If you’re the average American, your retirement plan consists of legal documents (your estate plan) and a nest egg (your financial plan) designed to achieve two primary goals:
- Fund the adventures you’ll have after you stop working.
- Transition your assets after you die.
This kind of planning works beautifully if you’re lucky enough to die in your sleep. Most of us won’t be so fortunate. More than two thirds of us will develop a long-term illness that renders us incapacitated, unable to manage activities of daily living without assistance.
How will your legal documents and retirement accounts address manage this? They won’t—and the results will be catastrophic for everyone involved. When you get sick, your health crisis will create a cascade of problems. One of the most vexing will involve housing. Your family will be trying to figure out where you will live, and well-meaning health care professionals will be urging your caregivers to place you in an institution. That’s all well and good if you don’t mind institutional life, but if you’re among the 60% of Americans who say they would rather die that living in a nursing home, well, you’re out of luck.
What is your plan to find a “forever home” in retirement, one where you can live when you’re healthy and having fun—and one where you can stay when your health fails, and you need care? This is one of the most important retirement-related questions that Americans aren’t asking. It’s a question that lawyers and financial planners won’t be able to answer for you.
Who can help you answer this question? LifePlanning by AgingOptions can. LifePlanning makes it easy to create a master plan for every aspect of life in retirement, including your housing. Finding your “forever” home should be one of your top priorities. If you put it off, your failing health will make your carefully crafted retirement plan collapse like a house of cards.
