David Garrison

MAKING CHILD’S SECOND TIME A CHARM “A wedding planned in your fifties is a different planning problem from the one the bridal magazines were written for,” Eleanor Wren explains in the If She blog, cautioning couples to “scale down before scaling up” in terms of spending. “Money is better spent buying back time than buying […]

 HOME EQUITY HELPS CREATE LIVING SPACE FOR TWO — GENERATIONS For years now, even before aging in place was a “thing,” you and your significant other have pictured spending the rest of your lives in the Indy neighborhood where you’ve lived since the early years of your marriage. With your retirement planned for next year […]

POST-DIVORCE, HOME EQUITY HELPS RESTORE EQUILIBRIUM  In the two years since you retired, life has seemed to be on a negative turn. After 35 years of marriage (three grown children and a couple of grandkids) – last year, your husband moved out and initiated divorce proceedings. In the divorce, (which was mediated), there was never […]

BOLDLY VENTURING OUT WHILE STAYING SAFELY AT HOME  Overall, looking back over the five years since you retired, the two of you are generally satisfied that your careful planning has “paid off”. You’ve been able to check all the important items “off your list” – the home remodel and system upgrade, the life/long term care […]

STAYING HOME WHILE TRAVELING THE FAR EAST  Prior to your retirement last year, you had spent your entire adult lives working full-time as educators, spending every summer hiking and touring in Europe, Canada, or South America. Your plan was to keep living in your home, using your travel budget to explore destinations in Asia. You’d […]

MODIFY THE HOUSE, TWEAK THE ESTATE PLAN  As a lifelong do-it-yourself-er, your husband has been making plans to change several things about the home in which you’ve spent the past forty years (now that the two of you have agreed to spend your hopefully long “old age” right there. As a lifelong careful manager of […]

REVERSE MORTGAGE CAN ENABLE TRUE BROTHERHOOD Your older brother, a widower in his late seventies, had originally been planning to “age in place.” He’d even been going to seminars about reverse mortgages (so that he could remodel the house to make it possible to live on one floor). Unfortunately, following a number of recent health […]

TAKE IT FROM YOUR UNCLE — REVERSE MORTGAGES FUND FINANCIAL GOALS “Reverse mortgages emerging as retirement planning tool for high-net-worth homeowners,” a recent KDH news headline reads. Dionne Warwick might ask, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”, but the answer is far from puzzling. While in earlier years, KDH explains, reverse mortgages were associated with retirees […]

HOME EQUITY HELPS DAD AND DAUGHTER HELP EACH OTHER After your wife’s passing more than a decade ago, you made the decision (you were 71 at the time) to spend your remaining years in the familiar surroundings of your home. While all your children stay in close touch, your sons and their families live quite […]