Help for an old lady?

[2B]

Be careful when you do a budget based on her housing costs. With what you've said it is probably going to be the biggest chunk of her spending. What's nice is that housing is probably one of the easiest things to cut back on. It's an emotional issue but its where the leverage is.

I'm firmly against a reverse mortgage because by taking one you've admitted you can't afford your housing costs anymore. There are also lots of fees involved that makes the return pretty poor. When she finally needs assisted living, her one big asset will basically be gone.

I'm always against any annuity but except for her health it might not be too bad an idea for her. Check with Vanguard and see what the payout is. There isn't an heir issue and the payout might be over 10%. A key issue is how is she going to fund assisted living an nursing care so if she goes with an annuity she needs to not go in too deep.

[nwsteve]

Harley
One other possibility to check is the unclaimed property listings for your Mom's state and any prior state's of residence. While working through my deceased Mom's information I found a stock disbursement from her life insurance which demutualized. I then did a search on her deceased husband's name and found several listings in his name. Bunch of paperwork depending on the state but you might be surprised what is out there, especially given their apparent low interest in managing their finances.
nwsteve

[harley]

2B - I agree about the reverse mortgage. Another decent idea ruined by high costs. I don't even want to think about LTC. Any coverage she could get would be prohibitively expensive, even for me to pay. I suspect with this one we'll just have to hope for the best and pay out of pocket if and when the time comes.

nwsteve - excellent idea.Should have thought of it myself. I actually recovered a decent chunk of change for myself a few years ago when I did the unclaimed property search. Thanks for the idea.

Harley

[Buckeye]

Did she file for her stimulus payment? You can still file for free on many sites including TaxAct. They have a selection in one of the drop-down menus to shortcut most of the questions for a "stimulus payment only" return.