Today’s advisors need to include a discussion about the costs associated with living longer in retirement. For many people, that will also include additional costs associated with being a caregiver which may negatively impact their ability to save towards their own retirement. In our story, Jodi’s life is slowly taken over by the increasing care needs of her parents. After working through the 3 Steps and having their advisor serve as a facilitator, Jodi gets her parents the type of care they need, at a cost they can afford, in a setting of their choice. When she suggests to her children that she doesn’t want them to be caught in the caregiving sandwich generation, they, at first, panic and assume she is ill. It’s a real struggle for younger generations to understand the positive role early long-term care planning plays in a secure lifestyle and retirement. After visiting a site that estimates a person’s longevity, the Care Planning Team begins to understand that the best time to plan is now.
-Excerpt from "How Not to Tear Your Family Apart
Jackson circles back to how longevity could impact his
and Jodi’s retirement. “As we saw on the site, Mom’s
life expectancy means she will likely live a long time
after she retires. If you think about it, you can control a
certain amount of expenses in retirement, like housing
costs, travel expenses, clothing, gifts, eating out, and accessory
expenditures. Focusing on the long game, we will
not have as much flexibility or control over health-care
costs, such as Medicare or Medigap premiums, supplemental
health insurance premiums, like vision or hearing,
deductibles, copays, prescriptions, over-the-counter medicines,
medical equipment, and support services and
the wild card, extended or long-term care expenses.
After our experience with your grandparents, I started to
read a good deal about retirement planning. According
to a recent Edward Jones survey,49 ‘The new retirement is
becoming an exciting and fulfilling stage of life—full of
new choices, new freedoms, and new challenges.’ Sounds
great! Unless . . .”
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