Suddenly, the questions shed been studying for years became personal.
Will I be healthy?Will I lose my memory?
How long will I work?
Will I have enoughmoney?
Where should I live?
And how will I die?
In this adaptation, she addresses how to prepare financially for later years.
Will I have enough money?
My grandfather did not have an easyretirement.
Life expectancy, when he was born in 1897, was around 47.
My grandmother was left with little to live on, but at least she had the family farm.
My fathers expectations of aging were substantially different.
When he retired in 1994, his mortgage was paid off, and he had no other debt.
I also worry for my kids generation.
My daughter and son are now in their late teens and early 20s.
They could be contract workers, self-employed, or members of the gig economy.
Ideally, my kids wont have to care for my husband and me.
Ideally, they wont get sick themselves.
Ideally, theyll figure out how to take care of themselves financially.
But we live in a world where things very often arent ideal.
Americas retirement-support system needs dramatic improvements to keep pace with our longer lives.
Many of us avoid thinking about retirement planning altogether.
Nearly half of workers say they havent tried to calculate how much money theyll need during retirement.
But we should all think about it.
The price of living longer
Longer life is full of economic trade-offs.
It means we will have more years of life tofinance, with or without paychecks.
Younger people often assume thatMedicarewill pay for all their health costs once they hit 65.
But we still have to pay insurance premiums, co-pays for doctor or hospital visits, and prescriptions.
These huge figures dont even take into account the costs of long-term care and other living expenses.
Even those who have tried to save can find themselves struggling if they are hit with emergencies.
I didnt know how much I could help but said I was happy to try.
I gave Lawrence a call, and he began by telling me about his life.
Lawrence and his wife raised eight children in rural Utah and have 42 grandchildren whom they adore.
He had saved money and invested as wisely as he could.
He and his wife depended on their Social Security payments and on help from family to make ends meet.
Still, their debt kept climbing.
They tapped the equity built up in the house to pay some bills and even considered selling their home.
How could they possibly let it go?
But how could they make it through their second fifty if they didnt?
I shared the pros and many cons of reverse mortgages.
Lawrence did end up getting one.
He was able to keep the family home and access additional equity to draw on for emergencies.
Ive always wanted a place the kids felt they could come home to, he told me.
Lawrence isnt alone in his struggle to get by.
Many Americans are only a health crisis away from losing their homes or sinking into poverty.
