He had a pension from Mac Trucks/Brockway, but it was not enough.
They reversed mortgaged several times and that was what they lived off of for the rest of their lives.

Now if I can just get my son employed I might actually have a chance.

Investment and credit allows us to access future wealth to build the source of that wealth today. It is a bootstrap technique, a financial time machine. You borrow money to buy tools so you can do the job that would never get done otherwise.
Used that way, it is a good thing.

But when investment becomes an end in itself, a means of earning a living, a substitute for manufacturing as opposed to an aid to it, a financial industry (what a delicious oxymoron that is!), it becomes corrupt and toxic, especially when the “leveraged” assets are someone elses money.

I’ll borrow money to buy a house because I need to live somewhere, and ownership is cheaper than renting, even when you factor in the interest. But to mortgage your house to buy another in the hope that someday you can sell it for a profit, is just gambling. If you win the bet, fine, gloat all you want. But if you lose, don’t come singing the blues to me.

This is kindergarten-level financial rules, learned at my father’s knee.

I have had advisors try to talk me into borrowing more on my house than I wanted, but I have never heard any legitimate investment advisor say you should borrow money on your house and then invest it in the stock market.

Investment is what makes it possible for people to work.

Its thinking like that that has put this country in the jam its in now. I’m no economist, but I am a physicist, and I know you don’t get something for nothing. Wealth is not created by investment, its created by work, and a system where nobody works and everybody wins sounded like perpetual motion to me.

A house is a source of cash if and only if one of you has a job to impress a refinancing outfit. If you’re out of work or retired, that pile of equity might as well be on Mars unless you actually sell the house.

If you don’t think you’re going to need extra money, and it’s all paid for, that’s cool too.

Incidentally, anybody who would tell you to borrow money to put it in the stock market is certifiable. I hope you told them so.

I really would love an older house with character…and about 1,400 sq.foot. Can’t go anywhere right now. Many upgrades are needed to making the sale of this house more alluring.

Can buy a brand new one for the same price.