father's health issues; we pray that his pain and suffering will ease and that he can get back to comfort in his retirement. We all question the correct preparation for long-term care; may you find quickly the correct approach for you.
Thanks, sir.
We also have no debt, although we're still learning how to live on our small SS income. More tweaking is req'd. The good news: with 840 sq. feet of home we don't accumulate because we can't. Simplicity has become our norm.
I'm going up to see dad this week and hoping he's back to his old self by then. To see him struggle mentally will be sad. However, God is in control, does all things well, and has dad's future in his gracious hands. We're thankful for his sure and certain eternal future.
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