I’m sitting in the lobby of Happy Acres waiting for the business manager to return from lunch. I just spent half an hour talking with Mom, who’s doing much better than she was a month ago. She still struggles to find words, and she’s still confused, but now she’s able to conduct conversations and (more importantly) recognize people and tell the date.
Mom’s main concern now is finding an apartment to herself. She currently has a roommate whose moodiness makes Mom uncomfortable. When the business manager returns from lunch, she and I will discuss the options. Should Mom move to one of the open apartments on the assisted living side of the building? Or should she simply wait for a single to open up in the memory care unit? And how will we as a family cope with the costs?
The high cost of (assisted) living
Mom’s living situation is not cheap. She’s gone from having no housing expense to shelling out $2860 a month for room and board (in a shared room!). Plus she’s paying $910 a month for additional services, such as blood-sugar checks and daily medications. That’s $3770 a month to live at Happy Acres.
Can Mom afford $3770 a month? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer all week. I set up a separate installation of Quicken to track Mom’s finances, and I’ve been entering every bill and receipt we can find. The picture is still incomplete and will remain so until this time next month. But eventually we’ll know how much money she has and what her cash flow is like — how much she’s gaining or, more likely, losing every month.
At the age of 63, Mom’s life savings is relatively small. She has $27,348.98 in the bank. Fortunately, she also has an unknown amount in a retirement account through the box factory. (We think this is around $100,000, but finding that actual information is low on the priority list.)
Mom’s salary from the box factory is about $2000 net (after taxes) every month, plus the company pays her $2750 in monthly rent. This the system Dad set up before he died in 1995, and it seems to be working well. In theory, Mom will have $1000 left over after paying Happy Acres every month. But, as I said, we’re still trying to figure out where all of Mom’s money is going.
Unraveling her expenses is a challenge, in part because her records were sloppy and incomplete over the last few months. So far, we’ve learned the following:
- Mom has five life insurance policies of unknown nature. I discovered these on Sunday, and haven’t had time to figure out what the terms are. “Nobody depends on your income, Mom,” I said today, “so why do you have these?” “I wanted to leave something for you boys,” she said. My heart broke. I’m grateful that she’s thinking of us, but she needs the money more than we do.
- She has many “credit protection” programs on her credit cards. These only cost a few bucks a month, but they add up.
- There are a several other automatic charges on her checking account and credit cards that I can’t decipher. I asked Mom about them today, but she doesn’t know what they are either.
- Mom’s only debt is about $10,000 owed her car. (We don’t know the exact amount; we only have the payment coupons.)
- She has a cell phone she’s never used. I’m not sure she even knows how to use it.
- And so on. There are new surprises all the time.
My next job is to cut services she no longer needs — like the unused cell phone. That may mean dropping some life insurance policies (though this will be a family decision with Mom’s input). I’ll also cancel her satellite TV service and newspaper. We’ll drop her phone service and auto insurance down to the bare minimum.
This isn’t difficult work, but it’s time consuming. Everything happens in slow motion. I started today with six hours to work on Mom’s affairs. I’ve spent five hours on them so far and haven’t even accomplished half of what I set out to do. I spend a lot of time waiting. And searching. And driving. And thinking.
All of these steps are necessary because assisted living is expensive. As I said, Mom is spending $3770 per month. If a one-person room were open in the memory care unit, that would run another $1300. To move to a similar arrangement in the regular assisted living side would only cost an extra $350 a month, but I’m not sure if she’s ready to move over yet. That’s why I’m waiting to meet with the business manager right now.
How things stand
A month ago, I felt overwhelmed by Mom’s situation. Today, I feel optimistic. The family has pulled together, and we’re each trying to do the things we’re best at. Mom’s condition has improved some, although it’s obvious she still needs constant care. Happy Acres seems to be doing a great job, and Mom likes it here, which is something of a miracle. (This morning, she even did tai chi!)
Taking care of her affairs is a lot of work, and I’m glad my family has spread the load around. Even when I’m only focusing on my bailiwick (money!), it still takes two or three days a week for 4-6 hours at a time. I’ve spent sixteen hours working on Mom’s money this week. I don’t begrudge this, but it is like a part-time job. The main drawback right now is it takes time from my writing, both here and elsewhere. You have all been very understanding so far — for which I am grateful — but I still feel bad that I’m not able to contribute more. (Second drawback? I’m stress eating! Twinkies, pepperoni sticks, sugary sodas. This is not a good thing)
Time for me to pack up. The business manager just returned from lunch. I’m not sure where our conversation will lead or what the future holds for Mom and my family. I’m just happy to know that for the time being, we have enough money to give Mom the care she needs. I’m just hoping we can continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
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Just do your best and keep working through both the medical and budget/money issues.
I worked through my father’s final hospitalization/nursing home/estate settlement about 8 years ago and I took over my mother’s finances two years ago.
Power of attorney for your parents is very very important. There is so much paperwork to deal with and it would have been multiplied without the document to get things done. With the medical “privacy” laws it is also a constant battle to get the information needed.
It does get better after you work through the first set of problems and can set up automatic payments/electronic access to all accounts possible.
What I find so sad and angers me is the times I discovered “cramming” charges from magazines/credit protection and other things that a confused and unsophisticated senior gets taken advantage by. What damage is done to the lives of the poor seniors that don’t have someone to defend them?
As the saying goes, there must be a special place in #ell for the terrible “salesmen” who prey on the vulnerable elderly.
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My mom is currently shelling out $5500 +$900 in drug charges every month for my dad to be in a nursing home with dementia. She has met with an elder care attorney for the last 4 years even before the home became a necessity. Thankfully finances are in order, but what should have been a happy retirement with $5500/month and zero debt until they were both 100 is now Mom with only the house, its contents and her meager $600 in SSI. The rest goes to the nursing home. She is working on Medicare assistance, but they make you penniless before you can apply.
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Any chance your dad is a veteran? The VA’s Aid and Attendance benefit is little known but can help A LOT–and you can still have a house. Few social workers or nursing homes raise this possibility.
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This post is also pertinent to anyone who expects to age enough to need long term care, too.
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I think your story points out that children should get involved before it gets this far. It would make it easier to get your questions answered and avoid a lot of difficulties.
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Should, yes, but parents don’t always want to admit they need help, relationships may be strained, kids may not live close by, etc.
I first offered to help my dad manage his finances over 5 years ago, and have been regularly offering ever since. He said no right up until I got social services involved in March … which is also when he needed to be hospitalized due to severe anemia, and his memory problems became more apparent.
He also has no savings and he let his Medicare supplemental policy lapse over a year prior.
He went from the hospital to a nursing home, and is now in an adult family home. The medical bills have strapped his finances and he’s now applied for Medicaid and VA Aid & Assistance benefits. If he’d had his supplemental policy in force it would’ve covered a lot of this — but now that he’s diagnosed with cancer it will be difficult or impossible to get a supplemental policy.
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The financial stress of having a parent “in care” can quickly overwhelm anyone.
9 years ago my mother moved into assisted living outside of Boston. We signed a one-year contract, but approximately 3 months in, she fell and broke her pelvis. This event sharply aggravated her existing mild case of dementia, and she ended up, after a hospital stay, in a nursing home.
For a while I was paying $3800/ month to the assisted living facility (which would not let us break the contact), $2100/ month for my apartment in New York where I was no longer living (having moved back to Boston to deal with my mother’s siutuation) and $9500 / month for the nursing home. That’s $15400 per month.
The assisted living and NYC rental contracts expired soon enough, but the nursing home costs continued for 3 years. I still haven’t recovered fully–
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Good luck JD – and it’s good to see you haven’t lost a sense of humor. The flaming sword of justice thing was funny, even if I’m not a comic book geek.
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I’m so glad you’ve posted this. I have repeatedly made resolutions to get a will, power of attorney, and health care directive set up and have been putting it off for years. Recently a friend’s husband died without a will and it’s really driven home how important this is. I’ve got the will filled out and just need two witnesses (may get that signed this weekend).
The POAs (or is it PsOA?) require 2 witnesses and a notary which is more complicated, but a friend suggested we have a Will Party and do all the forms together and pay a notary to come in for what we need. Not a bad idea!
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Hang in there! Sorting out someone else’s money situation has to be difficult but, as you say, you’ll soon have a handle on the bills and bank statements/activity in the near future. Thanks for being so open about your mother’s situation. She’s lucky to have you guys in her corner for sure.
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J.D., You are so brave for writing about this so openly and in such detail. My parents are going through something similar. My grandfather passed away a few months back, and my grandmother now lives with my parents. She hasn’t yet begun to acknowledge that she has momentary lapses in memory, but it is plain for us to see and this makes it dangerous to leave her alone at home. There is no clear answer, but safety and security over emotional responses is what I understand, though others’ opinion may differ.
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My mom went into assisted living about 4 years ago at age 67. Fortunately, her mental faculties are fine for the most part; however, I still experienced (continue to experience) the “part time job” of managing her finances, just like you describe.
Here are some thoughts from my experience, maybe they will help you.
– consolidate and close as many accounts as possible. Get online account mgt and paperless billing set up. I set up a credit card for mom on my account so I could easily track her expenses.
– once you get finances sorted, try to determine how long the money will last at current rate and potential future rate, if/when more care is needed. Medicaid uses the average rate for skilled nursing care in your state to determine eligibility; this is a good place to start.
– if it looks like you may need medicaid in the future, find out if Happy Acres accepts medicaid; if not, consider moving to a place that does accept medicaid. I know this sounds like a bad idea since she is doing so great there. But, most facilities that accept medicaid have a “private pay” requirement, meaning you have to pay out of pocket for a while, typically 1-2 years, before they will accept medicaid. If you run out of money and then start looking for a place that will accept medicaid, you may have extremely limited options.
– consider the option of mom “gifting” her savings to you and/or siblings to qualify for medicaid sooner. This is a long story that I won’t go into here, but it is possible to preserve some savings this way (really helped my mom). This might be a good topic for a post…
Good luck and thank you for sharing this story.
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Be careful on the “gifting” idea–Medicaid has figured this one out and there is a look-back period of 5 years.
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Since Medicaid is taxpayer money, it is intended to take care of people who are destitute, who have spent down their assets, if they had any, and now need help. It is NOT intended to protect the inheritance of their children. Ethically and morally, this is stealing from taxpayers. That is why Medicaid looks to see if people are stealing from the taxpayers.
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I have seen families distribute the wealth early—establishing an account for their mother under their own names. That way they can pay things for mom when she needs them- without bankrupting to get to the very bottom.
There is also “homesteading”. This helps the spouse of a person in a nursing home to not be pushed out of their house when funds get to the bottom.
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To a limited extent the elderly can start narrowing down their wealth (if they have any) long before the start to get ill. $13,000 may be gifted to each individual with no tax effect. It should also not create a problem with Medicaid.
However, if you gift your home to someone it creates a tax situation and a Medicaid 5 year lookback issue.
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I am not suggesting hiding money or stealing from taxpayers. This a full-disclosure process defined under medicaid rules.
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During the three years that my mom was hospitalized, in rehab and then at home for 2 years before her death, I would drive 300 miles roundtrip to see her and deal with things(although I did do as much financial stuff online as possible) on many weekends. The stress eating- tastycakes, soft pretzels(this may give away the area she lived in), candy bars. I haven’t eaten a tastycake since she died almost 2 years ago.
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I’m guessing Philly because GRS staff writer Donna Freedman was there last week and wrote about all those items!
I’d never heard of a tasty cake before. =)
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My mother is 80 years old and stated that she need to live with somebody since she hated being alone. She is also forgetful and has fallen and broken her bones. We have looked into assisted living facilities/nursing homes and they cost $90,000 a year.
We have also discussed among our spouses and siblings the idea of mom coming to live with one of us. Unfortunately, everyone agreed that whoever mom lived with would be divorced in a matter of days.
All of my siblings are scattered throughout the US. We have decided that when mom goes to a facility, the sibling designated power of attorney will have to take over (mom decided who that would be as she lives nearby).
I wish you luck and am glad that everyone can work together to find an answer for your mom. Only time will tell about the financial aspect of it and mom’s future.
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If the sibs live all over the US then each person should look for care in their area. My mother is in Phoenix and the care there is much closer to $60,000. My mother in law was in Idaho and her care was about $48,000.
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Hello,
I really enjoy reading your articles and it has helped me tremendously to get a better hold of my finances.
I am sorry that your family is going through this trying times but it is very nice that you are not alone dealing with it. I am sure your mom knows how much you guys care for her well being.
I wish you and all your family all the best.
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I can put up a assisted living for you guys where you can drop your parents. You can pay me $ 90,000 that’s it for 5 years. Medications should be supplied by you and any hospitalization will be paid by you.
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trokyman your comment seems insensitive.
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Also naïve. If you haven’t done elder care, especially dementia care, you really don’t know what you’re in for.
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What you are bring to or attention is very valuable, and I look forward to further installments. The cost of long term care, depending on the amount/quality of care received, is escalating. Knowing how much to save, or how much insurance to purchase is really guess work. The worse part is it can happen at any age, and just isn’t something reserved for those in their declining years.
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JD: I don’t usually skip over so many the comments to make my own comment, but I’m doing it tonight.
First of all: this post is irrelevant to everyone without parents,and who will not age. So unfortunatley, I think we’re all on board here.
Secondly: What is your takeaway for those of us who would only have cats to take care of us in our old age? My husband reminds me that they would eat us if we were to die at home, and I say good for them. Longevity is vastly overrated – going out for another smoke right now. . .
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Actually I find this post quite interesting and well in keeping with your overall site topics. My parents are no longer living and I am not likely to need to contribute in any way if my two brothers ever have disability issues, yet I am still interested in this stuff. Like how much it actually costs today for different services, and how complicated sorting the legal issues is and how you go about doing it. Explaining all the different problems you run into sorting her affairs out warns me in advance what I should be doing in case I fall into similar circumstances. Very enlightening indeed, and useful too.
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I sooooo know what you are going through. A few years ago, when it became obvious that my parents couldn’t take care of themseslves, I had a talk with my brother and sister, and was appointed their legal guardian. They didn’t believe they needed it, so I had to take my own parents to COURT to get the right to take care of them.
It took months of court hearings and exams and paperwork, but I finally got Guardianship in 2007. Then the real work began to explore their debts, their assets, and getting things under control after years of neglect.
I keep separate bank accounts for them, a separate credit card lets me automate some of their bills, and I track all their monthly expenses in a spreadsheet that helps me fill out the annual paperwork that I have to file with the court (it takes me ~ 40 hours every April to fill out the annual paperwork.)
You might want to touch base with the county social services, just to see what kind of assistance is available. The need for social services might be years away, but experience has shown me that it’s better to know how to work the system BEFORE you need to work it. Find out what the benefits and requirements are, as well as how long the application process takes — you really need to start the process before you NEED the process. Keep everything stashed in a file drawer for easy access.
Case in point — I checked on VA benefits for my Dad (Vietnam vet) back in 2007, knowing that he didn’t qualify (yet.) In Feb 2010, his finances dwindled to the point that he qualified, and I started the paperwork. I filed in April 2010, and it wasn’t until June of this year that he received his first benefit check. Yes, it took 16 months to get his benefits. There is a retro-active clause (he will get a lump-sum payment to cover the time from the date of filing to the date he first recived the benefit check), but I’m still struggling with the system to get the lump-sum monies released!
Good luck to you & to anyone that finds themselves in a similar situation.
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Wow..thanks for the rude awakening (and I mean that sincerely). I don’t have any kids or parents (for that matter). I’m thinking about myself and what I need to do not to be a burden on anyone nor be taken advantage of by others.
Good luck to you and your family. Saying prayers for you today!
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In case no one mentioned it, you can call the Credit Card company to find more about the mystery charges, they can tell you more than what you see on your statements. It has helped me before when some mystery charge I couldn’t remember making popped up.
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Those of us without children really need to be involved with a large community. Consider joining a fraternal organization, becoming and staying active with a large church, or otherwise finding a compatible group of people who will come to care about you. Make sure as you get older that you have plenty of younger friends, and otherwise be mindful that someday you’ll need someone to look after you if you are lucky.
An elderly musician friend with no family in the area needs help, and my husband and I choose to step up. He does have family, but they are far away, and I do keep them posted and consult them with major decisions.
I just hope that someone like me will be in my life when I need them. I’m cultivating the heck out of my relationship with my nieces!
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Hi there – First, thinking about you and what your family is going through. It’s not easy and there’s no class to take that will get you up to speed. It’s all on the fly. Yes, it’s a PT job.
Our (brother & I) recent plan of action included:
* Getting added to his new, in-town bank account & getting the online feature set up for monitoring
* Confirming we had a complete & signed copy of the trust,including all POAs
* Checking out all beneficiary information on life insurance policies and investments – making sure they were what father actually wants
* Reconfirming what the assisted living rate was, as he moved up a level
One issue that’s been frequently brought up is long-term care. My father got it when he was about 85, and he is now 95. His policy DOES cover assisted living, but not all do. As LTC policies are not uniform or standardized (yet), it’s really critical to review the details of coverage. His pays a very large chunk of the costs, and the policy will go for about 3 years. At that point he’ll be 98, and either continue on with assisted living or transfer to the nursing home part of the campus. We’d then pay out of pocket in full. His place is a non-profit, supported in part by the local Lutheran churches, and has a good reputation, so we feel that he is in a safe and nurturing environment. The nursing staff is very keen to pick up on anything that might be amiss, and communicates well with us when changes are needed. I could never do this on my own.
I posted last month (after your initial essay), with a laundry list of issues/concerns/solutions that others here might find useful. In addition, everywhere I go, whatever groups I’m involved with, I seem to continually run into folks who are going through this experience. I think you are providing an excellent forum for people to share ideas and information.
Down the road, the part that truly concerns me is ME – single, no kids. What’s that going to look like? Brother lives in TX, also single, no kids, and his girlfriend is an only child, also dealing with this stuff. For this, I have no answers, yet.
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Is her care facility really called “Happy Acres”? That seems ludicrous. Or perhaps you are using the name for privacy sake.
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Wouldn’t you want to keep your mom’s assisted living home name private?!
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J.D., thank you for sharing your story (and your mother’s) with us. It’s a wake-up call for everyone of our generation, I think, to realize that our parents are not immortal. My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease about 30 years ago (before anyone really knew what it was or how to deal with it) and my grandfather was diagnosed with Parkinson’s around the same time. My mother ended up taking over all their financial affairs, as well as arranging for in-home care. It was a challenge for her because they weren’t well organized or documented. With the Alzheimer’s, my grandmother ‘hid’ money and ‘forgot’ about accounts. You are fortunate that your family is pulling together in this situation, the opposite happened in mine.
I strongly recommend getting new bank accounts and/or credit cards with more than one person on the signature cards, or at least adding your name to the signature cards of the existing accounts. That way, if something does happen to her, you still have access to the money/accounts, which could be frozen otherwise.
You have to remember to take care of yourself in all of this too. As someone else said, oftentimes the caregiver suffers mentally, emotionally, and physically when devoting themselves the care recipient.
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I strongly recommend getting new bank accounts and/or credit cards with more than one person on the signature cards, or at least adding your name to the signature cards of the existing accounts. That way, if something does happen to her, you still have access to the money/accounts, which could be frozen otherwise.
This is often more important for couples (like JD and Kris) or situations where the child is living with the parent. If the parent dies and the child doesn’t have access to the account, not paying the rent means the child could get evicted. If the parent lives alone and dies and the money isn’t accessible then … you can’t pay the next month’s rent on an empty apartment.
Key thing is, what’s the plan and goals?
I’m not adding myself to my father’s checking account because I won’t need to pay rent his care home after he passes. Morbid, but true. I am also fine with telling other creditors to file a claim against his estate. (And no, I’m not worried about the cost of probate. I already cashed out his life insurance to pay hospital bills, so I won’t inherit anything. Probate provides a process to organize posthumous bills and pay them in the state-approved order — which means I can justify which ones get paid and which don’t as “I followed the law.”)
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I for one would love to read a post about Power of Attorney, and Durable Power of Attorney as well. As an adult only child of divorced, now-single parents, I foresee going through issues like this more than once.
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J.D. – I’m just writing to say I’ve been there, and you have my heartfelt sympathy. Getting a parent’s financial affairs in order is extremely time-consuming, like having a second job. If it also involves cleaning out and selling a house, that’s a whole other layer of complication. It was a huge relief when the dust finally settled, but it took almost a year.
You might want to look into assisted care facilities that will take Medicare as payment, if and when your mother’s funds are depleted. I remember being told this is often the case with facilities associated with churches, and the ones my sister and I visited were very nice.
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You are truly blessed with your siblings being cooperative and supportive during this confusing and emotional time. I did not have this and consequently have not spoken to any of my siblings in nearly a year. The durable POA was in the wrong hands and I was betrayed and stolen from – consider yourself very lucky. Which I am sure you do!
Take care of yourself – PUT DOWN THAT TWINKIE!#*
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I am sorry to learn about your mother’s illness and physical condition. I, too, feel that your sharing all this will be extremely helpful to people who read your blog.
Coy and I have recently drawn up a financial summary of our $$$ and we have shared it with one of our three children. I am committed to sharing with the other two sooner, rather than later (schedules seem to be crowded in all our lives). We think this is vey important.
We still talk about how wonderful the Africa trip was!
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We are going through this with my in-laws. We’ve become experts (of a practical sort) on Medicare and Medicaid, POAs, etc. Sorting out our in-laws finances (all those insurance policies, variable annuities, bills, cash flow, etc.) is the technical challenge.
For everyone, it starts out scary, but once we got rolling, it was not too bad. Once a lot of the unknowns were known, it was not as intimidating (and they live 8 hours away from us, so a logistical challenge).
Two surprising lessons I’ve learned, and neither are legal or financial:
1. Being a senior citizen is hard work. I need to get into (and stay in) physical shape before I get there.
2. While they have various aliments for being in their late 80s, their biggest ailments really appear to be being out of shape and overweight. For many of the folks I see at the nursing home, the same appears to be true (lots of good minds still out there!).
It sounds funny, but if we look at seniority as needing to be in the best shape of our lives (relatively speaking), then this might help us make good choices now. In this way it mirrors financial health. We have to do hard things now (frugal, invest, etc.) to have financial health in the future.
I tell my kids that they’ll not have to do for me what we are doing for their grandparents (at least not for very long). I’ve been working hard everyday to be able to keep that promise. I do tell them I plan to live actively to 100 with the sole purpose of driving them and grandkids/greatgrandkids crazy!
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