<prompt> Human: I always knew our family was poor but recently Ive learned some information that makes me realize everything is way worse: 1. I thought my mother could inherit her parents my grandparents house. Actually the grandparents did a reverse mortgage to fund their own retirement, so there will be no house left to inherit. 2. She works for the state government, and I thought this qualified her for a pension. Turns out, shes only worked there for 10 years, and must work there for 30 years to get a full pension. She can get a partial pension, but it will be pretty low, maybe a few hundred dollars a month. 3. Also, one is not allowed to collect state pension and Social Security at the same time, so shes not eligible for SS despite working in the private sector for a number of years maybe 10-15?. She was also a SAHM for way way too long so no retirement savings. 4. Current situation is living paycheck to paycheck and renting a small apartment, rent is split with my brother. Its a 1BR already so no way she could sublet. She also has a car I think she could get rid of there is a decent bus system in her city but good luck convincing her on that. Otherwise expenses are fairly low. 5. She has been involved in the MLM scheme Primerica for years now. If you havent heard of it, they sell overpriced life insurance products and recruit new people for commission-- much like Mary Kay, Amway, etc. just with life insurance. She pays 25 a month to use their website, not sure how much expenses are spent at meetingsmotivational tapesetc, but Ive found out shes not making any money whatsoever at this. Despite this she fails to make real financial plans for the future because she thinks her big break with this MLM is right around the corner. She literally has told me that Primerica is her retirement plan. 6. Her income is about 40k, cost of living in our area is average to high. She has a possibility to be promoted to a management position in her office 70k 3 years from now, but said before that she doesnt want the extra responsibility. She seems to be warming up to it a little bit though. 7. Divorced, she has a boyfriend now but hes a total scumbag the one who got her into MLM in the first place. Since hes in the MLM he doesnt have any real income and just leeches off of her.8. Her health is not great. Obesity, knee problems, high blood pressure, she takes a cocktail of medications for these things. She visited me over the summer in the big city where I live, and she couldnt handle light walking. Say we walked 5 minutes to a subway station, stood on the train for 10, and then walked 10 minutes to a restaurant. That would completely exhaust her. She also couldnt handle stairs after a couple days and had to use elevators everywhere.9. Points in her favor would be that she has a college degree in Business, is certified to sell life insurance, and generally good at low level clerical work and bookkeeping accounting -- I tried to talk to her about studying to become a CPA, but she said it was too much hard work and shes too old at this point.What options does my mother have for retirement at this point? What I am afraid of is her health condition worsening to the point where she cant work anymore. At that point she can get a few hundred dollars a month from the state governmentpension and thats IT. Are there other forms of welfare available for senior citizens specifically? I know the waiting lists for subsidized housing like Section 8 are incredibly long, and she doesnt qualify right now since her income is middle class right now. Is she just going to be homeless? How will she pay for food? Our state does provide free health insurance to people who cant pay, but Im not sure how much it covers, if she got cancer or something would she just have to die since she couldnt afford treatment?Assistant: Ill be the mean but, IMO, honest one: I dont think this is really salvageable.I mean, yes, if she starts saving now and cleans up her spending habits, itll be better than nothing. But I think shed be really hard-pressed to build enough savings to replace even 50 of her income before health or other factors force her to retire. Then theres the leech boyfriend and the MLM scheme to consider; if she doesnt recognize these for what they are, no business degree in the world will do her any good, and I fear based on your description that she will not have anywhere near the motivation needed to salvage a legitimate retirement from the ashes.Human: This is the top comment right now. I agree the situation is fucked but what would be the optimal strategy to minimize the pain here? For instance, if she did get the promotion and had an additional 30k to kick around, even for a couple years, what should she do with it? Is getting a second job doing part time clerical work unrealistic? Or hell even buying things at yardsales and reselling on eBay? When I told her MLM is not a realistic retirement plan, she challenged me to identify something more productive  <response>: she challenged me to identify something more productiveJust saving those 25 bucks a month would be more productive, for a start. Even at zero interest. 