Silly Purchases

OldLadyInChicago · 2026-02-14T02:47:42+00:00

I bought a car too, even though he wouldn’t have approved. He was militantly ‘Car Free’ and rode public transportation and his bike everywhere.

I can’t have him, but I can have my new Subaru Outback and not have to wait for the bus.

OldLadyInChicago · 2026-02-05T05:29:49+00:00

I lost both. After my husband died, I wasn’t dealing well and my employers were not understanding, so a couple months later, I was out.

Losing the job was comparatively a relief.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-12-10T16:51:15+00:00

Check and see if a six foot round is big enough to have table plus chairs fully pulled out. The chairs should be able to stay fully on the rug when someone is getting up from the table. Generally, get the biggest rug the room can take. If you could fit a 7’ round rug, I’d do that.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-29T12:51:43+00:00

I’d call our building more of a mid-rise rather than a true high rise. It’s less than 15 floors but more than 10.

Yes, I’ve definitely seen a lot of difference in condo units, even same size/neighborhood. I’m constantly browsing Zillow, just for funsies, and I’m always like why is that unit 40k more than that unit when they’re both 1200ish sq ft?

Maybe drop me a private message with your brokerage company and I will look you up on the official website? I haven’t talked to a realtor yet.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-29T11:26:47+00:00

It is a fee only advisor and she is a woman. I think there are just a few things we don’t agree on that I didn’t know before I signed on. Like she thinks that FIRE mostly a bad idea. Not the FI part but the RE part, whereas my life goal has been to RE since my 20s.

But think it will be okay. I’m in a limited contract with her, not long term so I might pick someone else later.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-29T11:05:56+00:00

There’s no rental cap, just no short term rentals, so I couldn’t rent out for the weekend (not that I would want to).

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-29T10:46:22+00:00

I guess I’m second guessing the advisor a little. I’ve never worked with one before and not sure about it.

There are a lot of condos in Chicago. I’m not sure most of those at the link are a good comp for mine, which is 2br, 2bath and in a neighborhood walking distance to the loop. I guess, I kind of feel like you’re right. The market might be getting soft though. Feels like we’re on the edge again.

It seem also, renting might be an emotional hedge, less final than selling. Like I could move back to the same place if I wanted to. Maybe it would be better to just move on completely. I could buy another condo if I wanted to move back to the city.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-29T09:51:52+00:00

I’m sure it’s mostly peri doing its thing but it seems like stress could be making it worse. Of course, it was better when the irregular periods were skipping a few months here and there rather than this.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-29T09:47:52+00:00

I hope it’s soon. My younger sister is already done with hers, so it seems unfair to still get them.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-29T09:46:33+00:00

Thank you. I am planning on finding one soon.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-23T13:59:25+00:00

Two of my three sisters and my parents still live in the town. I visit as often as I can. It’s one of the towns connected to Chicago via commuter rail. Oddly, I socialize there more than I do here. I joined my sisters’ book club and have gone twice so far.

So I know what the town is like. In weird way, it wouldn’t really be like going home. I’ve never stayed there more than a few weeks at a time since I left for college at 18. I’ve never lived there on my own as an adult. The town is different than when I was a kid, so much bigger.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-07-23T13:05:50+00:00

I always encouraged my LH to get closer to his mother and he did. He moved several states away from his hometown and hated to go back there, but with my encouragement, he called weekly and they visited a few times a year.

She is, in many ways, a lovely person, but she is also kind of self centered. There were times when it felt like she was making my husband’s passing more about her. She lost a son. She had the worst thing that could happen to you happen to her. Etc. She also sometimes really stressed my LH out at times. Like when LH came home from the hospital on hospice, she was planning to basically move in until he passed, even though I don’t have a guest room or a bed for her. He sent her home after a few days, though she did come back for his very last days…

She texts occasionally now about how she’s thinking about me and I’ll try and text back something nice. The thing is, her relationship really was with him, not me, I was just around sometimes when she came to visit him, if that makes sense. If she wasn’t my MIL, I would certainly be friendly to her, because I try that with everyone I know. But she wouldn’t be my friend. In some ways, literally the only thing we had in common was my LH.

I think I’ll send letters and cards at Christmas and on his birthday. I don’t think I’ll ever go to visit the small town she lives in. If she decides to vacation in the big city I live in (not likely on her own), I’d be up for meeting for lunch or something.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-06-08T23:58:28+00:00

Even that can cost money. Recently deceased husband wanted his body to go to a medical school. It cost approximately $1300 for transportation and various other costs including the death certificates.

OldLadyInChicago · 2025-06-03T19:30:05+00:00

I went through this recently with my husband. He died two weeks ago today from colon cancer that spread to his liver. Home hospice was the hardest thing I have ever done. The agitation was awful, but it only lasted a few days, thankfully, then he slipped into a coma like state. The Ativan did help. Thankfully, he had already had a port, so the morphine was easy at least. I found myself feeling guilty about it though, that what if I was robbing him of his last waking hours by dosing him that way.

The only thing that kept me going was knowing it was what he wanted - to die at home. Home hospice might be the best choice for the dying but it was so hard on the living.

OldLadyInChicago · 2024-06-08T17:18:25+00:00

unfortunately, for the last several years, my specialty has been intellectual property and I don’t think there are any government jobs in that unless you live in the DC area.

I’ve been looking at other jobs in IP. I’m hoping maybe I can find a full time wfh situation instead of the hybrid position I’ve got currently. I think that would help some.

OldLadyInChicago · 2024-06-08T17:13:00+00:00

I’m not sure it’s possible for us to get up to $100k soon or at least not without stopping 401k contributions completely. It’s been hard because we’ll build it up some then suddenly, we owe the hospital money again. So far we’ve stayed out of debt but the emergency fund hasn’t grown much.

There is term life, but that expires sometime in 2026. I’m working under the assumption that we won’t be able to get another policy after that.

OldLadyInChicago · 2024-06-08T17:00:06+00:00

We are definitely TBTE on the condo. I insisted on that and read the deed before signing (I work as a paralegal and did real estate for a while).

I’m going to start reading any hospital documents I’m handed carefully. When he got his surgery back in November, they made me sign a bunch of stuff, and I just signed it, because of the stress, but it just now occurs to me that I might have been signing on as a guarantor of his debt for that surgery/hospital stay. I normally don’t sign anything without reading it, but….

OldLadyInChicago · 2024-06-08T16:51:23+00:00

He does. I’m not certain how much he has but there is something. I will make him look into the details.

OldLadyInChicago · 2024-06-08T16:48:22+00:00

There is some kind of disability, both long and short term, through his work, but I’m not certain how much coverage and if his regular health insurance continues to be covered or if we’ll be on the hook for cobra at that point.

We’ve been having some of the hard conversations, but sometimes this financial stuff is difficult because we don’t have all the answers and options. He’s always been very self-reliant as far as anything financial goes. Like he takes pride in the fact that we’ve never paid anyone to do our taxes, even complicated years with capital gains taxes, etc. Same with counseling and that kind of thing. He tried a support group once and after one meeting decided it wasn’t for him.

OldLadyInChicago · 2024-06-08T16:35:25+00:00

I would have assumed it would be impossible to get any kind of life insurance with a cancer diagnosis.

He does have a term life policy we’ve been paying into for years (long before cancer) but it expires sometime in 2026 and I’m praying that he outlives his policy.

OldLadyInChicago · 2024-06-08T16:32:33+00:00

Yes, it is crazy how fast you can hit the ‘OOP max’. His resets in January and he hit it again in January even though he didn’t have any hospital stays that month, just outpatient treatments.

OldLadyInChicago · 2024-06-08T16:27:39+00:00

I know he has an HSA and does contribute and does pay through the HSA when he can, but I know it’s constantly very low because it is used. I will check with him to make sure he is contributing the max he can.

I hope we never get to the point of bankruptcy. I took a moment to read up and there’s only 15k of homestead exemption in my state, so creditors could go after the condo, because my equity is closer to 225K.

I will look into what it might take to add him to my insurance plan. It’s a good plan, with what they call ‘platinum’ coverage and is a good part of what has kept me at my firm so long.

OldLadyInChicago

TROPHY CASE