Stories like this truly scare me. I'm only 39, so I still have some time to get ready. My wife makes pretty good money at the hospital where she works, and I'm changing careers to be a teacher. We have watched people enter their 60's with tons of debt and not be able to retire. My parents were one of those families with my dad driving a garbage truck until he got sick at 68 and my mom only just now retiring at 71. But at least they had choices. Some, like the OP, don't even have the option to keep working with a decent wage. My wife and I are on track to be completely debt free when I'm 42, paying cash for our cars and not having a house payment. Unless a disaster hits, we'll manage that and be able to get our daughter started in life without any debt and still retire at a reasonable age if we want to. That does mean the giant scale Spitfire and IMAC planes I want will have to wait, but that's ok.