<p>It’s really a funny system of life here. Young people are told to save for their old age. But when you are 80 years old, suffering from dementia, the vast majority of you will not have kids who are willing to take care of you in your home, unless they are Amish. </p>
<p>And even if you have a health care proxy and power of attorney to plan for such a day, they can still manage to go and get a guardianship of you so that they can divest all of your assets to themselves in the interest of “medicaid planning”, and then leave you at a nursing home, while they spend your “wealth”.</p>
<p>Just saw this happen last week. After that, I kind of feel that you are better off living for the day and hope that you do something that you will never want to retire from. Because it seems in the end, most people end up on Medicaid anyhow!</p>
<p>Interesting that there is a parallel thread started by our esteemed leader, Dave Berry about thsi very topic <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/533076-has-recession-hit-you.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/533076-has-recession-hit-you.html</a> and posters are talking about what they’ve been doing in the face of the economic downturn.
As for the medicaid thing, whatapainthis is, I find the “hide the income so the government pays to take care of the aging adult” behaviour distasteful, as I believe you do to. What I have seen, in some cases, is the aging adult do this (hide/reallocate their $$) so they can leave their $$ to their kids and not spend it on their own care. Its their choice, I suppose, but sadly, the quality of care they will likely get in a medicaid facility is not what they might get in a privately funded one.</p>
<p>JYM626, that is exactly the behavior that I’ve seen, as well as children behaving with disgusting disregard of their parents in their own self-interest. </p>
<p>It is things like this that make me really wish that I’d been born Amish. They take care of their people, and I want that.</p>
<p>My mother has nothing, so if the day comes that she cannot care for herself, I’m well aware that it will be me who cares for her. My other siblings do not care enough, she’d be dumped in any old facility so they can go about their lives. The fact that my mother has been a nurse’s aid and that my sister is an RN in an nursing facility has given me some “insight” into these places that would make me unable to function if my mother went to one (unless perhaps my sister worked at it, and I don’t even think hers is a medicaid place). The thing is, it seems as if you have to be super-wealthy to afford the care of an alzheimer’s/dementia person, because the rest of their body may be in great shape.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the solution is, but I told my family in the car the other day that I may just draft a document stating that in the event of my incapacitation, I’d like to be transported to whatever state allows euthanasia!</p>
<p>Euthanasia -dying with dignity and less pain ? That’s a subject that merits it’s own thread. </p>
<p>I may be wrong, I always thought Alzheimer’s is a disease that is harder on the family than the patient. I wonder if the sufferer is even cognitively aware they are suffering. </p>
<p>I have in the last few years, came around to thinking like oldfort, enjoy life a little or a lot. I am done building my “foundation” and it’s now time to reap the benefits, albeit within limits. The way my children are going, they are going to need an inheritance, if not for them, then to take care of their family. :(</p>
<p>I have quite a few examples on my block of seniors who are quite self sufficient. ( which also emphasizes how we need to plan for future- we might live a looong time)
The best example is my neighbor across the street, who is in her ** mid- 90’s**. She is still sharp as a tack, has some osteoporosis & has some heart issues ( for which she is treated for at least the past 30 years), but still drives occasionally :eek:, ** hikes**, and works in her yard ( thank goodness she hires someone to do most of it)</p>
<p>Contrast that to my mother, who sold her home because she didn’t like paying for someone to cut the grass- bought a condo with the proceeds, but has refinanced it several times so she is in more debt than she was when she bought it. She also quit her job at 55, when her mother died ( she was an only child), but since then she spends all day watching tv and waiting for one of my sibs to allow her to babysit.
She had a knee replacement, to help her walk, but she doesn’t generally.</p>
<p>I always try and make a point of encouraging the older people in our neighborhood who are out and about, especially the ones who need assistive devices to get around, because I think it is much better to be up doing, even with a walker, than it is to stay stuck in your chair.</p>
<p>Right after we married, we bought a condo with a mortgage, and were paying off two car loans. Both of us had always wanted to own a sailboat even though we barely knew how to sail. Without sufficient cash to buy the boat, we went ahead and bought one with a 3-year loan. As it turns out, some of our most precious and hilarious memories involve sailing (and trying to sail) on the Chesapeake in that boat. If we had waited to save the $$ to buy it, or lived according to a rule against debt, that boat would not likely have materialized. We would have spent the money on more practical things like new furniture or home improvements (yawn), which we needed but let slide.</p>
<p>"“We will not be leaving our kids with any inheritance because we have spent it on their education.”</p>
<p>Oldfort: So you are going to die with no money? That’s the way it sounds.</p>
<p>Again, you missed the whole point of this thread. Americans should learn how to live within their means. I am all for “Live every moment and have fun” philosophy, but you have to do that within your means.</p>
<p>If I have my way, I would die with no money, but of course none of us would be that good at calculating death (there is reverse mortgage I could consider…). There is inheritance, and there is inheritance. My kids are not going to get “Inheritance.” My husband and I are going to enjoy the money we have made ourselves, and they could do so for themselves. </p>
<p>I teach our girls to save, but I also teach them to enjoy money. My older daughter used to be a black hole with money, what went in never came out. She felt good to just watch her money grow (it was painful to watch her part with her money sometimes). I told her it’s good to put away money for raining days, but it’s also ok to indulge every once in a while, and it’s especially good to use it to buy gifts for other people. I have also told my girls not to marry any guy that’s cheap and is constantly worried about money.</p>
Good point, oldfort. The flip side is that my younger s says he doesn’t want to marry a girl who comes from wealth- he doesn’t want to have to worry about keeping them in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed :)</p>
<p>I have also taught my daughters not to be rude when they are having a discussion with people. It’s shows your upbringing. I also don’t know what’s Suze Orman show.</p>
<p>Suzie Orman is a financial counselor that appears frequently on public television. I personally can’t stand her attitude or her advice. She is routinely laughed at and ridiculed on trading boards.</p>
<p>I agree with this, with the exception of setting aside enough for my funeral. No need to burden heirs with this. </p>
<p>Putting aside the obvious difficulty of predicting exactly when I’ll die and how to ensure that my money is spent at exactly the right rate, I think about what I can do in the meantime. I can make choices in how I spend or give away my money. Setting plenty aside for health care and having good insurance is key. Once that’s taken care of, I can travel and visit friends and family. I don’t need any more “stuff”, so purchasing major, big-ticket items is not an issue. I can gift up to the tax limit to my heirs every year, thus reducing my taxable estate. I can create a charitable remainder trust. All sorts of options. </p>
<p>I don’t see any advantage at all to dying with a lot of money. This is foolish from an estate planning perspective, and I’m guessing even Suze Orman would agree.</p>
<p>vballmom & BCEagle91 & RatedPG: what do you object to about Susie O ? </p>
<p>I have watched Susie O maybe 2/3 times. I don’t have much use for her advice but thought her advice was down to earth and reasonable. Has to take any TV guru with a grain of salt however, to paraphrase a friend, "who ever died and make Susie O the god of money advice ? "</p>
<p>“2 very sad statements. Who wants to die with not a cent to their name?”</p>
<p>I’m not sure if anyone has ever pointed out to you that you can’t take money with you when you die? </p>
<p>But seriously, it’s good to have enough left so that one’s relatives aren’t burdened by paying for a simple funeral and bills and such, but otherwise, it’s very sad if someone feels they win by dying with the highest amount of cash. I’m thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge here. </p>
<p>As a side note, is your username based on the song by Allie and AJ?</p>
<p>I don’t have anything against Suze specifically, in fact I purchased her will and trust kit to put together a first draft of my will & revocable trust. This was well worth the $20 or so it cost. In general I think her advice is aimed at people who don’t have a lot of experience investing/handling money, so those who are more knowledgeable probably find her simplistic.</p>