Planning for Aging

It’s understandably hard to think about things we don’t want to happen like illness and death.

Protecting ourselves from these topics by avoiding them feels much more natural than diving into them.

Yet, at some point you’ll feel ready or be pushed into this conversation – so I invite you to consider it now before it’s an emergency…

Say you’re talking about aging with your parents and their experience of aging with their parents (your grandparents) was very different, be it because their parents died early, were in a different country, or countless other things. How do you bridge this gap? How do you come to a joint decision? Or maybe your parents already have a great aging plan and you’re actually concerned about your own or your partner’s!

Caring for our loved ones and for ourselves can include:

• thinking about estate planning (what will happen to their things when they pass),
• power of attorney issues (who would make decisions on their behalf if they don’t have the mind to do it), and
• how you/they want to live if they can’t care for themselves.

For the first two points on estate planning and power of attorney questions you can use this document as a guide on questions to consider. To talk about it further set a time for us to meet!

NOTE: Long term care insurance is a potential financial product that can help address this need. To learn more about check out this comprehensive guide: Is Long-Term Care Insurance Worth It?

When thinking of the future, especially with topics that are emotionally charged, two things are key to avoid overwhelm: awareness and action. Being aware of what motivates us and our assumptions makes it easier to take action to use what serves us and discard the rest.

• Awareness without action leaves us feeling stuck, like knowing there’s a history of dementia in your family and knowing nothing about how to prevent it or care needed for it.
• Action without awareness keeps us stuck in a loop, like buying long term care insurance that doesn’t offer enough care for the state you live in.

Being aware of what motivates us and our assumptions makes it easier to take action to use what serves us and discard the rest.

Areas to Consider

Cognitive Challenges

What happens when you or your loved ones are having memory issues or can’t keep track of things?

If this is a concern for you or your family consider having a Montreal Cognitive Assessment to create a baseline of your current memory.

You can start as early as 55 and have a test every decade or so to prevent further declines.

This is where Power of Attorney documents are very important. What happens when someone is no longer able to make decisions for themselves? Refer to this document to get the conversation started.

Financial elder abuse through caregivers and scams that target the elderly are very common. I remember the sadness an octogenarian client of mine shared when he realized that he’d spent 20 minutes on the a phone call with what at first sounded like a legitimate call from his bank. He was disappointed in himself for falling for a scam part way, worried about actually falling for it in the future, and scared at how legitimate sounding scam artists are – truly professionals at what they do!

Some of the actions you can take to prevent this include:

• Setting alerts on their credit card, especially above a certain dollar amount
• Placing a limit on ATM withdrawals
• Sharing about how to report elder financial abuse and how to spot it. Check out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for details.

Talk with your elders about what to watch out for in scams and let them know that things that seemed impossible before, like a call from a random person with much of your personal information, is now possible because of technology changes.

Mobility Changes

How will you know when it’s time to stop driving?

This question actually nests a lot of other things within it. While it can be a simple decision when it’s time to renew the person’s driver’s license, in reality it’s a big adjustment and we need to be sensitive to how people respond to having this sense of freedom changed.

When I lived in southern California, the land of freeways and drive-ins, no longer having a driver’s license was the most serious sign of aging. I remember witnessing the sadness and even depression that came onto friends who no longer had confidence driving at night. One of my friends and my dear money mentor, Pauline, decided to hire a driver for longer trips and learned to use Uber for anything that was at night.

After going through the frustration of no longer being able to drive, she shared gratitude at having the resources to be able to pay someone to drive her and became close friends with her driver. Like with many other areas of life, Pauline showed me how to take change in stride.

Can you sit with your elders while they share their experience of aging? Like with many things in life, aging is not a problem to be solved but an experience to be lived through.

How many times do you need to fall before you stop doing household chores?

This is literally a question I asked my grandmother. After a health care as a family we decided the best living arrangement was for her to move to Mexicali, Mexico where we could more easily afford at home care than in Calexico, in the US. Not every family has access to this type of international arbitrage, so I’m very grateful that we do and that my grandmother prefers it.

Consider your own situation? How much household help might you/they need? Can there be a change in housing so that there’s more local help? Consider the financial implications.

Key areas to look at are Activities of Daily Living:

• Walking and getting around your home
• Feeding yourself
• Dressing and grooming
• Toileting as in going to the bathroom
• Bathing
• Transferring yourself from one body position to another, like moving onto a bed or wheelchair

In the US people are eligible for at-home care if they can’t perform the activities outlined above, however the cost and level of service varies by county. Find out what’s available in your area before you need it so that you can stop worrying about what’s possible, and instead discuss preferences.

Socialization

Who do you want to spend time with and how often?

As we get older our relationships change, this is even more pronounced for octogenarians+. Think back to your older family members and how they responded to their friends and family passing away or no longer being able to care for themselves individually. How were they able to cope with these changes?

Having the level of socialization that you want at any age is incredibly important to mental health. While some of us are hermits and only need to see others once or twice a month, others of us do better sharing every meal with others. People’s personalities and needs also change as they get older.

For the Caregivers

Caregiving is tough work. A good friend of mine and fellow financial planner, Elliott Appel, is an expert on the subject through personal and client experience and has written the following pieces on it:

• 7 Ways to Help a Caregiver – Do you know a caregiver that seems to be getting worn out? Here are concrete ways to help.
• The Negative Effects of Caregiving – Are you considering being a caregiver or are already in that position and feel worn out? Make sure to care for yourself – we can’t give from an empty well.

It’s important to keep in mind that as the general population continues to age, more and more of us will either be caregivers or responsible for facilitating care for others. Take the time today to prepare so that when the need arises you will be better able to respond in a way that honors you and the one you’re caring for.

What’s next?

Even with all the planning life is full of curve balls – we can’t know what’s coming. Yet, knowing what the assumptions, plans, and expectations are for everyone involved makes any change easier to navigate.

As the eldest daughter I often bring this question up for my parents. For a while I was even obsessed with buying them long term care insurance, which was way out of my means as a college student! As I’ve written before, retirement and aging can be different for immigrants, and my family is no exception.

When discussing these issues with loved ones have them think back to their LIVED EXPERIENCE rather than what they HOPE will happen.

Have them consider what they’ve seen when loved ones age, what were key turning points? Use this to outline what you’d like for yourself and for them. This conversation will probably happen slowly over many meals, which is much better than at an emergency room!

While you don’t have to solve all these questions before they happen (and you honestly can’t given all the open variables), it’s best to get the conversations started.