Now let's examine how economies of shared living ca n benefit a retiree.
Imagine a single retiree living in a 55-and-over trailer park. She has a monthly net Social Security benefit of $1,100. From that she has to pay $400 for land rent and $300 for the loan payment on the manufactured home. That leaves only $400 a month for food, clothing, transportation and everything else.
It's not a pretty picture.
The solution is social.
It is called sharing, having enough social skills to multiply your effective income to a level far greater than it could be made with ordinary cash.
The productive social alternative is sharing. Economists call it "economies of shared living." Most of us think about it in regard to marriage.
Though two people can't live for the price of one, the cost of living doesn't double when you get married. Divorce, on the other hand, involves returning to the dis-economies of nonshared living.
That's why it's common for one ex-spouse, or both, to have a lower standard of living after divorce.
This is not a utopian commune or a spiritual community. It's just four retirees figuring out how to get along in a trailer park.
Sharing offers a major "return" for being creative and flexible.
Cooperation is a wonderful but generally overlooked substitute for money.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/CreateaPlan/RetireOnTwelveThousandDollarsAYear.aspx
