how to choose senior living solutions with confidence

Most people think the hardest part of choosing senior living is the emotional part. It isn’t. The emotional part you see coming. It’s the money that ambushes you.

Here’s why. Looking at many of our competitors for several years now, I’ve noticed the financial side of this decision often appears confusing on purpose, and most families don’t realize that until they’re way into it. That’s good for us as a business because we are intentional about not doing that; but it’s terrible for you as the consumer.

The numbers are often built to be hard to compare

One of the first things you’ll notice when you start touring communities is they often structure their pricing in some unique ways, and that is not an accident. One quotes you a clean monthly figure and tells you every single thing that’s included for that price and any one-time fees. That’s what we do, and we think it is the best way to do it. Few others are like us. Many communities have a base monthly rate, plus a buy-in fee, plus a move-in fee, plus a list of “extras” for things you’d hope are included for that kind of money. Tour five places and you come home with five brochures that cannot honestly be laid side by side.

What’s really needed is this: a single sheet with one row for each cost — base rate, second person fee, move-in fee, care level costs, the extras — and one column for each community. Force every brochure onto the same grid. The “cheapest” place often isn’t, once you do this. You can’t see that until the numbers sit next to each other. Most often, the average person doesn’t know how to create a spreadsheet or realize how much it is needed. We didn’t. When I was still teaching and we were taking care of David’s Mom and Dad, we just didn’t know what we didn’t know.

Like us, most families are winging it. Conflict arises out of that because nobody is looking at data. Everyone is looking at marketing materials and forming opinions based on how their own unique view processes marketing materials–a visual sales pitch. Here are the three questions families skip because they’re scary:

How long will the savings actually last — shown month by month over years, not “I think it’s probably fine”? What happens to the cost if Mom needs higher care in two years? And will Dad be charged the same even if he doesn’t need the same care? And if the children are helping financially, exactly who pays for what? Write that third one down. A vague “we’ll all pitch in” damages more sibling relationships than anyone admits.

Fog is the real problem

I’ll tell you what I believe. Most family fights about senior living choices aren’t about money. They’re about fog.

When nobody can see real numbers, everybody fills in the blanks with their own fears. One family member assumes (ass-u-me) there’s plenty. Another assumes it’s unaffordable. They’re not arguing with each other — they’re each arguing with a made-up version of the facts–the story they’ve told themselves. Meanwhile the parent sits in the middle feeling like a burden, which is the one thing that parent never wanted to be so they will begin to resist making the move just to keep the peace in the family. Another huge stressor.

Put the real numbers on one page and the fighting usually stops, because there’s nothing left to invent. You move from feelings to facts. The decision is still hard. But “hard and clear” is a completely different animal than “hard and foggy.” One you can plan around. The other just eats you alive at 3 a.m.

So I built that page

As we have moved on in life and found ourselves in a senior living career working for a unique company that cares if we’re actually helping people, I keep seeing family after family, senior after senior, who all need this exact thing, so I built it — a financial planning workbook for choosing senior living. Great for adult children helping parents; equally great for independent seniors looking on your own for your next great chapter.

It does what I described above, so you don’t have to build it from scratch in a hard week–or month. It compares up to five communities on one grid. It tracks the true monthly cost, including the small stuff everyone forgets. But it’s so much more than that. You have to see the real cost and understand the level of benefit, but you also have to know what “affordable” truly looks like to you. So this spreadsheet also maps every dollar coming in — Social Security, pension, investment income, VA benefits — and projects, month by month, how long the money holds. There’s a page for families splitting the cost, so what was promised and what’s been paid stays right out in the open where it can’t fester into a grudge. Everybody understands. And you don’t need advanced Excel skills, or even intermediate ones. I did all the hard stuff. You just plug info into the editable fields and the sheet tells you what you need to know.

If your family is in this spot, here is what you need to do this right: Senior Living Family Financial Planner.

The principle underneath

This is really about one habit, and it applies to far more than senior living.

When a big decision scares you, the instinct is to not look. To circle it but tell yourself you’ll deal with the numbers once things settle down. Don’t. The looking is never the scary part — the fog is the scary part. Pull the real numbers into the light, onto one page, and you almost always find the situation is more manageable than the story your fear was telling you.

That’s true for a parent’s care. It’s true for your own retirement. It’s true for most things worth doing.

Look at the numbers. Choose with confidence not fear.

LW