Dear Eric: My 90-year-old mother-in-law has been in cognitive decline for a while. In December, her physical state went downhill quickly, and it fell to me to find her an assisted living facility so she can have 24/7 care. I found it was no easy task.
Her medical bills now total more than $16,000, and her monthly prescriptions run $386. My husband and I have wiped out our liquid savings of $60,000 helping to support her for the past nine years.
We don’t want to touch our retirement savings because we will face penalties and taxes. And we’d like to retire next year ourselves because we are 67. Yet now we face the fact that we will need to continue our teaching jobs and most likely each get a second job to cover what we can for her…