I'm 63 And Have Run Out Of Money

Brought to you by CHM, a biblically-based alternative to health insurance. Learn more at chministries.org slash budget. I'm living in a home that is paid for, and I have no bills, I mean I have bills, but I don't have credit bills, I don't have any debt, let's put it that way. Great. My cars are paid for. The problem is my home is in a trust for me, and I'm running out of money myself. I have, I've been able to survive since 2007 on my savings, but I'm down to $4,000. Oh my goodness. Hold on one second. How much are you burning through in a month and then in a year? About $1,000 a month. Your expenses are only $1,000 a month? Yeah, I don't owe anything, I just pay my gas and electric and cost of living. I do have food stamps and I make sure that I don't shop beyond what's on those food stamps. How old are you, Sherry? I'm 63, yeah, 63. And you've been doing this since 2007, essentially living on $1,000 a month out of a savings account? Well, 2007 to 2013, I kind of lived off of whatever I could make doing garage sales or helping an old person or little things here and there. So sometimes it was less than that. You don't have any social security? No, because I'm too young. And when I applied for disability, they kept denying me and denying me and denying me. And they said, you can reapply again next year. What's your age? What's your age for social security? Have you done the math? Yeah, 67. So... You live on your own? And then after five years of denying me, they said, well, you've already passed the five years of being eligible for disability, so now you can't have disability. What is it? What would the disability be for? Do you have some type of physical limitation? Oh, I have a ton. Oh, okay. So are you able to work at all? No, uh-uh. You can't do something over the phone? You can't do customer service all day long? You sound great on the phone right now. I had the same thought. Thank you. Well, the problem with folk, because I've thought about that too, is that I have chronic headaches and complicated migraines. And also with my diabetes, sometimes my blood sugar drops really quickly, although I'm getting better control over that. I would, you know, even thinking about just doing something for like four hours a day, like... Sherry, that's what I was about to say. I do not want to minimize your physical ailments at all, but, you know, those headaches aren't all day long every day, presumably, correct? Well, the headaches are the migraines are. The migraines are worse in the wintertime. Wintertime is most difficult. I have three months that I'm pretty much dysfunctional. But my point is, you have got to do some type of work in and around your ailments. There is no other alternative. You don't want to be a ward of the state. So you call us today in a pretty desperate situation, correct? Correct. So what is the core of your question? The house is paid for. I didn't know... That's great. ...what would be the best way to get money out of the house because it's in a trust. No. No? No. Don't borrow against the house. Is that what you're asking? Yes, I should borrow. No. Jade, tell her why. That's a horrible decision. Don't borrow against it because that's now putting the one thing that you have that's safe and secure at risk because income is an issue for you. And so you don't want to do anything that's going to add debt to your life. And then next thing you know, you can't make the payment. But I do want to circle back to the Social Security. Why are you not able to take the minimum benefit at 62? I mean, obviously, if you wait longer, you'll get more. But why are you not able to... Have you checked into that? I checked into it. I talked to a disability lawyer this past week and she said, try and apply for SSI first. So that's what I'm doing this week. I'm applying for SSI so I can at least get like $600 a month from SSI. If they deny me, then I will have no choice than to tap into my Social Security. But you know, my property taxes are $2,600 a year. And then you've got the insurance and the car insurance and bills. And I don't even know if that'll be enough to... It'll be more than what you have now. I want to come back to the fact that even if you're working 20 hours a week, four hours a day, five days a week, doing customer service on the phone, you're very sharp. You're very kind. You can be doing something like that. You have to. You've got to be bringing in some income. Here's the good news. How do you get jobs like that? You just apply. You've got to apply online for customer service jobs. Listen, here's what's great about those jobs. Everybody's not looking for those. In fact, most people turn down their nose at those things. Sherry, that's your dream job for you. For you. I mean, you understand what I'm saying, right? I've said it before. I've said it before and I'll say it again. We in no way endorse this company. But back in the day when I used to work on cruise ships, I'd go out for a long contract, but then I'd have a little spurt of time that I would look for work. And I'd go on this website. It's still there. You can go on Arise.com and it's all work from home, remote customer service jobs. You pick what you want. It tells you ahead of time what the pay is and you get to, you literally go on and pick your hours. So you can say, I only want to work a 30 minute block or here I want to work an hour and a half block. And you do it like that. It's out there. I'm telling you, go to Arise.com and see what's out there. You do not have competition for those jobs, Sherry. People don't want those jobs. You actually need this job and you get on the phone and you go, hey, I'm 63. I'm great with people. I need some part-time work. They don't need to know about all your business. They don't need to know about your headaches and all that stuff. Those ones, you don't even have to do that. It literally, it's not even an interview, girl. You just go on there, apply for your stuff, put your headset on and you're in it. I love it. So here's the, let me do the math for you, Sherry. If you're working just 20 hours a week, okay, you can make enough to take care of all of your basic bills. The good news for you is you own your home free and clear. You have no debt and you've been living unbelievably cheap. So we're not talking about a 40 hour a week, six figure job, but you've got to bring some income in. Yes. I don't care how you do it. So are you going to hop on a rise when you get off this call or no? Well, on Monday, I got to get my SSI applied for today. Okay. All right. Well, point is, is I'd also be looking at... Probably this weekend I will probably die. Yeah. Don't wait till Monday. Yeah. I was going to say, what you got going on tonight? The way you're living, you don't have a big party life going on tonight. It's not you and the fried green tomatoes hitting the town. Right? Fried green tomatoes. Do you like that reference? Yeah. You know, I'm just trying to go to her age group, you know, it could be the sisterhood of the yaya pants or whatever that was. I don't know. That's good. Anything. Yeah. Anything. I'm pulling up anything I can right now. It's not Thelma and Louise tonight. They're not painting the town red. Got it. Sherry's around the house. You can get online. And listen, this is a serious, serious thing and you've got to happen to this problem. You know, you've got some, some spunk, Sherry. So summon it all together and say, I'm not going to be a victim here. I'm going to take control and you can, but you got to get after it. And for no reason at all, I'm afraid people coming up to her going, well, Jade and Ken said not to borrow against the house and somebody telling her how she needs to do that. Don't do it. There you go. Thank you, Sherry. We're rooting for you.