Opulent Senior Living Communities: How Much Is Too Much?

Perhaps you have always dreamed of doing something truly fancy after you retire.  Maybe you and your spouse plan to celebrate your 40^th wedding anniversary with a dazzlingly elegant cruise, and when you return home, you will frame the picture of the two of you in front of the ship’s grand staircase and display it in your living room.  Perhaps, once you get your COVID booster shot, you plan to visit a new country every month in 2022.  Maybe you will buy that Ferrari you always dreamed about when you were young and take it on a road trip to visit all your friends.  Some people’s bucket lists have more glam than others.  For most people, such posh surroundings would get old after a while, but not for the residents of the country’s poshest assisted living facilities.  To each their own.  A Clearwater estate planning lawyer can help you figure out how much retirement pizzazz you can afford and how much you want.

How Overpriced Is It If Long-Term Care Insurance Is Paying for It?

Long-term care insurance pays for nursing home care, but some plans will also contribute to the cost of residing in facilities for seniors whose health is stable and who only require limited assistance with tasks like laundry and dressing.  The median cost of assisted living facilities in the United States is $4,000 per month.  A mid-priced assisted living facility gets you a comfortable apartment, communal dining and social activities, transportation to supermarkets, and as much help as you need from the assisted living facility staff.  Double or triple that amount gets you the works.

In a recent article in the New Yorker, Steven Kurutz describes the nation’s most luxurious “senior living communities.”  They are like assisted living facilities, except that for that price, you can buy the fantasy that you are the toast of Central Florida and that you do not require assistance; the people who help you get dressed in the morning are helping you because you are so awesome, not because you are old.  While the 99 percent take scrapbooking classes, you get to take memoir writing classes, and while they get their kicks playing bingo every Wednesday night, you get one-on-one meetings with a life coach.

In other words, for enough money, you get to spend your golden years pretending that you are the bee’s knees instead of an arthritic old geezer.  Of course, maybe you would rather just be yourself.  There are worse ways to spend a Wednesday night than winning eight bucks at bingo and worse ways to spend Thursday morning than buying eight bucks’ worth of leaf cookies at Publix and sharing them with your friends.

Contact an Attorney Today for Help

An estate planning attorney is here to remind you that estate planning is about planning for life, not just for death, but will not encourage you to go overboard with big ticket purchases.  Contact William Rambaum for a consultation.

Resource:

nytimes.com/2021/11/27/style/growing-old-in-high-style.html