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by Kate Lee
November 13, 2008
T
his weekend, my mom told me she had a heart attack.
Not really.
She had opened her financial statements.
And while the change in her account in one month would surely justify heart failure, I'm
glad that she could still show a sense of humor.
Seeing the results of the current financial meltdown on her portfolio certainly gave me cause
for concern. This represents the combined savings of my parents over the course of 50+ years
of marriage. They managed through several recessions, layoffs, and more - my older brother
came into the world "C.O.D." as they joked back then, in the days before corporate health care was
the standard.
Her home and car are fully paid; Medicare covers most of her medical needs. She
doesn't live extravagantly; her annual birthday and Christmas Savings Bond purchases as gifts to
her grandchildren others are her biggest "optional" expense.
With a forty-year-old home, she's likely to have some major maintenance expenses soon.
In other years, her portfolio earnings would cover such costs. This year, we' may have to
look into selling some of her holdings, and that will likely be at a loss.
And while experience shows that holding stocks through a downturn, instead of liquidating a
portfolio, is the best long-term financial plan, I'm sure many retirees are worried about how long
this economic downturn will last as well as how much more severe it will become. I know it
was a burning topic for her friends at church and her volunteer activities.
Given her good health and long-lived genes, my mother will likely survive this economic
crisis, just as she has so many others. After all, my grandfather was still cleaning his own
gutters at 97!
For the rest of us, there are some great calculators to help plan the financial future at
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