Care to share what you (or loved ones) pay for assisted living?

[Anonymous]

Lifecare buy-in was $350,000, then about $3,000 per month. It was worth it as both parents ended up in skilled nursing home care for several years. We got 90 percent of the buy in back when they passed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I recognize this may be an unpopular idea, but I honestly think they'll legalize assisted suicide, when faced with a huge baby boomer population that can't afford care (given the whole 401k experiment), disappearing safety nets, and living long enough to get lingering but debilitating illnesses that offer slow, difficult, and expensive deaths. I've been totally convinced assisted suicide is the more humane option since seeing my gma's demise with dementia.

I wish they would legalize it. I am watching my MIL suffer in a nursing home with minimal care and this isn't how she wants to live. She doesn't have her mind anymore and is now starving herself. She's given up and it sucks there isn't anything to do to help.

It sounds like your mother in law has dementia or Alzheimer’s. Such patients often forget how to feed themselves, and aren’t deliberately starving themselves to death. It is also common for dying people to eat less and less, it’s called failure to thrive. Despite the emotions you are attributing to her, her behavior may have medical causes.

Towards the end they forget how to swallow and either stop eating/drinking or if they do eat they aspirate their food/drink.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is 21:43. AARP has a good summary on LTC. https://www.aarp.org/health/health-insurance/info-06-2012/understanding-long-term-care-insurance.html

Basically, it is expensive, you can expect steep rate increases, and there are limitations on coverage, either the amount they will pay or a time limit or both. Also in the case of Alzheimer’s, like my dad, triggering the coverage can be tricky.

This is 15:20 again from page 2. Good resource from pp quoted above. I'm no insurance expert but we looked into a number of options for ourselves after the situation with my mother. LTC is shockingly expensive if you don't buy it when you are young. If you buy it when you are young, you pay for a long time for something you might never use. When people are talking about triggering the coverage this is an important point. You need to understand what the policy's conditions are and look at the stats on how likely those are. Typically, the price for the policy will be based on 2 main factors - your current age and the # of days to trigger the policy. There are also conditions to trigger it which are based on your ability to perform activities of daily living. The most popular days to trigger seems to be 90. Even for that we found the cost to be prohibitive to purchase at our age.

We ended up buying a Prudential permanent life insurance policy that has a long term care rider at the advice of our financial adviser. I wouldn't buy any of these policies without an adviser you trust (who can look at your situation holistically and does more than sell insurance). This particular policy rider allows you to draw money against the life insurance policy if you meet the criteria for long term care. It is not as good as long term care insurance but we felt it was a good middle ground. If we never use it at least our children will get the life insurance. What we bought is called the PruLife Universal Protector. The LTC rider is an add on that we pay extra to have included. HTH someone!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:21:43 again. I’d also encourage everyone to talk to their kids or other family about what you actually want should you become ill or incapacitated. Also meet with a lawyer and draw up documents such as wills, health Care proxies, and POAs. Then talk to whoever your designated agent is honestly about your finances, where your money is, where important documents are, and if you are approaching older age, consider trying to simplify to some degree. My parents had trust issues and issues accepting the reality of their health situations and refused to do any of this despite pleading from me. Well, as I knew would happen, they got urgently sick and I found myself running around trying to sort out all of this with no actual authority to do so. I had to bring a lawyer to a hospital to get a POA and health care proxy for one of them and for the other I really need to go to court for guardianship but for now am just winging it until someone asks me for paperwork. I used huge amounts of leave from work and spend huge amounts of my own money dealing with this. It’s been an ongoing nightmare, and frankly I am extremely angry at them for being so stubborn and leaving me with such a big mess. Their philosophy was along the lines of “oh just leave us there to die and get on with your life.” Well news flash - no halfway decent person - let alone a child - is going to do that to their parents. So the least you can do is to try to get things lined up to ease the process for your caregiver.

Ok. Off my soapbox.

Some people want to be left alone to die, I will have to be very clear about with my kids (I already have DNR order). I will to make sure that my wishes are respected, that's the harder part, but I have friends that I trust, who are listed on my legal forms (relatives are focused on longevity and not the quality of life, so I can't trust that they will make the right decision for me).

[Anonymous]

And this is why i don't buy all the house we"can afford" and save diligently. I don't want my kids having to deal wirh this or foot any of the bill. So many people on this site poo-poo people who dont think 1M in retirement is enough, yea, well we want 4-5M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is 15:20 again from page 2. Good resource from pp quoted above. I'm no insurance expert but we looked into a number of options for ourselves after the situation with my mother. LTC is shockingly expensive if you don't buy it when you are young. If you buy it when you are young, you pay for a long time for something you might never use. When people are talking about triggering the coverage this is an important point. You need to understand what the policy's conditions are and look at the stats on how likely those are. Typically, the price for the policy will be based on 2 main factors - your current age and the # of days to trigger the policy. There are also conditions to trigger it which are based on your ability to perform activities of daily living. The most popular days to trigger seems to be 90. Even for that we found the cost to be prohibitive to purchase at our age.

LTC seems shockingly expensive... until you look at what assisted living costs ($6,000 to $10,000 a month) and then you know the true meaning of shock. My mom purchased LTC insurance when she was in her 50s and thank God she did, because she had a stroke and now she needs assisted living. She cannot bathe or dress without assistance and can only walk short distances with a walker. She has been there for 5 years now (i.e., that cost $360,000 which she did not have lying around in cash). She did have enough cash to cover the trigger period.

Another thing to consider; is it better to buy LTC insurance, expensive though it is, than burn up all your hard-earned retirement money and have nothing to leave for the kids (or have nothing to use to help them during their adulthood)?

[Anonymous]

Texas upscale memory care private room. $5,000 per month, no buy in. Not assisted living, but not nursing home.

[Anonymous]

$4800 in hyattsville

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:21:43 again. I’d also encourage everyone to talk to their kids or other family about what you actually want should you become ill or incapacitated. Also meet with a lawyer and draw up documents such as wills, health Care proxies, and POAs. Then talk to whoever your designated agent is honestly about your finances, where your money is, where important documents are, and if you are approaching older age, consider trying to simplify to some degree. My parents had trust issues and issues accepting the reality of their health situations and refused to do any of this despite pleading from me. Well, as I knew would happen, they got urgently sick and I found myself running around trying to sort out all of this with no actual authority to do so. I had to bring a lawyer to a hospital to get a POA and health care proxy for one of them and for the other I really need to go to court for guardianship but for now am just winging it until someone asks me for paperwork. I used huge amounts of leave from work and spend huge amounts of my own money dealing with this. It’s been an ongoing nightmare, and frankly I am extremely angry at them for being so stubborn and leaving me with such a big mess. Their philosophy was along the lines of “oh just leave us there to die and get on with your life.” Well news flash - no halfway decent person - let alone a child - is going to do that to their parents. So the least you can do is to try to get things lined up to ease the process for your caregiver.

Ok. Off my soapbox.

Im sorry about this. If it makes you feel better, currently struggling much like you in taking care of widowed mom. Tough, very tough phase for both the parents and kid care takers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:21:43 again. I’d also encourage everyone to talk to their kids or other family about what you actually want should you become ill or incapacitated. Also meet with a lawyer and draw up documents such as wills, health Care proxies, and POAs. Then talk to whoever your designated agent is honestly about your finances, where your money is, where important documents are, and if you are approaching older age, consider trying to simplify to some degree. My parents had trust issues and issues accepting the reality of their health situations and refused to do any of this despite pleading from me. Well, as I knew would happen, they got urgently sick and I found myself running around trying to sort out all of this with no actual authority to do so. I had to bring a lawyer to a hospital to get a POA and health care proxy for one of them and for the other I really need to go to court for guardianship but for now am just winging it until someone asks me for paperwork. I used huge amounts of leave from work and spend huge amounts of my own money dealing with this. It’s been an ongoing nightmare, and frankly I am extremely angry at them for being so stubborn and leaving me with such a big mess. Their philosophy was along the lines of “oh just leave us there to die and get on with your life.” Well news flash - no halfway decent person - let alone a child - is going to do that to their parents. So the least you can do is to try to get things lined up to ease the process for your caregiver.

Ok. Off my soapbox.

Im sorry about this. If it makes you feel better, currently struggling much like you in taking care of widowed mom. Tough, very tough phase for both the parents and kid care takers.

This is one of my ILs. Did not want to consider anything related to elderly care and forced all the decision-making on adult child. Did not create a POA - had to finagle that long-distance. Had to take over all finances, etc. It's a real mess and he didn't plan for it a single bit. Nightmare!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you. That's helpful. DH seems to think that we can get his mom a in a place for $4k s month with no buy in. I don't think it's possible.

Let your husband find the place.

Have you checked out Bedford Court in Silver Spring? I believe you can do that there and we were very happy with their services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:21:43 again. I’d also encourage everyone to talk to their kids or other family about what you actually want should you become ill or incapacitated. Also meet with a lawyer and draw up documents such as wills, health Care proxies, and POAs. Then talk to whoever your designated agent is honestly about your finances, where your money is, where important documents are, and if you are approaching older age, consider trying to simplify to some degree. My parents had trust issues and issues accepting the reality of their health situations and refused to do any of this despite pleading from me. Well, as I knew would happen, they got urgently sick and I found myself running around trying to sort out all of this with no actual authority to do so. I had to bring a lawyer to a hospital to get a POA and health care proxy for one of them and for the other I really need to go to court for guardianship but for now am just winging it until someone asks me for paperwork. I used huge amounts of leave from work and spend huge amounts of my own money dealing with this. It’s been an ongoing nightmare, and frankly I am extremely angry at them for being so stubborn and leaving me with such a big mess. Their philosophy was along the lines of “oh just leave us there to die and get on with your life.” Well news flash - no halfway decent person - let alone a child - is going to do that to their parents. So the least you can do is to try to get things lined up to ease the process for your caregiver.

Ok. Off my soapbox.

Some people want to be left alone to die, I will have to be very clear about with my kids (I already have DNR order). I will to make sure that my wishes are respected, that's the harder part, but I have friends that I trust, who are listed on my legal forms (relatives are focused on longevity and not the quality of life, so I can't trust that they will make the right decision for me).

The problem is doctors don't always honor them. We had one doctor do the MOLST form in what she wants for patients which didn't include a DNR. We had to go to court, get guardianship and get it changed as they didn't recognize my husband as POA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:21:43 again. I’d also encourage everyone to talk to their kids or other family about what you actually want should you become ill or incapacitated. Also meet with a lawyer and draw up documents such as wills, health Care proxies, and POAs. Then talk to whoever your designated agent is honestly about your finances, where your money is, where important documents are, and if you are approaching older age, consider trying to simplify to some degree. My parents had trust issues and issues accepting the reality of their health situations and refused to do any of this despite pleading from me. Well, as I knew would happen, they got urgently sick and I found myself running around trying to sort out all of this with no actual authority to do so. I had to bring a lawyer to a hospital to get a POA and health care proxy for one of them and for the other I really need to go to court for guardianship but for now am just winging it until someone asks me for paperwork. I used huge amounts of leave from work and spend huge amounts of my own money dealing with this. It’s been an ongoing nightmare, and frankly I am extremely angry at them for being so stubborn and leaving me with such a big mess. Their philosophy was along the lines of “oh just leave us there to die and get on with your life.” Well news flash - no halfway decent person - let alone a child - is going to do that to their parents. So the least you can do is to try to get things lined up to ease the process for your caregiver.

Ok. Off my soapbox.

Some people want to be left alone to die, I will have to be very clear about with my kids (I already have DNR order). I will to make sure that my wishes are respected, that's the harder part, but I have friends that I trust, who are listed on my legal forms (relatives are focused on longevity and not the quality of life, so I can't trust that they will make the right decision for me).

The problem is doctors don't always honor them. We had one doctor do the MOLST form in what she wants for patients which didn't include a DNR. We had to go to court, get guardianship and get it changed as they didn't recognize my husband as POA.

Scary. The easiest way to get DNR on file was during a regular physical, asking the doctor to sign the official state DNR form and add it into the electronic files. It, probably, varies, from state to state, so I will have to check if we move.

[Anonymous]

A dnr won't help in many of the instances that put a loved one in assisted living.

Assisted suicide in the us, even where permitted, doesn't allow for it in early stages of dementia. You also need
Documented proof from doctorS once you have it...what would your plan be pending that period? That would be a few yrs in in most cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The jefferson have some for 109k and about $4k a month/

http://www.dcmodernhomes.com/the-jefferson-condos-for-sale.php?p=2

You are better off going to a regular assisted living with monthly fees vs. buy in.

The point was that they are harder to find. This place is actually lovely and has a ton of activities. It's expensive though...but cheaper than the ones OP mentioned.