It’s that circle of life. Once upon a time, your parents took care of you. And if your parents are lucky to live long enough, you may end up taking care of them.
While you may be happy to help your parents in any way you can, becoming a parent’s caregiver can be a blow to anyone’s finances. And there are a lot of caregivers out there. Northwestern Mutual recently released its C.A.R.E (Costs, Accountabilities, Realities, Expectations) Study, which polled 1,308 American adults and hundreds more experienced caregivers; nearly 4 out of 10 Americans either currently consider themselves a caregiver to someone aging, ill or with special needs (other than a child), or they say they’ve played that role in the past.
Of those polled, 38 percent said that they hadn’t planned for the financial costs of caring for an aging family member or friend, and 35 percent of experienced caregivers estimated that they spend 26 percent of their monthly budget on caregiving costs. In other words, it’s expensive to take care of an aging parent, relative or friend.
That won’t be news to anyone, but what are some of the costs involved? Because November is Long-Term Care Awareness Month, and because it can’t hurt to be prepared, here are some of the expenses you’ll want to be ready for.
Long-term health care. Yes, you may spend a lot of money on your parents’ medicine, but it’s often that round-the-clock care that kills the budget, although often, it will be your parents’ income (and possibly your inheritance) that takes the brunt of it. Bruce McCreary, a real estate agent in Arvada, Colorado, says he had to put his parents in a care facility when his mother developed Alzheimer’s — and his father, meanwhile, was declining while trying to care for her
“It was $8,000 a month for care until they qualified for Medicaid,” McCreary says. But it didn’t have to be this way, he adds.
McCreary recommends talking to an attorney who specializes in elder law and can help you protect your parents’ assets. “We did this with my grandfather in 1985. All of his assets were protected, and my dad inherited it all,” he says. But his father didn’t do it for himself “and subsequently lost it all,” McCreary adds.
But at least thanks to Medicaid, McCreary says his 96-year-old father is living happily at his care facility. McCreary’s mother passed away in 2011.
Whatever you do, when it comes to protecting your parents’ assets, McCreary says, “You can’t wait until the last minute.”
Hearing aids. You may want to put some money aside for this, depending how things go. Jim Comer, author of “When Roles Reverse: A Guide to Parenting Your Parents,” says he bought his father three hearing aids between 1996 and 2000.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. “My father’s deafness made every conversation an exhausting, bellowed exchange. Finally, I persuaded him to buy some high-quality hearing aids,” Comer says.
Unfortunately, his father was so used to not hearing things that he hated what he was hearing. On his first day wearing the hearing aids, father and son were driving home on the freeway when Comer’s dad asked: “What’s all that racket?”
“That’s the tires, Dad,” Comer said.
Comer’s father only wore the hearing aids when his son insisted. Comer is also pretty sure that it wasn’t a mistake when his father dropped a hearing aid in his soup. The replacement hearing aids mysteriously disappeared from his nightstand.
He wouldn’t wear the third pair because they hurt his ears.
“Total cost of three sets of hearing aids: $10,000 in 1996 to 2000 money,” Comer says. True, it was his father’s money, but Comer says, “if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t.”
Comer adds that his father didn’t have long-term care insurance, and when he and Comer’s mother broke their hips within seven months of each other, they had to move into a facility with skilled nursing.
“Their money ran out in about five years,” Comer says. “Thank God for Medicaid.”
A chair lift. Kathryn Pomroy, a freelance copy editor and writer in Duluth, Minnesota, has been helping her mother pay regular bills for years, such as the telephone, cable and car insurance. Recently, however, she became a full-fledged caregiver to her 89-year-old mother, inviting her into her home.
“Making the decision was easy,” Pomroy says. “Understanding the time and costs involved was a complete surprise.”
Pomroy has no regrets, but she says her family ended up purchasing and installing a used chair lift system that cost $2,500.
Even if you avoid that, if your parents live with you, you might have to spend money on other home improvements, such as making a bathroom more age-friendly or installing a wheelchair ramp leading to your front or back door. Bathroom modeling can, of course, run into the thousands.
According to HomeAdvisor.com, the average cost of a disability ramp is $1,541.
Helping your parents move into a facility — or your home. Pomroy recently made a trip to Arizona to sell her mother’s home and arrange for some of her furniture to be shipped to Minnesota, as well as make plans and schedule an estate sale.
“Those costs alone totaled over $4,000,” Pomroy says, who has no regrets about spending the money. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she says.
But she does offer the friendly advice that taking care of your parents’ financial needs, not to mention all of their other needs, “is a mental, financial and a time challenge that people should be prepared for.”
Time. If time is money, you may well feel like you’re broke, even if you aren’t buying your parents a chair lift or helping them move. Maria Vizzi, a business owner in New York City, dotes on her elderly parents, driving them to doctor visits and making sure their needs are met. While she spends money on gas and prescriptions, the main change she has noticed is that she networks for her business far less than she used to, and she often is pulled away from her company, Indoor Environmental Solutions, which specializes in treating air ventilation issues.
But she finds that she gets plenty in return, a phenomenon shared by many sons and daughters taking care of aging parents.
“This caregiving is a choice and in many ways, a blessing,” Vizzi says. “I get to see my parents more than my siblings. I hear anecdotes from Dad as he recalls wartime in Sicily. They spoil me in small but meaningful ways. More hugs, more words of appreciation. No one gets as many jars of homemade soup and sauce as I do.”
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Taking Care of Your Aging Parents? It’s Going to Cost You originally appeared on usnews.com
