I swear, every morning it's getting harder and harder to wake up at my normal time. I know I've always been a person that needs a good 9 hours of sleep, but most nights I get at least that. It might be that DH put some sheets over the shop garage door windows, so I'm not getting some of the natural morning light coming in as daylight starts, not to mention it's not getting light out until later. It's almost 8am before it gets light here! Oh well, hopefully my extra sleepy-ness will start to reverse after the winter solstice and it gradually starts getting lighter earlier each day.
DD is checking on if they can get the PMI insurance dropped from their mortgage. They have been at their home 2 years now and estimated value (and what other homes are selling for in her neighborhood) has gone up quite a bit. She emailed her mortgage broker, who ran a valuation on the house and it is a bit more than they would need it to appraise at to drop the PMI. That would give them about $200 a month extra, she said.
House update: we still do not have a complete roof on the house. Hopefully by the end of this weekend we will. They didn't order enough siding, so now have to wait for more of that to come.
FIL/MIL update: Both are still in the rehab care facility. FIL got pneumonia last week, which they are trying to clear up. They said MIL is ready to leave on Sunday. SIL tells them she can't go home, there's no one to take care of her. Again, that is not the facilities problem! She's had 6 weeks now to come up with a plan, knowing on the high chance that MIL probably would not have to stay as long in the rehab place as FIL. They told her she could stay on for $345 a day. So, do that then. I'm not sure why she is ignoring that she needs to come up with a plan for this. Especially knowing the past almost 2 weeks that FIL got pneumonia and isn't going to be able to care for himself, let alone his wife, for awhile. Just because she is not physicall able to care for herself is not a reason for rebab place to keep her in! They put her in for a medical reason from her hospital stay and now that is cleared up. She needs to pay for her care now herself, if she can't take care of herself. So, of course FIL is now saying he's going home Sunday, too, no matter what. That's just a recipe for more problems SIL will have to deal with, in my opinion. She's the one in charge of them, proximity wise and financial wise, so she's going to have to make some decisions. She probably could have had something figured out during this time she hasn't had to constantly be running errands and going to their house all the time for them. But, she seems to wait until it's "maybe" a crisis, like when FIL's surgery went bad and he was in ICU. Then's she's texting her brothers asking what should I do? Then she doesn't take their advice. Oh well, one way or another it will work out for them all and they will figure it out.
Thankfully my mom is like her boyfriend, who has a little apartment in assisted living place. He planned ahead and knew he'd need help and not to rely 100% on his kids for figuring it out/taking care of him. He sold his home a few years ago and moved into this nice place. That is my mom's plan, too, when she can't take care of herself well anymore either. Whether that ends up happening by her deciding to move before it gets absolutely necessary (the plan) or whether something happens to her healthwise, making it happen. She has her home "sale ready" for when the time comes. Over the past few years she has reduced her belongings and given stuff away she doesn't or won't need. She had dd and I make a list of the stuff she currently has that we may want, when she has to move/sell. Thank you mom for being so proactive with getting older!
Inlaws do not take care of their house and never have, really. Plus, they have not tried to downsize their belongings as they got older. My grandma did. My mom has done that. My grandma was able to live on her own until her early 90's, but when the time came to move into assisted care, her home was "sale ready" and since she had gotten rid of stuff over the years, in preparation for it someday, it was a pretty painless process. Same way will be for my mom. My inlaws house is awful. According to SIL they have not even turned on their furnace for a good 10 years because FIL is afraid it will blow up or something (they heat their house with their fireplace insert/firewood.) They could certainly have had it repaired/replaced. DH tries to blame this on "well they are poor". Well, they are not poor. They aren't rich, but they are not poor. They own a house. They have a retirement pension and social security. My grandma had even less then they do, but managed to have her little mobile home clean and maintained and easy to sell and move out when the time came.
So, I'm sure starting Sunday will be a bunch of texts from SIL as she doesn't know what to do again. Like my DD said, does it really need to be this hard to figure out? No, not really. The in-laws own their home except SIL said they have like a $20,000 line of credit against it they owe on, plus their retirement income. It basically boils down to they either need to sell their home and move into assisted living, or since they refuse to move, they need to do a reverse mortgage then and get the equity out of their home so they can fix it for living in and pay to have some help come in on a daily basis and live in help if FIL has to go into the hospital, so MIL can stay at home and have someone there to care for her. What other options are there?
Have you ever had to physically take care of someone? I have with the help of two sisters and I can tell you it isn't easy or fun. Maybe your husband could talk with his sister and at least brain storm care for your mil. Just because you live away, all the care can't be for your sister-in-law. It is draining.
ReplyDeleteI helped my mom when she had to care for both my dad and grandma (for awhile at the same time). It is draining and that is why my grandma went into assisted living care the last few years of her life. She got good care and my mom wasn't physically and emotionally drained. My dad passed before that was necessary. We have tried to help, advise, research options, etc for SIL, but when it comes down to it, it is her decision and she usually does what she wants to do, which for the most part is just try to get through the crisis and then hope it doesn't happen again. But, at their age and health conditions, of course it's just a matter of time before they're going through it all again. It's sad that their dad is so resistant to moving forward into this next phase of their lives. MIL has too much dementia at this point to really even know completely what is going on, but his mind is good. With some assisted living they both would probably live much more comfortable lives. I agree, all the care can't be on SIL's shoulders and I feel their dad should realize that too, and either move into assisted living or hire help to come into their house. They have to do something, not just keep jumping from one crisis to the next.
DeleteGosh that is a difficult situation. There is seemingly a logical solution but then there are their emotions to take into account too of course. I kinda hope they do agree to sell and then move into assisted living. It would seem to make the most sense wouldn't it. My first job when I retire (3 weeks and counting) is to declutter this house from top to bottom. Like you say, at some point it will have to be done anyway so better me than my kids. And as for sleeping in, tell me about it. My bedroom is under the roof, east facing, so I have to have a black-out blind down or I would be cooked like a piece of bacon by the time the sun comes up. The end result is I could sleep for Britain if it were an Olympic event! I would love to wake up to natural sunlight but don't see how that's going to happen!
ReplyDeleteThat's how my grandparents and parents are/were. Started asking us if we wanted stuff several years before it was really necessary. Gradually downsized. My mom wants to keep her little home as long as she can, but she also totally realizes that at some point she's not going to be able to stay by herself. I'm just glad it's not going to be such a huge problem, like it is with DH's parents. My future bedroom has lots of windows, we'll see how I like the light!
DeleteThat would be a huge savings for your DD and her DF to drop their PMI. Sadly, we have it too. I have been adding a little to each payment to insure we will be below the 80% mark when our two years is up.
ReplyDeleteTough situation with your in-laws. I would be very cautious with a reverse mortgage. I have yet to read anything positive about them...that is, other than from those offering them. Best thing for them to do would be to sell their house and move into senior housing. Of course, getting your in-laws to acknowedge this is likely another story. After visiting with my own father just a week ago, I completely understand the challenges.
I agree, reverse mortgage is probably not ideal, but if they are so adamant that they must stay in their house, it's probably their only option, as FIL will increasingly not be able to care for MIL by himself. His heart is not getting better, nor is his lung cancer. We will have about 28% equity into our home when it's completed, so thankfully no extra PMI insurance
DeleteGood for you for avoiding PMI! Our current LTV is 86.5% so we are getting close. I'm such a numbers nerd I've run countless different scenarios to make sure we are where we need to be when we can drop it. We pay $137, so I want it gone ASAP.
Deletehave you checked what it might appraise for now? might be worth paying for one if that gets you to 80%? I have never had PMI on a mortgage before, but when we bought our house it town 2 years ago, we put majority of our money to pay cash for the land, so I had a small downpayment on the house and had PMI. It drove me nuts, LOL.
DeleteConsidering that we refinanced less than a year ago (reduced our interest from 4.5 down to 3.25% and reduced our term from a 30 down to a 15 year) I doubt there has been that much of a change. We bought 2 lots with our home to prevent someone building right next to us and to give us room to expand, hence giving us a larger mortgage. As much as I hate paying the PMI, I feel it was still worth it to buy where we are.
Deleteoh ya, forgot you refinanced, so probably had an appraisal done then. Well, once you are out of the other debt you can also start paying that down too :)
DeleteYes, we did. It was so worth doing as we aren't paying near as much interest. We did roll the closing cost back into the loan, but that was it. Tempting as it was, we took no money out. As for the rest of our debt, although we still have a ways to go, it feels a bit like chump change compared to how much debt we started with! I hope the interest rates are decent when you go to get your mortgage.
DeleteI hope the rates are decent too. That part scares me, but if they are high, they will always come down at some point and I'll just have to do a re-fi
DeleteThat is what happened to us. We actually had a purchase agreement (with a hefty non-refundable deposit) for 11 months before we finally closed. The seller was generous and had given us 15 months to take possession as we had a house to sell. Unfortunately, when we were ready, the rates were higher than we would have liked. Even though we got an excellent rate with our refi, I still watch what the market is doing.
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