When it comes to my parents, I really lucked out.
My sister agrees with me that we really do have some great parents.
So when my dad reached out to me for some help, I was all over it. Mom and dad live in a college town that’s not too far from where I grew up. We all lived in a nice home that had central air conditioning and bedrooms for all of us and a guest room. About 8 years after my sister and I were out of college and doing our own thing, my parents upgraded the HVAC equipment and sold the house. That made sense considering they really wanted to retire in the same town where they attended college. But the cost of housing was a bit steeper than the rural community they left. So I think dad took on a bit more mortgage than he really wanted to given the fact that they were retired. However, dad had always been good with investments and they were okay financially. That is until the affects of the pandemic sort of clobbered their investment portfolio. Dad reached out to me about what I though of him going back to work. I told him to pump the brakes until we could talk about it in person. I flew up there and we started talking about alternatives when it dawned on me they had a finished basement. There was a withoutentrance, a bathroom with a shower and sheetrock walls. I thought that we could paint, put in a bed and a small galley kitchen for cheap. Then, the HVAC company could install a ductless heat pump for heating and cooling. And they could rent the space out to a graduate student. That’s just what they did and my dad stayed retired.