I want to live in a nursing home, said no one ever.
Is living in a nursing home on your bucket list?
Is it on your top-ten list of places to visit before you die?
Probably not.
No one is dying to move into a nursing home. You probably don’t know anyone who wants to live in a nursing home, but you probably know people who don’t want to end up there. In fact, a recent study showed that 60% of people would rather die than live in a nursing home.
If you’re serious about avoiding institutional care when your health fails, you need to know that your current plan for retirement will do little help you achieve that goal.
- Your Will or Trust won’t help.
- Your Power of Attorney won’t help.
- Your Advance Directive won’t help.
- Your financial portfolio won’t help. You could have a massive fortune and still end up living in a place you don’t want to be.
The problem is in the planning.
For most Americans, the plan to avoid the nursing home looks like this:
“I will live at home until I can’t, and then my family will figure out what to do with me.”
This almost always ends badly.
How can you avoid being forced to move to a nursing home when you become too ill or too frail to live at home? The key is to create a plan for housing that’s integrated with the legal and financial plan you probably already have. If you do this, your failing health won’t create a housing emergency for your family. Thanks to your plan, the care will come to you, in the place you want to live, without running out of money or becoming a burden on your loved ones.
