How To Talk to Your Aging Parents About Assisted Living Costs
Those who don’t have enough savings for assisted living may have other options to help cover costs.
“In most cases, seniors who are moving into an assisted living facility will no longer need a home,” said Danielle Miura, a certified financial planner and founder of Spark Financials. “Downsizing by selling a home can help cover the cost of the senior living home.”
Medicaid can also provide financial help for qualified seniors. Low-income seniors over 62 may also qualify for subsidized housing by applying for the HUD Section 202 program. Income limits vary based on your state and county.
“This program allows low-income elderly to live independently while providing home-care assistance,” Miura said.
Retirement Planning: The 10 Areas Most People Forget To Prepare For
Danielle Miura, a certified financial planner with Wealthtender and Founder of Spark Financials, wants retirees to understand how Social Security can impact their financial portfolio.
“Chances are that you are overlooking your most significant retirement benefit-Social Security. For most people, including the wealthy, Social Security benefits rank as one of their most considerable retirement benefits. Social Security benefits are guaranteed, and inflation-adjusted payments can relieve stress to the rest of your retirement portfolio, allowing your investments to remain untouched for a longer time frame.”
How Should You Respond When Your Adult Children Ask For Money?
Rather than immediately saying yes to your child’s financial request, Danielle Miura, CFP and founder of Spark Financials, recommends parents have an honest conversation about their financial situation with their adult children.
If a parent cannot afford to financially help an adult child, they may provide nonfinancial requests. Miura said these may include helping the child create a budget or connecting them with a financial professional.
“Healthy money lending is when there is clear communication about the expectations, there are respectful boundaries and the parents are not compromising their financial situation for the sake of their child,” Miura said.
Miura said parents should have an idea of when they want to gradually limit the amount of money or the frequency they give to children.
10 Tips for Splitting Caregiving Costs Among Siblings
Among the first things for siblings to do is to gather their parents’ financial documents to figure out their financial situation, says Danielle Miura, a certified financial planner in Ripon, California. “There will often be money somewhere that you least suspect,” she says.
One sibling should oversee keeping all documents and receipts — maybe even creating spreadsheets — that highlight all costs related to long-term care, says Miura. This should be available for all siblings to see.
It might be worth meeting with an elder care attorney to discuss possible Medicaid qualifications and how to structure the financial document to make sure your parent can qualify, says Miura. That may require using up the parents’ assets first, she says.