Reads like a non stop progression of very poor decisions. Starting with an interest only mortgage followed by and equity loan against the same property.
Primary ingredients in a recipe for financial disaster.
I am making a generalization here, but people that make such obviously foolish decisions usually don’t stop at a couple. In her case it appears to be a pattern of good money after bad.
Let’s see:
1. Bought an annuity product with high fees and no guarantees.
2. Bought a house in the U.S. that she wasn’t using.
3. Bought another annuity product with high fees and no guaranteess.
4. Put her retirement into a pension run by someone else.
5. No savings.
6. Interest only loan.
7. Freelance means didn’t really work for several years.
8. Took a second mortgage on her home.
9. Foresook secure steady jobs for the high life, high risk mover and shaker world.
10. Gave her money away.
11. Was forced through her behavior to make tough decisions in down markets.
12. Parents seem to be divorced so she had no family safety net to validate taking such big risks.
All in, she doesn’t sound that prudent to me. If you don’t have folks to fall back on, you need to be more prudent and careful with your career decisions, financial purchases and investment programming.