I appreciate y'alls input, and maybe should have chosen a less dramatic headline.

Family relationships are hard, and to be honest there isn't much love in this one. It's frustrating to listen to someone talk about their dream life.. to see how attainable it is, how all of the pieces are right there within reach.. and how paralyzing anxiety stands in the way. Still, I always approach her with empathy and compassion.. the gentle conversations have been had many times over the years.

As many of you pointed out, she'll probably be fine, especially if she sticks to that plan. To give some context though, that plan has been the plan for many years. 15 years ago she had close to 7 figures in the bank, and had that same plan. That was whittled away to 0 over the years and for the past few she's just been scraping by. Up until now the gentle conversations have been about how to leverage her homes equity to fix it up and put her into a lower-overhead position.