married one day / widow the next

[Deleted]

Facetious question:

When someone loses a spouse, does their mortgage payment get cut in half? What about the house insurance and property taxes?

People say when one is married the expenses are twice as much. Someone I know lost his wife in a car accident. They both worked so they had two incomes. He only has to make 1/2 the house payment now, right?

[zibazinski]

I'm not amused.

[cael]

Um, no? What are you getting at?

[Deleted]

Some people think married people have twice the expenses.

[Deleted]

Well, I've never heard people say that. More commonly that "two can live as cheaply as one", although obviously that isn't completely true either.

[zibazinski]

Actually you can lose everything you had. I not only lost my husband, I lost everything else. Including my home.

[Tiny]

People say when one is married the expenses are twice as much. Someone I know lost his wife in a car accident. They both worked so they had two incomes. He only has to make 1/2 the house payment now, right?

And this is why you buy term life insurance.


I've never heard the "expenses are twice as much" for double income families. I've heard the "two can live as cheaply as one" though.

Maybe, it's not so much the "married" but the potential for 2 incomes in a married/living together couple. So a double income family can afford twice as much stuff (assuming both breadwinners are earning comparable incomes). Doesn't mean they should spend twice as much though.

[techguy]

Wow what a question, and I thought I was brash in some of my postings...

[Works4me]

Oct 20, 2016 16:55:35 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Actually you can lose everything you had. I not only lost my husband, I lost everything else. Including my home.

If I may be so rude as to ask, how did that happen? Pre-nup? No will? IIRC he wanted to take proper care of you. If you don't want to,answer, please don't. I just have hated to see you going through such a hard time after such a loss because I know you really did love him.

[zibazinski]

Oct 20, 2016 17:12:38 GMT -5 Works4me said:

Oct 20, 2016 16:55:35 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Actually you can lose everything you had. I not only lost my husband, I lost everything else. Including my home.

If I may be so rude as to ask, how did that happen? Pre-nup? No will? IIRC he wanted to take proper care of you. If you don't want to,answer, please don't. I just have hated to see you going through such a hard time after such a loss because I know you really did love him.

I really did and I think he loved me, too. He just procrastinated too long and time ran out for both of us. I'm hoping he never meant to hurt me

[Works4me]

Oct 20, 2016 17:16:45 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Oct 20, 2016 17:12:38 GMT -5 Works4me said:

If I may be so rude as to ask, how did that happen? Pre-nup? No will? IIRC he wanted to take proper care of you. If you don't want to,answer, please don't. I just have hated to see you going through such a hard time after such a loss because I know you really did love him.

I really did and I think he loved me, too. He just procrastinated too long and time ran out for both of us. I'm hoping he never meant to hurt me

I'm sure he never meant to hurt you, especially given the way things happened. I'm just trying to figure out how you were left with nothing - as his legal wife it seems to me that you would get the bulk of his estate.

[zibazinski]

It was all in a trust that he drew up before we were married. I'm entitled to the income of the trust which given the rates today, doesn't amount to much. What he said would happen if something happened to him was not what ended up happening.

[zibazinski]

Had we been married longer my lawyer would have seen the problems and addressed them. At least I'd have had a heads up if DH was unwilling to change his will and trust.

[weltschmerz]

Oct 20, 2016 16:50:55 GMT -5 @bluester said:

Some people think married people have twice the expenses.

Why would they have twice the expenses? That doesn't make any sense.

[sesfw]

When I lost my Bill the household expenses didn't go down.  And he didn't have any life insurance.  I was working and thankfully our house payment was low enough that I could handle it.

The only expense that went down was food

The heart ache went up exponentially ............



(((((((((( zib ))))))))))))))) mega hugs my friend

[MJ2.0]

What in whose hell....?

[zibazinski]

Oct 20, 2016 17:51:59 GMT -5 sesfw said:

When I lost my Bill the household expenses didn't go down.  And he didn't have any life insurance.  I was working and thankfully our house payment was low enough that I could handle it.

The only expense that went down was food

The heart ache went up exponentially ............



(((((((((( zib ))))))))))))))) mega hugs my friend

Omg, mine was a Bill, too

[haapai]

I've heard the phrase "two can live as cheaply as one" and it is possible that for a very short period of my life, I found that to be almost true.

It was 1993, we were in our early twenties and living in what was basically an SRO.  We didn't have cars, health insurance or debt obligations.  The rent was about $200 a month and the phone was about $25 a month for fifty calls a month under a lifeline program for low-income individuals.  The landlord asked for another $25 or $50 a month when she moved into my 10' X10' cell but we probably recouped the extra expense by cooking more $.25 mac and cheese on hot plates instead of wolfing down $1 a slice pizza when we were starving.  We also recouped quite a bit of the added expense by staying in our hovel talking to each other instead of going out into a college town and essentially renting a space outside of our miserable room. 

Living together gave us the courage to actually use a rather frightening and dangerous housing arrangement to our advantage.  Some fairly unstable and disturbing people lived in the same building but never being entirely alone made this much more bearable.  (Trying to sleep when the person in the next room has been talking to themselves for four hours is not easy.  Waking up and finding blood or feces smeared into the hallway carpet is also pretty disturbing.  Having someone to talk about this stuff helped a lot.)  We felt freer to work late and odd hours and took messages for each other before buying an answering machine.  In 1993 having a roommate who would answer the landline when you were away and either tell the caller where you could be reached or hoof a message to you was a big stinking deal.  A lot of our income at that time came from being reachable when coworkers called in.

We'd wash our laundry together, which saves quite a bit when you have limited clothing and need to wash the same things quite frequently.  It also got us over the dinky package of laundry detergent hurdle.  Somehow, because there were two of us, we found the wherewithal to buy larger packages of soap and haul them home on the bus.  I'm not sure how much of this was about scrapping together the funds to buy ten pounds of laundry detergent at the same time or how much it was about having one person to haul the detergent home and the other one being able to schlep the food. 

We helped each other survive, living together might have even been the reason why we both got through that rough patch, but I'm not sure that it should be called living.  A lot of the people living in other rooms did not leave that place for somewhere better.  I saw the landlord packing up quite a few rooms because the occupant had died, been arrested, been institutionalized, or had simply disappeared.  It was impossible to predict who would go onto something worse.  Some of the folks who were barely keeping things together lurched from crisis to crisis (for years, according to older residents) while younger folks who seemed to have their stuff more together, or at least had nicer stuff, hit bottom hard. 

I'm not sure what to give you as a takeaway, except that when things get really gnarly, combining forces can really take the edge off of things. 

[suesinfl]

Zib, I just want to wrap my arms around you and give you the biggest hug. I'm so sorry that you have been dealing with this. I do feel your dh loved you and would never have wanted to hurt you. IIRC, he was the one that really wanted to marry you, but you had your reservations, which were understandable.

Everything happened so fast that I think he never had the time or wanted to admit that time was short to change things. You are a very strong woman and will persevere.

[suesinfl]

Oct 20, 2016 16:43:30 GMT -5 @bluester said:

Facetious question:

When someone loses a spouse, does their mortgage payment get cut in half? What about the house insurance and property taxes?

People say when one is married the expenses are twice as much. Someone I know lost his wife in a car accident. They both worked so they had two incomes. He only has to make 1/2 the house payment now, right?

WTF kind of question/post is this Are you living under a rock (if it is a true question) or a troll?

[Deleted]

With DH terminally ill, this is one of the things I've been looking at. It may sound crass but I'm a numbers person and a planner and it gives me comfort to have some facts and likely scenarios.

Obviously our house payment, homeowners insurance and property taxes will remain the same although I'll probably sell the older of the two cars. Groceries may go down some- not substantially. DH always ate less than I did. I'll lose his SS but Widow's benefits will be only a little less. (Have not collected on my own record yet.) Premiums for his Medicare B and supplements go away.

You know what sucks? I'll owe about $300/month more in federal taxes.  I'm just grateful I won't be one of those poor women with minimal savings who loses Hubby's SS and gets Widow's benefits that make up only part of the loss.

[zibazinski]

I need to not read this thread. 

[rob base]

people are opposed to have life insurance

[msventoux]

Tell that to Archie. 

[suesinfl]

Oct 20, 2016 20:12:28 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

I need to not read this thread. 

You're right you don't need the hurt open again. Go look at MPL's adorable puppy picts or steffs kitty picts. the kids thread or something else that is happy/relaxing.

I am sorry, this stupid question even came up, I need to read something else too, and I have not been in your or Athena's situation. My heart goes out to both of you. Life sucks. 

[NastyWoman]

This question is more than just slightly insensitive and my heart goes out to those among us who have lost a love one or are facing an imminent loss.The question is also very weird since we all know that the answer is "no".

Yet it has some validity on a financial board at a top level from a purely theoretical POV.  It is a fact that in many two-income households every last penny is spend. And that is not even that strange since services that allow for two-income families to cope have become exceedingly expensive.

I can recommend that all who are interested in this subject read the Two-Income Trap by  Elizabeth Warren. It sure was an eye-opener for me.

[busymom]

Elizabeth Warren wrote some GREAT books. I read a number of them when she was famous for financial smarts (this was long before she got into politics).

My sympathy goes out to everyone who has gotten burned after the death of a loved one. I had a dear friend who was engaged to a wonderful man, who's ex was a mean-spirited woman. Unfortunately, he died less than a month before he was scheduled to marry my friend, and it was very painful for her to watch the ex march in and take EVERYTHING. I'd gotten to know the type of person he was, and I know he wouldn't have wanted his ex to have it all, but he didn't change his paperwork after his divorce. The ex even stole items that belonged to business clients. Makes me mad just thinking about it again.

[suesinfl]

Oct 20, 2016 20:53:56 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

This question is more than just slightly insensitive and my heart goes out to those among us who have lost a love one or are facing an imminent loss.The question is also very weird since we all know that the answer is "no".

Yet it has some validity on a financial board at a top level from a purely theoretical POV.  It is a fact that in many two-income households every last penny is spend. And that is not even that strange since services that allow for two-income families to cope have become exceedingly expensive.

I can recommend that all who are interested in this subject read the Two-Income Trap by  Elizabeth Warren. It sure was an eye-opener for me.

Bolded about the question in reference that I found offensive and I respectively disagree with the slightly insensitive. I do agree with the rest of your post.

[moon/Laura]

Oct 20, 2016 20:41:02 GMT -5 rob base said:

people are opposed to have life insurance

Huh? Did you mean people are opposed to (against) having life insurance?

Or, they are supposed to have it..

[NastyWoman]

Oct 20, 2016 21:02:19 GMT -5 suesinfl said:

Oct 20, 2016 20:53:56 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

This question is more than just slightly insensitive and my heart goes out to those among us who have lost a love one or are facing an imminent loss.The question is also very weird since we all know that the answer is "no".

Yet it has some validity on a financial board at a top level from a purely theoretical POV.  It is a fact that in many two-income households every last penny is spend. And that is not even that strange since services that allow for two-income families to cope have become exceedingly expensive.

I can recommend that all who are interested in this subject read the Two-Income Trap by  Elizabeth Warren. It sure was an eye-opener for me.

Bolded about the question in reference that I found offensive and I respectively disagree with the slightly insensitive. I do agree with the rest of your post.

I agree with you on the "slightly" comment -> it was meant sarcastically but the subject matter was to serious for me to add this