Wow.

[kyburg]

After yesterday, I was expecting major hate mail. Thanks everyone.

Comments

[callibr8]

You're welcome, I guess. Sometimes you're spot-on in "telling it like it is", and this was one such. I admire your ability to do this; I wish more people could leash their emotions and bravely face facts as you've done.

[sekl.livejournal.com]

I thought you were spot on.

[moropus.livejournal.com]

Everything you said was true for where you live but possibly not for one demented place in SC.

The truth is frequently not pretty or welcome but you didn't say anything horrible.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Nah. Mild disagreement perhaps - as someone else said, you've been doing this as a caretaker or as a quasi-healthy person, whereas I know tons of people who stare at their Stuff and are just too damn sick and tired to deal with the horrible effort of putting it on EBay or organizing a garage sale in the futile hope of scraping one more month of medical bills out of it.

But in general? And especially for anyone healthy enough to hustle? Total agreement. I scream every time someone mentions having a storage unit full of crap when they can barely afford to pay the bills on it. Just ditch the stuff already! There are a few irreplaceable things in life - photos, personally messaged signed books, antiques that belonged to beloved family members or were made by them - and even that last category have to go sometimes. And the signed books might pay for another month of bills, too.

But I do understand being too damn sick and tired to deal with the stuff, and why the chronically ill just don't. My aunt made a few feeble attempts to get rid of stuff, but she was sick and tired and it was bigger than she was.

Getting rid of the house is not so useful - it's probably underwater anyway in this market, and it is a roof. But if the mortgage payments are more than rent on something that's available and would hold you and the kids and pets, it may be time to get out.

Medical debt, last I checked, remains the #1 cause of bankruptcy and the #1 cause of folks sliding from "working poor" getting by to homeless and/or dependent on aid. Most of the time, owning a home doesn't count against the need-based programs; ditto a vehicle. Savings does, which sucks - the tests are usually something like $2000, which is a paltry amount of emergency funds to have. (Which is why a lot of disableds sock cash in a sack and don't tell the banks; they'd lose their benefits if they did, but they need the cash to pay Medicare co-pays, food bills, sudden rises in the gas bill during storms, and the like.)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

As I said, you're not going to be able to sell everything anyway - there's no point in worrying about it. Sick or well.

I actually tried to get out of the condo we were in, as buyers. I couldn't *sell* the place and pay rent, and let me tell you - a two story condo without any wheelchair adapts possible? AWFUL. (And guess where all the bathrooms were?) Motivated? UM.

And as far as savings go? I suggested looking around to see 'what that would look like' - I have no compunction about hiding those funds where they can't be counted or touched. Yes, I am a wicked, wicked girl when I'm saving myself. Was that an option in my case? We had already nearly gone bankrupt in 1992 when he got employed and then injured in 1993. There wasn't anything left to hide....