Dear Editor:
Re: Hey, Millennials – Boomers Tired of Your Blame Game, April 19 Mailbox.
I agree with the writer entirely.
As a senior in my 80s, I am beginning to get quite a complex.
I am an avid radio listener and reader of real newspapers and one of the most common reasons given, regarding our overcrowded hospitals, long medical waiting lists, increased population, increased traffic, lack of family housing, lack of jobs, etc. etc., is because “seniors are living longer.”
Perhaps when we pass our “best before dates” we should all be placed in canoes with a sandwich and a bottle of wine and pushed out to sea!
Yes, we are sitting in million-dollar homes now; however, many of us struggled through extremely high interest rates, on fairly low incomes, to pay what was considered then, very high house prices.
Us so-called well-off seniors are now living on incomes set in 1995 dollars, that do not go very far on 2017 dollars.
Our careful planning in making sure we had saved enough money to retire on, based on information from our financial advisors, went up in smoke, when interest rates plunged from high interest rates to below six per cent.
However, having correctly anticipated and worried that such high interest rates would not last, most of us, responsibly based and made our plans on a low rate of interest. Nobody anticipated them dropping to below six per cent and staying there.
The average senior’s main investment, is in our home and our home is our hedge against inflation.
Many seniors of today who are now million-dollar home owners are poor in disposable income, rich in assets.
We will need the money in our homes to pay for our care, if we have to go into a care facility, for our remaining years.
If we are lucky enough to remain independent and healthy, until we are carried out from our homes feet first, the money from our house sale, hopefully, will be a financial help to our families, who we have loved and cherished and cared for all our lives.
Maureen Bragg
North Vancouver
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