Taking Care of Parents Without Going Broke
The New York Times has a nice article today about how to help cover costs when taking care of a parents.
About 30 percent of adult children in the United States contribute financially to their parents’ care, according to the Pew Research Center. On average these children pay $2,400 a year on everything from uncovered medical expenses to making sure the refrigerator is stocked each week. The money often goes to parents who diligently saved all their lives, but in the face of longer life spans and chronic illness, the savings just isn’t enough.
One way out of this bind? Take full advantage of the hundreds of government and nonprofit programs and services geared to the elderly throughout the country.
Some people may think their parents have too much money to qualify even though many of the programs are available to elderly people with incomes of more than $100,000. Or the parents may be too proud to accept help.
What’s more, these services can be difficult and time-consuming to find. And it can be a challenge to deal with the paperwork and red tape, especially when you’re already overwhelmed by the daily demands of taking care of an older parent.
To help make the search for help easier, the article provides expert advice and several resources that will help you find what you need to take care of your aging parents.
There is additional information on “the cost of caregiving” which shows even more financial strain on the Sandwich Generation caring for a loved one over the age of 50. A 2007 study conducted by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and Evercare, “Family Caregivers – What They Spend, What They Sacrifice” showed that more than half of caregivers spend on average 10% of their annual income on care-related costs – an amount equal to a little more than $5,000 annually. At the time of this study, two years ago, 38% said they stopped saving for their own retirement and 34% said they were using savings to cover caregiving costs. This spring (2009) NAC and Evercare took a look at how the economic downturn was affecting caregivers and found that now 47% say they have used ALL or most of their savings to cover caregiving costs (among other alarming statistics). If you would like to see all the details of both of these studies go to: http://www.caregiving.org.