Who is caring for an aging parent?

[TexasHusker]

I am currently responsible for my dad who has Alzheimer's. He is 77. He lived by himself at his home, and after much heartache, I finally moved him to an assisted living home. He cried, I hated it, and he tried to leave many times.

Finally he settled in and his pretty darned happy there. Of course he continues to decline slowly. My dad was a master craftsman and designer and now can barely plug in an extension cord.

All that said, he was smart with his money. He saved about $140K, bought a LTC policy, and has about $4K a month in state retirement and SS.

We've had to drain down the $140K to now about $90k because his monthly expenses are around $7K.

The LTC policy helps tremendously but will run out in about 2 more years.

Right now I have made another painful decision to sell his house and all contents - by the end of the month it will all be gone and I will have a check.

At that point, I hope we have about $240K cash (total cash) to work with. My strategy is to invest about $200K of it in a good income producing property (surprise surprise), with the goal that all of the income off of it will rebuild the remaining $40K cash amount for the next two years.

Then when the LTC policy runs out, we gradually have to start drawing down the cash reserves, even though the real estate will be replenishing at least some of it.

I am hoping we can make it to 2023 or 2024 without running out of cash. At that point, I will likely just keep the income producing property going, and pay any additional amount out of my pocket and reimburse myself from his estate when he dies.

My brother and sister are total no-shows on all of this. They haven't even been to visit my dad in 5 years. I am power of attorney on everything so I just kind of tell them what I'm going to do. I don't feel that they have a say, since they aren't involved even minimally with this situation.

Anyone dealing with these same issues?

I am so glad my dad was smart with his money and for buying the LTC policy. I have him at the nicest assisted living center in the city - complete luxury and he deserves it. So I could have it a TON worse!

[cooliemae]

I think that we're going to see more family taking care of family members as their get older, which isn't a bad thing by a long shot. I can only hope that businesses will be willing to work with their employees to accommodate this new reality.

That being said, my MIL moved in with us about 2 years ago. Cognitively, she's 100%, but her 75 year old body is letting her down and she just couldn't live on her own anymore. My wife's sisters aren't set-up to take care of her nor do they have the patience to do so, so we were a natural fit. We've helped her sell her house, set-up a burial trust, and get all of the health & financial power of attorney paperwork taken care of and settle her in with us. About the only thing we need now is a little bigger house, but don't know if that's going to be possible anytime soon, so we make the best of what we have.

It's been really nice having her move in and I'm glad that my son has really gotten a chance to know her and vice versa.

I can sympathize with both the challenges and happiness that can come from taking care of one's parents and makes me doubly grateful for how healthy my parents are.

[Fishindude77]

Sounds like you have a pretty solid plan Husker.
I took care of my Mom for the last 8-10 years of her life. It wasn't something that I had thought about or planned on doing, but when she started needing help I felt obligated, and none of my siblings were doing much.

Went from think things were pretty good to discovering she was in pretty bad shape both financially and physically. She had managed to conceal her problems pretty well, so as not to burden us.

Got her out of a home she couldn't take care of, into an apartment till that no longer worked, then into a nursing home eventually. Lots of "fun" stuff to deal with along the way; cleaning up bad debts, taking over her finances, dealing with medicare & medicaid, selling her house and car, working with hospice company, in and out of hospital multiple times, arranged funeral, etc.

A couple of my siblings helped pay for things when called on so that was helpful. When we put her to rest and all bills were paid, she had something like $350.00 to her name. I kid my siblings now and then about how Mom left the inheritance to me

It's a tough job, but I think we owe it to them. I've got a real good friend going through the exact same thing with his mom right now.

[97guns]

I cared for my dad when he was in his end years, he lived by himself with diabetes and COPD. When his COPD got severe I had to put him into a nursing home that ran $6k a month, he had a huge nest egg that was around 33% cash and 66% stocks. I wanted to dip into principal as least as possible so my plan was to rent out his house and use the rent for partial payment on the nursing home but he only made it 4 months in the home and my plan never executed.

I feel sorry for children of parents with health problems and no money, I've seen many burdened by huge expenses to keep a parent alive. One friend of my mom had a mother with Alzheimer's and very little money, she ended up surviving with the disease for 15 years and the daughter was forced to sell her home to keep up with expenses. Now they are renting a house and my mom has lost touch with them

[TexasHusker]

I feel sorry for children of parents with health problems and no money, I've seen many burdened by huge expenses to keep a parent alive.

This is in my opinion the stealth poison pill lurking for many families who have otherwise made good financial decisions. A family can be doing well, and suddenly a parent has a chronic, terminal condition that will require advanced care that can run $100K a year, and with no one to pay for it. How do you plan for that exactly? No one is going to kick their parent to the streets to preserve their own nest egg, nor should they.

Care for Alzheimer's and similar is very expensive and can go for many years. Generally, I have found that one responsible offspring tends to take care of everything while the others tend to crawl into a hole somewhere for years at a time. My brother and sister don't even call at Christmas. I assume their M.O. is "Out of sight out of mind." Really sad.

[disneysteve]

We aren't yet but I suspect the day will come. My mom is 86 and still doing pretty well and living independently but that can't last forever. She does have LTC insurance and savings so that will help financially if and when she needs care. I think the emotional piece worries me more than the financial piece.

[97guns]

, I have found that one responsible offspring tends to take care of everything while the others tend to crawl into a hole somewhere for years at a time. My brother and sister don't even call at Christmas. I assume their M.O. is "Out of sight out of mind." Really sad.

Yes, I've seen the worst of people including my own siblings, I've lost a lot of respect for a lot of people due to their actions and lack of action

[MooseBucks]

This is something we are planning on having to do with the wife's parents. They know that when her dad retires in a year or so they won't be able to afford their current house on just her mom's salary. They've offered to sell us their house at a 100k discount and we would move in and let them stay. The part that scares me the most is that they are not prepared for a situation such as TexasHusker's and if they have a large long term medical situation we are going to end up having to care for her parents.

[TexasHusker]

This is something we are planning on having to do with the wife's parents. They know that when her dad retires in a year or so they won't be able to afford their current house on just her mom's salary. They've offered to sell us their house at a 100k discount and we would move in and let them stay. The part that scares me the most is that they are not prepared for a situation such as TexasHusker's and if they have a large long term medical situation we are going to end up having to care for her parents.

Moose I wouldn't be scared at all, just prepare. It might not be too late to get LTC insurance. Whether or not you buy their house, you've still got the same potential failing health issue, and if you guys don't care for them who will?

Might be money well spent to spend a couple hours with an estate planning attorney too.

[Thrif-t]

This is in my opinion the stealth poison pill lurking for many families who have otherwise made good financial decisions. A family can be doing well, and suddenly a parent has a chronic, terminal condition that will require advanced care that can run $100K a year, and with no one to pay for it. How do you plan for that exactly? No one is going to kick their parent to the streets to preserve their own nest egg, nor should they.

Care for Alzheimer's and similar is very expensive and can go for many years. Generally, I have found that one responsible offspring tends to take care of everything while the others tend to crawl into a hole somewhere for years at a time. My brother and sister don't even call at Christmas. I assume their M.O. is "Out of sight out of mind." Really sad.

Not saying they are the best but there are medicaid taking nursing home facilities so people aren't forced out into the street who have nothing. Of course it's better to be private pay for a good 6 mos to year to get in a good facility and as you spend down and run out of money they usually accept medicaid payments for your stay.

My DH's family has dealt with this. First both grandparents in a nursing home, together for 4 years. Private pay all 4 years, by the time they ran out of money and medicaid would've taken over they died :-(.

Then MIL got alzheimer's and was in nursing home for 5 years, all 5, FIL private paid for her. By the time she would've needed medicaid she died. Now here we go with FIL. He has altzheimers but is in the beginning stages and still lives alone. He is doing fine for now but I'm not sure how long he'll be able to stay alone. I think my DH and SIL are in denial because the dad begged them not to put him in a nursing home, he didn't want to go thru what his wife did. He'll have enough funds to be private pay for a good 2 years I'd think, maybe 3. He's 80 now so I'm not sure how long he'll live, he has other health problems.

Me, I've learned from history and took out LTC insurance on my DH as altzheimers is so strong in his family. We don't have the income, pensions or savings that the grandparents and parents had so I needed to get the LTC so that I could make sure I could afford a good facility should we need one for my DH, fingers crossed I don't, but I'm prepared if I do.

I don't have LTC on me, just can't afford it. My parents both died in their late 60's and early 70's of cancer. I figure I'll die of that some day and hopefully as quickly as my parents did not to be a burden on my kids and DH :-(...wow this is so sad

My heart goes out to all families dealing with this issue.

[rennigade]

My MIL just moved her mother to a nursing home. She has dementia. It was very emotional for her. Her brother is basically useless so she had to deal with everything. Your siblings sound as useless as her brother. Im not sure what kind of relationship you have with them but I would stop filling them in. Since you're doing extremely well financially when the end comes you should donate every single penny of your fathers (whatever is left) to charity and send them a note letting them know.

[TexasHusker]

Since you're doing extremely well financially when the end comes you should donate every single penny of your fathers (whatever is left) to charity and send them a note letting them know.

I have thought many times about doing this very thing. But my brother and sister are penniless.

[sv2007]

Not taking care of aging parents; but here's my parents' plan for old age.

My parents don't use medicare (cays it's way too expensive); they use Taiwan's national health insurance. They split their year 1/3 here, 1/3 in LV, 1/3 in Taiwan. I told them that just the cost of their Taiwan house can easily pay for improved medicate coverage); but anyway they leave 2 houses empty.

Due partly to the national insurance, entire-life-retirement communities are popping up all over Taiwan. From what parents told me, you buy a house in the community, then the community admin will take care of you until you die, there's free on-site hospital and nursing. (I told them that there seems to be a conflict of interest where the admin would probably want to kill off the really sick customers : )

I'm not sure if food, transportation is also taken care of or not. But they told me that there were a lot of those communities and toured many.

Don't know how this can work in the US, but it's very interesting.

[Outdoorsygal]

I took care of my Husbands Uncle in hospice for about 40 days

We also moved in this rental after selling our home a few years ago to care for his elderly parents. We moved almost next door and cared for them alot but actual live in time was only about 4 months. Then my Brother in Law hired care-givers to relieve us and they've both since passed away. We are still in the rental, we still haven't bought a home yet to live in but did buy property.

The first was a good experience, amazing caring man. I was blessed to do it. The second was horrid, a nightmare. But such is life


Taking care of others really brings out what kind of person you are. You grow up alot. Blessings to you TexasHusker

[FLA]

In '13 I realized I had too much townhouse for 1 person as my kids would be off to college fairly soon. My mother has a debilitating end stage disease. My father has an orphan mitochondrial disease, along with a host of other chronic and acute conditions. I was a hospice nurse and planned to play that role for my mother. So one day conversation led to what about selling both our places and getting a handicapped accessible ranch for all of us.

Went well for 2 yrs and then I got very sick and became disabled and my income dropped by 60%. I had not planned for this eventuality very well. I managed to get 13k in an emergency fund and I do have quite a bit in retirement funds that I can now access but of course am trying desperately not to. For 3 yrs my father was doing pretty well and he took care of my mom and me and pretty much ran the household. I stabilized to a chronic level and kind of know my limits of what I can do. I can help but not fully. For example, my mother fell today. With my illness I fall all the time. So me getting her up was very difficult but we managed. And some days we have to call for help.

2016 was terrible, over 6 mos my father deteriorated tremendously, we have been living really in crisis mode. Everyone taking care of each other, everything patched together and figured out day by day. Today my dad's doc said he should slowly regain his old stamina if he follows his plan. But it's not going to be easy or quick.

My mother has Palliative Care from the VNA. The HHA showering her is a blessing. The rest of the service has been mediocre but at least we have someone to fall back on. My dad just got out of the hospital a week ago. He has VNA for RN, PT and OT very short term. He really needed to go to inpatient rehab but Medicare refused him.

I feel very overwhelmed managing their care needs and my own needs. I am praying my dad recovers some of his independence.

Our house is in a trust, but the stupid elder law attorney who we paid a fortune for, put my sick mom in the trust for some reason unknown to us. We took her out three yrs ago so the odds of her going to a nursing home need to be slim because we really need to have the house as part of the estate in order for me to live on my reduced income. I know that sounds cold. We need my dad to stay home because we need his income. That sounds cold, too. But I will move heaven and earth and put my own needs last to take care of them the way they should be cared for. I did it for thousands of other people for 23 yrs, to not be able to do it for my own parents would kill me. There is some wiggle room to private hire an HHA if we need more assistance in that area.

I have one sibling 3 hrs away and he is beyond useless. He has a job with which he could work anywhere on the planet that has internet access. So there are zero excuses for him not showing up for critical things like acute hospitalizations. I don't even have a way to contact him since he ignores all voicemails, emails and texts. He just got married, the wife said to text her and she'll make him check the above. WTH, be a freaking grown up and help your parents or at least read the emails about how they are doing. I mean isn't that the absolute least he could do? I'm especially pissed because he makes a ton but squanders it so he has hit my parents up for a good amt of money over the years to get out of debt. Never repaid a penny. He sickens me.

I should not be surprised by my brother since over the years in hospice, I learned very quickly that the one sibling providing the bulk of the care is the norm. But it's just plain wrong. Kudos to all the caregivers out there.