My mother is 92 and getting feeble. She has a hard time going up stairs and needs someone helping her walking outside of the house. She can't get in and out of the bath tub and now uses a walk-in shower. My father is 88 and has been helping her, but now they have mentioned that he is starting to have trouble with the stairs also. I think I am a little ahead of the curve but need to start planning to move them.
I brought the topic up tonight and I was surprised that they liked the idea of moving into a one level, two bedroom unit. I thought my father would object because he likes living in the house and the associated privacy and freedom.
They have virtually no savings, get minimal social security (not sure but possibly about $25k per year together - may be wrong but not much more if I am off). They own their current house clear, but it is not very nice and probably will be hard to sell and I would be surprised if it gets $100K. So, I guess I might have to help them now or later.
I have a few ideas (options) and I am hoping that someone can stop me on the stupid ones or provide some advice.
1) There is a house coming up for sale two houses away from mine. It is a split level with four or five stairs going up to the bedroom section. The idea occurred to me to buy it and put my parents in there. Some have said that if stairs are an issue, even four would be a no-go.
2) Similar idea, but look for a small one level house in the area. Buy it, probably make some elderly modifications, etc.
1-2) One downside seems to be that I would get stuck with the house, tie up funds and not know how long they could live by themselves. If my father dies, my mother can't live alone.
3) Look for some sort of elderly housing two bedroom unit. I just started to do an internet search and saw what appeared to be several places claiming to be for elderly and claiming to have some sort of income adjusted pricing. I have no idea how that works. Would assets from the sale of their house disqualify them? I assume there would be a waiting list to get in.
4) Look into something more "assisted", like a place where they had an apartment with an option to move to a more drastic situation when needed. One 95 year old guy at church moved to a place where he as an apartment in a big building that might be linked to the nursing home next door. He told me that he pays something like $7000/mo, but I am not sure if I got that right. That seems too expensive, especially if they would expect me to pay that for each parent.
5) Try to move them into my house, which is a two story colonial. I would have to temporarily convert the living room and dining room into bedrooms on the first floor. We would still have a kitchen table area and a half-bath on the first floor. I would have to do something to build a walk-in shower like they did (not much room to put it) and my septic system is shot, so three people might be an overload. Not to mention the possible irritation of all of us living together.
6) One friend suggests a variation of plan 5, buying a new house for me that is more suitable to having the parents living there and that would be more aging friendly for me later on. Two problems with that are that I am pretty settled in my house with lots of stuff and if I were to move I might want to move out of state and am not quite ready to make that jump.
I should mention that I am 62 and single.
Well, sorry for making such a long post. Thank you for sticking with it if you made it this far. Any comments or advice will be appreciated.
Joe
I brought the topic up tonight and I was surprised that they liked the idea of moving into a one level, two bedroom unit. I thought my father would object because he likes living in the house and the associated privacy and freedom.
They have virtually no savings, get minimal social security (not sure but possibly about $25k per year together - may be wrong but not much more if I am off). They own their current house clear, but it is not very nice and probably will be hard to sell and I would be surprised if it gets $100K. So, I guess I might have to help them now or later.
I have a few ideas (options) and I am hoping that someone can stop me on the stupid ones or provide some advice.
1) There is a house coming up for sale two houses away from mine. It is a split level with four or five stairs going up to the bedroom section. The idea occurred to me to buy it and put my parents in there. Some have said that if stairs are an issue, even four would be a no-go.
2) Similar idea, but look for a small one level house in the area. Buy it, probably make some elderly modifications, etc.
1-2) One downside seems to be that I would get stuck with the house, tie up funds and not know how long they could live by themselves. If my father dies, my mother can't live alone.
3) Look for some sort of elderly housing two bedroom unit. I just started to do an internet search and saw what appeared to be several places claiming to be for elderly and claiming to have some sort of income adjusted pricing. I have no idea how that works. Would assets from the sale of their house disqualify them? I assume there would be a waiting list to get in.
4) Look into something more "assisted", like a place where they had an apartment with an option to move to a more drastic situation when needed. One 95 year old guy at church moved to a place where he as an apartment in a big building that might be linked to the nursing home next door. He told me that he pays something like $7000/mo, but I am not sure if I got that right. That seems too expensive, especially if they would expect me to pay that for each parent.
5) Try to move them into my house, which is a two story colonial. I would have to temporarily convert the living room and dining room into bedrooms on the first floor. We would still have a kitchen table area and a half-bath on the first floor. I would have to do something to build a walk-in shower like they did (not much room to put it) and my septic system is shot, so three people might be an overload. Not to mention the possible irritation of all of us living together.
6) One friend suggests a variation of plan 5, buying a new house for me that is more suitable to having the parents living there and that would be more aging friendly for me later on. Two problems with that are that I am pretty settled in my house with lots of stuff and if I were to move I might want to move out of state and am not quite ready to make that jump.
I should mention that I am 62 and single.
Well, sorry for making such a long post. Thank you for sticking with it if you made it this far. Any comments or advice will be appreciated.
Joe