@cbreeze, in my mother’s case, her financial decision were meaningfully eroding her capital and could have led to problems over time and the kids (mostly me) would have had to step in. Having sold the house, she will not run out of money. She wasn’t in the same position that you are in.
I worry about the need for assisted living. This past year my best friend’s mother moved in to a facility that had regular apartments, activities and on site dining. Lots of activities and transportation were available. Her health declined and she was moved in to another apartment there where more care was provided by aides. The facility was beautiful but the aides were not great. It got to the point where my friend was worried about her mother being there so she set up times for friends and family to stop by or spend the day with her mom just to make sure there was adequate care. Within one week she made a decision to move her mom in to another facility where she passed. I keep thinking about that experience and it frightens me. Everything looked great at the facility but hard to evaluate front line staff unless you are actually there.
@cbreeze – we hired through an agency also because we needed to document the care for the LTC policy elimination period.
There were two options: the one we used and what sounds like the one you used. If my mother had not been there to handle driving, shopping, cooking, etc, then we would have had to hire a different level of care provider. Also, if my father had needed assistance getting up multiple times during the night, that would have required a different set-up. I think we would have had to shift to three eight-hour providers and that would have billed out at $20/hour x 24 hours/day.
Once my mother needs help, I do not know how we will feel about a stranger living alone in her house with her. Bridges to be crossed…
Agree with @NorthMinnesota that it is very difficult to evaluate these situations. The best you can hope for is knowing someone else living in the same facility, but how often does that happen?
@shawbridge – I have tip-toed around the conversation with my mother. I have the feeling that she will want to keep the house for a while, even if she moves into assisted living. Just to have the comfort level of knowing that it is still there in case she does not like assisted living. Realistically, once she makes the move, she won’t be capable of living on her own.
None of this really answers the question of how much money one will need in retirement but my feeling is that if one lives many years with declining health, it could be a lot more money than one imagines today.
Anyone interested in a separate thread, to brainstorm what WE want for ourselves in 20 (30?) years? Combine the wisdom of this thread with that of the “Parents Caring for the Parents support” thread, and we’ve experienced a lot with our parents, and grandparents, that ideally we hope to improve upon. I’d love to brainstorm what we envision for ourselves in the future – and if it doesn’t yet exist where we live, how we might make it exist?
Just some thoughts to start the conversation:
There is a non-profit group near my home, that has designed a system of retirement housing, that starts with independent living apartments, and progresses to full nursing care. It is NOT a CC facility. Each option is independent, and must be applied to separately, so nothing is guaranteed. But they will give priority to current residents in the system. Very nice ‘facilities’, and much more reasonable cost at the front (independent living) end. BUT, it still segregates retirees from the rest of the community. Plus, while it is non-profit, it is still managed by others, with little input from those who actually live there.
OR Form a Group Home (or combination of cottages) with friends, and perhaps establish a system of support at the onset, that ebbs and flows as the needs of the home change?
OR Start a “Village Movement” concept with neighbors & friends in your community (similar to Beacon Hill / Boston), whose member support each other as long as possible while we live in our own homes.
@kjofkw I know this isn’t what you had in mind, but I had a similar conversation recently when discussing the dwindling numbers of kids getting into the trades. Our idea was to buy a tract of land to build our houses on and you could build there as long as you had a trade to contribute. We are in because my husband is a plumber!
@kjofkw - How 'bout this option?? http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jimmy-buffett-to-open-margaritaville-retirement-communities-w470492
First one in Daytona Beach, another in Hilton Head https://www.forbes.com/sites/danafeldman/2017/05/25/jimmy-buffett-announces-second-location-for-margaritaville-retirement-communities-as-hilton-head-sc/
Parrot heads!
^ How far from Hilton Head do you get to be and still leach off of the Hilton Head name?
In this case it looks like about 15 miles. I guess calling it the Latitude Margaritaville Hardeeville just doesn’t have the same caché. Shockingly, that exit off of I95 doesn’t have a Waffle House, you have to go to the next exit a few miles south. On the bright side, there’s a Walmart SuperCenter just down the street.
““There’s so much to do in Daytona Beach and Hilton Head and as fun, relaxed beach towns, their personalities are a great match with the Margaritaville lifestyle,” said John Cohlan, CEO of Margaritaville.”
This is such bullcrap. It’s hard to live the “beach town life” when it’s a 45 minute drive or worse to get to the beach.
The Daytona Beach one appears to actually be in Daytona Beach, so kudos for that, however it’s on the wrong side of I95 and 8 or 9 miles from the beach.
For a lot of people in retirement, you could just pipe in sounds from a beach and have pictures of beaches on the walls and they wouldn’t know they didn’t live on the beach. 
How close to the nearest Cracker Barrel? That is a retirement requirement too, right?
With the risk of hurricanes down that way, insurance and regulations to build new homes close to the water were probably prohibitively expensive, if not outright banned.
I think it is more a question of available land. The “Hilton Head” one is going to be 2400 acres in size, which is almost 4 square miles. You are not going to find that much undeveloped land available right on the ocean. If by some chance you could, it would be very expensive.
The Cracker Barrel is just down the street from the Walmart. 
Apparently, Cracker Barrel is a bigger deal for retirees than I realized. Recently, I read about a couple in their 80s who have visited over 600 Cracker Barrels and plan to continue traveling to see them all for as long as they’re able. I used to love the idea of a year-long road trip whenever dh retires, but now it’s health issues that make that unlikely rather than budget.
I may be one of the elderly for whom pictures and sounds of the beach may be enough. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about bugging out for hurricanes.
Hey, Cracker Barrel is a big deal. I LOVE Cracker Barrel, but the closest one to Seattle is in Boise, I think. Might have to move in retirement, but at least for now I travel to places that have one. 
Cracker Barrel? Are you kidding me? Bad food, bad nutrition, bad atmosphere, and bad service. What else do you need?
Never been to Cracker Barrel. I drive by one on the way to Ikea. Didn’t know it was a retirees’ thing.
Cracker Barrel also has had several issues with racism/discrimination. Lovely establishment. Not.
I have friends who retired to a community in Bluffton, which is in between Hardeeville and Hilton Head. As others have said, HH is an island, and there is clearly no way they could build such a project there. Doubt, other than some marshland and protected wetlands etc, three is much left there to build on. So if he calls it Margaritaville at Hilton Head, eh… thats close. Old people can’t see that well anyway. They won’t know the difference.
Personally the Margaritaville concept sounds awful to me! Any corporate Disneyland for seniors sounds awful, but I’ve never lived in one, so should not judge. I did know one person who moved to an “active” retirement community and loved it, so who knows. I think I’d rather be part of an active community of all ages – but given our situation do not have a history, nor extended relatives in any one particular area, and I’m fearful it will be difficult to create that sense of community at this point in our lives. I’d also rather have an active role (while I can), rather than have it decided for me by others who develop a community for their profit.
I also know another friend who retired part-time to a manufactured home community in Florida and loves it. She spends her time split between her home town, and her Florida family. The community self-governs, watches out for each other, shares duties, volunteers, etc. I assume it also has political (aka ‘small town’) politics, but for the most part, she loves it. She mentioned that because nearly everyone in this community is a transplant, past histories are of little concern, and it is easy to make new friends, as it was back in college dorms. Would love to find something similar, but nothing like that exists where we are – and Florida is the complete opposite end of the country for us.
Must be a local issue. I have gone to a number of them across the country, and go to one near Memphis quite often. The food is delicious…while not the most nutritious, no doubt, nobody makes vegetables taste as good as they do. Or hash brown casserole. The bacon, yum. The atmosphere is just fine, people are nice, service is comparable to anywhere else. I’ve never seen any racism issues, customers at the CB that I frequent are about 50/50 black and white, along with the servers. never had a problem with food, service or atmosphere. And there has to be a reason many retirees like Cracker Barrels. If they really were bad in every category, why would they want to go there, and why would they always be packed?
Try a different Cracker Barrel.
DH and I were so enamored of our son’s time at boarding school, we thought it would be nirvana to duplicate for retirees, only no grades, just the ability to live and learn in small, iconic New England communities. You know, snuggling up in a wing chair with a sherry and a classic next to the walk-in sized fireplace in the reading room of the 19th century library. Meals in the Hogwarts-like dining room. Days of stimulating small-size classes of only those subjects you enjoy with happy conversations spilling out into the quad as you travel back to your room under the eaves for a nap before tea. Afternoons on the lawns watching/playing games, hours by the lake admiring the rowers, walks into the nearby town for ice cream or drinks at the charming town pub. Evening musical or theatrical performances by your peers in the white-columned auditorium. Sigh. I guess I want to retire to a cozy LAC. A Shady Acres version of a place like Choate or Bowdoin – with a bookstore that carries reading glasses, heartburn medication, colonoscopy prep, etc. Anyone else in?