If you ask Harriet Dailey, 72, why she got a reverse mortgage two years ago, the answer is pretty simple: she wanted to reduce her daily work load, so she could enjoy life more.

Ms. Dailey taught kindergarten through 12th grade for 32 years, the last 10 as a senior high school English teacher in her hometown of San Jose, CA. Then, in 1990, she retired and moved to Oak Harbor, WA, which is situated on Whidbey Island. "It's the largest island in the U.S.," she said. "It's in Puget Sound about an hour north of Seattle."

After retiring from teaching, Ms. Dailey soon recognized that her small pension, plus Social Security, wouldn't be enough to cover her daily living expenses. So she took a job with a local agency that provides in-home care assistance to persons who have trouble functioning on their own.

"I mostly helped prepare meals, did general housekeeping, assisted in bathing and dressing, and played checkers with them if there was nothing else to do," she said. "I'd usually spend about 2-8 hours a day at each persons home. It was very rewarding work."

On the other hand, working 40-plus hours a week to support herself eventually started taking its toll. "At times, there was a lot of heavy patient lifting involved with my job, which was difficult to deal with sometimes," Ms. Dailey noted.

Then, in 1998, she read in a senior journal that a speaker was coming to town to give a lecture on reverse mortgages, so "I decided to go hear what he had to say."

Not long after, she applied for a reverse mortgage. She paid off her existing first mortgage and set up the reverse mortgage so that she would receive $684 a month for the next 12 years. She also has a $10,000 line of credit, which she uses sparingly.

"The line of credit has really helped me out of a lot of holes," says Ms. Dailey. "It's so nice because the little money that I do spend gets replenished because of the interest that I earn. It's a really neat thing."

Ms. Dailey has used her credit line to help pave part of her driveway and to help repair her car, to name a few projects.

More importantly, the fixed monthly payments that she receives have enabled her to slowly cut back on her work schedule. "I've gradually reduced my hours," she said, "so that I'm working roughly 15 hours a week" Now, with more free time, Ms. Dailey is taking a more leisurely approach to life on Whidbey Island, including playing bridge, a lifetime ambition.

"The reverse mortgage has literally saved this little old lady's life," she said.