This is a long post but I really, really, really appreciate any advice. If you want the short story skip to the end.
I am 25, a (E-4) soldier in the army, married and have a mother sick with Lyme disease.
LONG STORY.
About 4 years ago I enlisted in the army to pursue my aspirations of becoming better than I was. I was aloof in life and needed some refinement, direction and skills. My family was also broke so college wasn't in the cards at the time. Once I left for OUST (Infantry basic training) my communication was limited for months with the outside world and unknown to me, my mother was diagnosed with Lyme Disease. She mentioned it in passing but she never pressed that it was anything to be worried about. And honestly, I didn't have the luxury to think much about it. Once I graduated from Airborne school I moved to Ft Bragg and started another period of training. All the while my mothers health is degrading. In my free time I would call my mother and little sister to see how they were and if I could, I would hop a flight and go visit them. When I would visit my hometown I would stay with my girlfriend's family's (now my wife) house. Neither my sister or mother would let on how bad my mothers health was becoming when we would talk. When I would visit them in person my mother would look a little different but not enough for me to worry past her explanation.
As my training progressed, my mothers health got even worse. During this time I began to notice a difference in our conversations. She was stumbling over her words and becoming confused more frequently than was healthy. My little sister was beginning to show signs that something was really going wrong at home. I was in one of the final phases of my training when I went home for Christmas Exodus to propose to my girlfriend. The proposal went perfectly and most of Christmas went really well. In the last few days before I left to return to post everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
My extended family (who knew of my mothers health and were helping support her) crumbled. My Grandfather's Dementia took a drastic turn for the worst and my grandmother was rushed to the hospital with congestive heart failure. The drastic blow to the health of my family's patriarch caused old family issues to explode and some nasty family politics occurred. My mother was completely cut off, financially and emotionally from the rest of her family. All at once. With that, the responsibility of taking care of my mother in her failing health crashed totally on my shoulders.
My mother was sick; she couldn't drive, she couldn't work, less than a month of savings and she had zero income. Even worse my little sister who was 15 at the time was failing school and crumbling under the weight of responsibility of caring for our mother. Our father (divorced) wasn't completely out of the picture but suffice to say that he made things worse, not better. AND I was stationed 700 miles away and in the middle of training that consumed my life. My fiance was doing her best to help out now that we were privy to how dire the situation had become but she was also in college and working so her time was greatly divided.
Needless to say I was overwhelmed.
I attempted to resume my training but I could not focus properly on my studies and attempt to find a resolution to the problem of my mother's life situation. So I withdrew from the course. I spent the better part of 9 months driving back and forth between post and my mother's house every weekend to work a plan. My mother was completely overwhelmed by her health, family issues, financial problems, just everything everything, that I was given a Durable Power Of Attorney to take care of everything. During this time I was also gathering the medical paperwork, personal testimonies, and other miscellaneous paperwork the Army needed for a Compassionate Reassignment to a military post closer to my home town.
On one of my visits I evaluated her financial situation and realized that she couldn't live the same life. Her house was in shambles, a complete wreck. It would need restoration to get any equity out of it. So I began to restore her house. I went from the foundation to the roof restoring that house. In 9 months of weekends I completely replaced both bathrooms, refinished 1,000 sq ft of hardwood floors, replaced and reinforced the floor joists under the kitchen floor, replaced the kitchen floor and sub-floor, painted every single wall, put up 700 ft of crown molding, used 16 tubes of caulk, and a ton of landscaping. All of our supplies came from liquidators and craigslist. We paid the bills with my paycheck, garage sales and auctions.
This was my engagement. My fiance and I spent nearly every evening I was home covered in drywall dust and paint just trying to get the house done, on the market, and off our hands.
Once the house was restored we put it on the market and discovered that our hard work and increased the house price by $80,000. In those months we invested about $11,000 in supplies and some paid labor. Mostly it was a lot of sweat and tears. We got a full asking price on the first day it was on the market. During the inspections mold was found in the crawlspace and it cost us $11,000. But we sold it. I walked away with $168,000 in equity.
I signed the papers to close on the sale of my mother's house with a P.O.A. on my honeymoon.
Now here comes a point that I am not proud of. In the space of 17 months my mother and sister have burned through roughly $90,000. I did my best to regulate their spending but I was in Georgia for the first 8 months after the sale to re-class to a different job (MOS) in the Army so that I could actually move to the Military post closest to my family. A decent amount of money was the actual cost of packing and the actual move that I could not be there for. Also their storage units were $4,000 a year. So I purchased a 40' shipping container and dehumidifier for $2,700 and put it on my property to save money. I rented a house for them in the same area that their old house was in so that my little sister wouldn't be completely uprooted and my mother would still have some amount of a supportive community. But that rental cost us dearly because the area had a decently high cost of living. With a sick woman and a pretty teenager I didn't want to move them to a cheaper, more dangerous area. Especially without me there, I was worried about them. My mother was pretty close to suicide and my sister was about to run away to become a ward of the state.
My new wife was not allowed to come with me to Georgia so we spent our first 6 months of our marriage separated. During that time she was able to help my sister get back on track with school and came to visit me periodically. While in Georgia I took $50,000 and began to invest in ETFs on the stock market and was fairly successful with it. Simple day trading. Albeit a bit reckless in hindsight but it paid their bills for a while. Now I just don't have the time to invest in watching the stock market and the stress was awful. But once I got through the time in Georgia and moved to the closest post, life kinda began to level out. I bought a house and finally got to live with my wife.
But the good part: right now my little sister is about to graduate high school with full ride scholarships to 4 schools for academics and athletics! She is now 18 and has a good head on her shoulders. She is moving out and going to be just fine. My mother's health is better, just barely, but still better. And relations with our extended family have begun to heal. I am now stationed within 2 hours of them and I live in a house that I own with my beautiful wife. My mother currently lives with some friends in their upstairs suite to save money while we make a long term plan. Now that my sister is well taken care of, my mother can now focus wholly on her own life and welfare. Its time for me to make my next steps.
SHORT STORY.
I do not have a lot of time to make this work.
I have roughly $75,000 of my mothers money to secure her future. I live in a great housing market with many real estate opportunities. I am making her my dependent under DFAS so she can be on my healthcare. I will ETS in about a year to return to school with my G.I Bill to pursue a career in the medical field and commission as a medical officer. I will be traveling for 8 months out of the next 12.
I need to stop the bleeding of my mothers money. Currently my mother is just bleeding money. I have her on a strict budget of $1,300 until we can establish a source of income.
My mother was initially denied Disability but we are still perusing it and it's looking better this time. On her "Good days" she is beginning to look into getting some type of online job. Not much but any little bit helps.
I looked at buying her a tiny house so that I could put her on a property that was already being rented by a tenant. And if she doesn't live in the tiny house I could rent it as an AirBNB or something like it. The problem is that tiny houses are crazy expensive, loans are not simple and it seems like a waste of capital when compared to property.
I need an income of $1,500 to keep her stable and even start saving. Long term, if her health gets worse I will build her a house on my property once my wife have found our place to settle down.
I have a couple plans depending on what opportunity arises first:
- OPTION 1 is to by a small property that would have a low enough mortgage that it could be covered by another investment house being rented as corporate housing.
- OPTION 2 is to buy a duplex so that the mortgage and utilities is basically covered by tenant and have a second investment house to rent.
- OPTION 3 is to have her live in a small property and rent a duplex.
I need a place for her to live that is not in my house. and an income she can reasonably live off of and even save money.
My personal budget for post ETS looks good. I will be making $2,500 more than I currently make. The problem is my current time crunch to make this work.
I have had to dive head first into everything I have mentioned in this post over theses last few years just keep everyone afloat, so I know that I am over my head. Any advice would be helpful.
Submitted April 14, 2018 at 10:36PM by Beerddviking626 https://ift.tt/2IWmgpl
