A Boring Dystopia

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This 81-year-old still works at Home Depot to support herself and her 90-year-old husband (www.businessinsider.com)

submitted 3 days ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 52 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (36 children)

I feel sorry for the 81 year old and her husband. However, they have made nearly every wrong financial decision over most of their lives.

In 1994 husband was making $90k a year and quit that job to start up a band and teach music lessons
They bought a fixer-upper house in 2002 to flip it, except they still had it in hand in 2008 when the real estate market crashed
They had $75k in the market prior to the crash, and sold it all at the bottom of the market before the rebound.
They never saved more than $10k in a 401k
They defaulted on their mortgage in 2015 and lost he house, but did gain $115k from the forced sale.
They declared bankruptcy (it doesn't say when). Usually this protects the house, as in you're not kicked out. So I can't quite square why the house was forced for sale if they were under bankruptcy protection. This is a clue they had a lot more debt than just the house.
"The income from a side business Lydia had started to help people downsize their homes, and the piano lessons that Bill gave, weren't enough." This was 2015 and at best their only income was a couple small side hustles. Admittedly they were in their early 70s at this point.
Even today it looks like they're spending over 20% of their income on car related expenses (payment, insurance, gas).
They're also still living in Connecticut which looks to be more expensive place to live. A quick Google search of West Virginia 55+ one bedroom apartments go for $450-$900. So they could probably cut their rent in half if they moved to a cheaper city/state.

They've truly had some horrible timing and luck, however I truly hope their situation improves.

[–] yonderbarn@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You might be able to make an argument for this grandma, but there are countless others. You can't deny we have a systemic problem that leaves seniors out in the cold

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

You might be able to make an argument for this grandma, but there are countless others. You can’t deny we have a systemic problem that leaves seniors out in the cold

My comments are only about the couple in the article. The reason that is important is that the couple in the article are not the archetype we need to solve for. Its, as you point out, all the countless others. In effect, we should not look at this couple to see how to solve the problem of our senior citizens not able to age/live gracefully.

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