The question hinges on how close you are to retirement, what your ongoing obligations are, and what assets you have. If you have a paid off mortgage, for instance, you may be able to work out a "reverse mortgage" with a finance company. This is where you get paid for the house while you remain there and when you die, the finance company takes the house.

Your Burden Should be Less

When you were younger, if you are like many of us, you had responsibility for a family, cars for all drivers, insurance for each, meals for many more than just two, maybe child support obligations, active credit cards, and so on. Many of us as we age shed these obligations. Child support gets paid off, kids move out and start their own families, grandkids come over occasionally but are not constantly there to be fed, and often our hunger for things decreases so our credit cards go low balance or paid off, not counting the accrued wisdom contributing to that.

There are Other Income Sources

Do you have a pension, retirement income, Social Security payments, income stream from old investments, or any other type of ongoing income? You may need more to live on for any of several reasons, but this may make the need much less. Whether you have or do not have any or all of these sources of income, see if you can do a rough figure of how much income you need coming in to bring you back to a sustainable lifestyle. if you are looking at assisted living, this will also be a concern and should be taken into account. Also, medical payments if they are not all covered by insurance will need to be taken into account.

How do I calculate?

The calculation for an income stream based on a percentage yield from an investment is simple. Just come up with the amount figured per year income you need and divide that figure by a conservatively estimated Annual Percentage Yield (APY). For instance, if you need 12000 more per year (it can be dollars, pounds sterling, or euros, it doesn't matter for calculation purposes) and you expect to make 3% on it, you will calculate 12000/.03. That will give you the figure 400,000. If you can get that into the investment or account with that yield, you will bring in 12000 per year in interest alone. Unfortunately, with inflation and devaluation of currency, the value of that 12000 will decrease every year. I suggest for calculation purposes, you figure an amount that will produce more interest than you need to live on. That way if you don't use it all, it remains to garner its own interest and if you keep this up, you may be able to stay ahead of inflation by making more money available each year.

What if I can't raise that much money?

Most people can't. I have a way you can make money using your computer, and assuming you will need training to do it, I can give that to you for no charge. My heart goes out to you because when I started doing this affiliate marketing I was facing the same thing. I won't have any company paying me retirement funds and I don't have a house to sell back to a finance company. What I do have now is a way I can help businesses get more customers and they pay me for that. They would be glad to pay you to do that, too and if you decide to join up where I have my resources, I will get a little bit of that money, too. BTW, I have been doing this for a couple of months, have a lot of good things going on, and have less than $150 invested, not counting my computer, so there is not a lot of money involved. You can go through the training e-mails without spending any money at all and see if this looks like something you would like to do. I think you will be glad you did.