With life expectancy increasing every day, retirees must plan for what they will need later in life. The numbers are in, people are living longer and longer. According to the U.S. Administration on Aging, a 65-year-old couple has a 72% chance of living to 85. Additionally, they have a 45% chance of living to 90, and an 18% chance of living to 95. There is also a 50% chance, if you are 55 and older, of caring for a family member, according to the Health and Retirement Study by the Urban Institute.
Unfortunately, with aging comes complications such as health issues. How can you prepare for how the aging process will affect you later in your retirement? Or how caring for a family member may impact your own plans for retirement? The simple solution is to make aging part of your retirement plan.
Retirement Planning with CARE
Traditional retirement planning involves reviewing your income needs based on goals and then determining if those goals can be met based on your resources. Most people set travel or spending more time with family as their goals, however, many people fall short of planning for a medical emergency.
Ideally, age planning should be part of your overall retirement agenda. One way to plan for aging in your future is to use the CARE conversation model, developed by Dan Taylor. Each letter in CARE stands for a different stage of planning.
- Challenge
- Alternatives
- Resources
- Experience
In retirement planning, CARE is applied to conversations about your plan in order to ensure your plan is solid. This aging plan can be broken down into the following:
- Aging overall (macro view)
- Financial plan
- Housing
- Care
- Legacy
With each of these categories, you can apply CARE to put a plan together. For each section broken down above, ask yourself these questions:
- Challenge: As you look to the coming years, what are the challenges you see yourself facing?
- Alternatives: What do you see as options for meeting those challenges?
- Resources: What resources are available to you?
- Experience: With those challenges successfully met, can you describe your desired experience?
Here is a handy example as to how to apply these thinking tools:
Care
Question: As you look to the next few years and think about your care from a macro view, what are some challenges you see yourself facing?
Answer:
- Maintaining your dignity and privacy
- Maintaining independence
- Preserving your “alone” time
- Keeping up on your health and insurance coverage
- Keeping up on communication with family regarding your needs
- Knowing when to ask for help
- Maintaining ability to drive
Alternatives
Question: What do you see as options for meeting those challenges?
Answer:
- Living with a friend or family member
- Continuing Care at Home (CCAH)
- Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC)
Resources
Question: What available resources do you have to meet those challenges?
Answer:
- Children
- Friends
- Religious organizations
- Doctors
- Financial assets and insurance
Experience
Question: With those challenges successfully met, can you describe your desired experience?
Answer:
- You might say that you would like to maintain your independence and dignity because alone time is very important to you. You prefer to stay in your home without too many strangers having to come in and out because it’s hard to trust people you don’t fully know with your care. And you would like to stay active in your church and help your community.
The Benefits of CARE
Using these tools to plan for aging well is the first step to achieving your long-term goals. Failing to plan leaves your future in the hands of chance, and no one wants that! With CARE you stand to take fewer risks with your choices and identify challenges long before they happen.
Don’t let the future catch you off guard and start planning today with this FREE eBook, Plan the Future for You and Your Spouse’s Long-Term Care.
Confident Living is a continuing care at home membership program, focused on helping you remain active and independent as you age in your own home. We serve the greater Cincinnati area. For more information, contact us online or call (513) 719-3522.