The business of aging

My wife and I are recently retired. We moved to New England to be close to our grandson and his parents. We’re living independently in a three-bedroom detached house.

My parents were able to live independently into their early 80s, when my dad began to dement. My mom was much smaller than him, and wasn’t able to manage him physically, so they moved into a retirement community. The entry fee back then was $300,000, which they couldn’t afford, so one of my brothers and I funded that, and their retirement income could handle the monthly fees.

“Most communities charge an entry fee. The average initial payment is about $402,000, but the fees can range widely, from $40,000 to more than $2 million, according to NIC, which tracks costs at some 1,100 CCRCs in 99 major U.S. markets.

“Once residents move in, they pay monthly maintenance or service fees. Other continuing care communities operate on a rental model with no up-front fee. The average monthly charge across both types of communities in the third quarter of 2021 was $3,555, and rents typically rise about 2 percent a year, NIC says.”

We visited them during this time. Indeed, the management made available an apartment for my wife and me. The facilities were impressive. Of course, I didn’t have to live there. My parents seemed to like it. One of their daughters lived nearby.

Eventually, my dad had to go to a nursing home (covered by Medicaid), and my mom downsized to a smaller apartment. When my mom died, we got the entry fee back, sans interest.

My in-laws stayed in the house they raised a family in. When my mother-in-law demented, her husband was able to care for her in their house. After she died, he started to dement, but also lived in that house until he died with the aid of his daughters and a paid helper.

When you get old, you need to do planning that you didn’t do for the first six decades of your life. My parents had five kids. My in-laws had four. We have one. We don’t want to be a burden on them. We’ve probably got at least ten years to figure this out.

https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/basics/info-2017/continuing-care-retirement-communities.html