This movie was like that. Big Momma's House and the Madea movies. There is these elderly ladies, I assume only getting social security benefits, but they live in these huge two-story houses with a basement, and they are living alone, except in this movie she had boarders. Imagine having to clean a place that big at their age, though.
shareIt's presumed that they were married to someone who made enough money to pay off the mortgage on a big house before they died, and that the house was purchased back when real estate was cheap.
That's actually true in real life, I've seen a heck of a lot of elderly widows living in houses that were practically grandiose by modern standards, because the house was bought and paid for decades ago, when salaries were high and real estate was inexpensive. Some of the widows have trouble keeping the houses clean or maintained on their present incomes, but they don't want to leave their homes so they stay.