There is an alternative Grandmother!

As I read this article, I felt like I was reading about my mother in some ways.
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A Homeowner With No Savings, but Some Options
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IF you’re worried that you haven’t saved enough for retirement, you’re probably right. Most of us haven’t. In fact, the Employee Benefit Research Institute found the majority of American workers had put away less than $25,000 for their golden years.

But even those people are in better financial shape than Susanna Wilson, 70, who saved nothing.

Her only dependable income is a Social Security check of about $900 a month.
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In her 40s, Ms. Wilson moved to California and became a publicist. At her peak, she made around $65,000 a year, she said, and not a penny of that made its way into a retirement fund. “One thing kind of led to another,” Ms. Wilson said. “I’ve always put all my money into my businesses. And I always thought the business I was in was going to be a great success.” She also raised a daughter, Corie, 36, who lives in Los Angeles with her two children and is not in a position to help her mother financially.

Now twice divorced and living alone with her Shetland Sheepdog, Rooney, Ms. Wilson subsists on those government checks, plus a one-day-a-week job at a local jewelry store that pays $12.50 an hour. She received no alimony from either divorce. Ms. Wilson also makes little girls’ dresses under her O’Susanna label, at a vintage Singer Featherweight sewing machine in her dining room. But she sells only about six a month for around $200.
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OK, so, she has little income now, she pissed away what she had before and she's got $150K in equity in her house. ONLY the NYT would see this as a bad thing!!! And Ms. Wilson is among that generation, like MY mother, who got the idea that they would ALWAYS live alone in their own house. Why do they think that and where did it originate?

These are people who grew up in The Depression. Extended family was often the only place to bed down then. Before that, and often into the 50's and 60's, many people had a Grandparent or Maiden Aunt or Crazy Old Uncle Dave who lived with the family. But for some reason, the same generation that housed those older family members, NEVER thought it would happen to them.
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We've come full circle though. More 20 somethings are living with mom and dad, more of Ms. Wilson's generation are being forced to move in with sons and daughters, and I think it's a good thing. But that's just me, I guess. I hope these people don't need each other in the future, it's always too late when that type NEED out weighs WANT in a family.
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Schteveo