Preparing for eldercare
USA Today has a good article with resources on preparing yourself financially for eldercare.
Even though I know the statistics about baby boomers caring for aging parents, I’m still taken aback sometimes when I read just how many people will be impacted by this soon (from the article):
Forty-one percent of baby boomers who have a living parent are helping take care of them, with personal help, financial assistance or both, according to a USA TODAY/ABC News/Gallup Poll.
Of those boomers who aren’t providing care for parents now, 37% think they will someday. And about half of them say they’re concerned about their ability to do so.
That’s potentially a lot of people.
I also applaud the honesty of the questions that the interviewee, Kenneth Kamen, presents:
You have to decide: How much of my lifestyle do I potentially give up so my dad can lead the kind of life I think he should lead?
Kamen doesn’t mean to sound harsh. In fact, he and his wife are working with her siblings to help her mother craft a strategy for her future living arrangements.
“At some point, the baby boomers are going to have to lay down the guilt,” he says. They need to worry about paying for college for their kids and saving for their own old age — which most haven’t done, he says.
That’s the part that isn’t often covered when you read about caring for your aging parents. As a matter of fact, you may have cringed at that.
But, the reality is that, even though the media talks about how selfish Baby Boomers are, and, that they should give up more for their parents who sacrificed for them, more people need to know that it’s OK to consider their own financial situations when caring for elderly parents.
Everyone’s circumstances are different, so, there aren’t any “rules”, I guess, but, I know in my own situation, even though my parents planned pretty well, I know they wouldn’t want me to run myself into the ground financially especially because I have my own children to consider.
I know it’s not always that simple, but, it’s important, and, acceptable to factor in your own finances when caring for elderly parents.
Preparing for eldercare is above all one of the most difficult tasks we as children can be given to tackle. What way is the right or wrong way depends on each circumstance. If only more people knew and utilized medical alarms, they would see how cost effective and convenient they actually are. ResponseLINK has taken this burden off of my hands by providing 24 hour live operator assistance. I no longer have to worry every minute that my mother is safe in my home while I am away.