Living longer changes the dynamics of financial planning. Old age can be very expensive. Everyone is different and there is no way to predict the future. That is the challenge of planning for later years. Challenging to predict your future lifestyle, including where you will live, and challenging to estimate the cost of growing old. The ultimate trade-off of financial planning is whether to spend now or save for a rainy day. How do you really know what is best since the future is unknown?

It’s very useful to look forward and understand the types of medical issues that could happen down the road. Medical issues associated with aging are most apt to be the reason life gets expensive during your later years. That’s the advice from a recent article in the Oakville (ONT) Beaver titled“Living in your later years can be expensive – plan ahead.”Americans, just like our friends to the north, need to better understand how to plan for the future. This article gave some interesting perspectives on the aging process. Here are some facts:

• People are living longer and many live into their 90s.
• More than 25% of seniors living at home receive help with day-to-day living activities.
• More than 10% of seniors older than age of 80 live in a long-term care facility.
• One of the leading causes of injury to seniors is a result of a fall.

Also, the article points out that as we live longer, dementia can become a real medical reality. Research shows that dementia issues are low at age 65 but increase steadily until age 90 where they affect half of seniors. With adult children living far from their parents with both husband and wife working, there is less time available to be devoted to caring for an elderly family member.

Initially, care can be received from the healthier spouse, but that takes a toll. Also, some seniors are single, so this isn’t an option. Thus, aging seniors will be increasingly dependent on others.

An experienced estate planning and elder law attorney can help devise your financial strategy to ensure there are enough financial resources in the event you have increased medical and living expenses in your later years.

Aging is expensive. Talk to an estate planning and elder law attorney and plan accordingly.

Reference: Oakville (ONT) Beaver (April 23, 2015) “Living in your later years can be expensive – plan ahead”