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Financial Samurai

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The Average Cost Of Family Health Insurance Is Now Outrageously High

Updated: 10/25/2021 by Financial Samurai 93 Comments

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average cost of family health insurance offered by companies is now a whopping $20,576 a year, or $1,714.66 a month. Employers paid for 71% of that cost on average.

Meanwhile, the average premium for single workers was $7,188 a year, or $599 a month. Employers covered 83% of that cost on average. The KFF surveyed over 2,000 companies.

If they had asked us what we paid, we would have brought up the average because our health insurance cost is jumping by 7% to $23,131.38 a year, or $1,927.64 a month for a family of three! Previously, we were paying “only” $21,788.88 a year, or $1,815.74 a month.

With one child we have a PPO Platinum plan with a $250/$500 deductible (single/family), a $3,200/$6,400 out-of-pocket max (single/family) and 80% co-pay insurance.

The Average Cost For Healthcare Soars


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Solving The Happiness Conundrum In Five Moves Or Less

Updated: 01/27/2023 by Financial Samurai 69 Comments

There’s a happiness conundrum that needs solving. Despite living in a rich country with income levels that put us in the top 1% in the world, there are still many unhappy people.

This post explores why we are not happier and what we can do to elevate our happiness. At the end of the day, money is a means to a better life.

The Man Who Continues To Be Unhappy

After a tense 14-12 softball victory, five of my teammates and I went to a nearby brewery for some beers and burgers. I ended up sitting next to our centerfielder who told me he used to hate his life. Let’s call him Biff.

In high school, Biff was a popular guy. At 6′ 5″ tall, he played varsity baseball and varsity basketball. But he admitted he was sometimes cruel to the smaller kids and exchange students. He wasn’t proud of his actions and wished he could apologize to them today.

After the financial crisis hit in 2008, Biff fell into a deep depression. He was told he couldn’t lose and that real estate was the surefire way to riches.

But, the house he had bought when he was 27 years old ended up losing half its value. Not only had he lost all his equity, but he also owed more than the house was worth.

He was so deep under water, all he wanted to do was turn in his keys and walk away as so many Americans did. There was just one problem. Florida was not a non-recourse state. As such, the lender could easily obtain a deficiency judgment and garish his future wages and non-exempt assets.

He was in a full on happiness conundrum and was miserable. Biff proceeded to gain over 100 pounds as he literally locked himself within his rapidly depreciating prison. At 30, he was morbidly obese, broke, and girlfriend-less. Life had no more meaning to him.

Solving The Happiness Conundrum

Then one day out of the blue, the state of Florida threw him a lifeline by offering him a free $75,000 to pay off some of his mortgage if he promised to keep up with regular payments. He took advantage of this tax payer’s money and fulfilled his side of the deal.

Despite feeling a little guilty for getting a bailout, Biff started gaining positive momentum in his life again. His happiness conundrum was slowly getting solved.

Over the ensuing two years, he lost 70 pounds, got a promotion, and finally at 32 found a girlfriend. He also stopped hating on anybody who seemed to be doing better than him because he was finally in a better place.

The first step to him feeling happy was to make sure his finances were no longer going in reverse. Once his finances had stabilized, Biff’s happiness grew because he found someone who loved him despite all his flaws. Today they are married and have a daughter.

Being rich didn’t matter anymore to Biff. Making progress did. Oh, and being able to crush a softball 350 feet as our cleanup hitter makes Biff and the rest of the team ecstatic.

Understanding The Happiness Conundrum



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How To Qualify For Healthcare Subsidies Under The Affordable Care Act (Even As A Multi-Millionaire)

Updated: 03/03/2022 by Financial Samurai 54 Comments

How To Get Healthcare Subsidies Under The Affordable Care Act

Without healthcare subsidies, healthcare in America is extremely expensive. For example, my family of four is paying $2,250 a month for a Gold plan because we are receiving no healthcare subsidies.

If we reduced our income to be no greater than 400% the Federal Poverty Limit, we could start receiving healthcare subsidies as multimillionaires. However, that would entail selling off income-producing assets, higher tax liabilities, and more.

This post will discuss how you can receive healthcare subsidies as an early retiree, a freelance worker, and even as a multimillionaire.

If you can qualify for healthcare subsidies, life gets much easier. You won’t have to worry as much about medical bankruptcies as well. Healthcare costs in this country are simply out of control!



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Mental Illness Deserves A Sick Day Just Like A Physical Illness

Updated: 12/08/2022 by Financial Samurai 33 Comments

Mental Illness Deserves A Sick Day Just Like A Physical Illness

What’s great about America is that we’ve got a highly productive workforce that grinds like no other. We invent some of the greatest products and consistently build some of the largest companies in the world. But we are also increasingly suffering from mental illness. As a result, more of us need to take mental sick days.

What’s sad about America is that we’re working ourselves to an early death. We pride ourselves on working double-digit work hours a day. We pack our schedules to the brim and never give ourselves a break. As a result, our mental health suffers.

I’m guilty of adopting the “always be grinding” mentality because I landed a dream job in New York City after college and then migrated to San Francisco, another hyper-competitive city. I didn’t want to take my luck for granted, so I tended to constantly push myself to the limit.

Even after I left full-time work in 2012 after 13 years of 60-80-hour work weeks, I still wanted to keep the intensity up with my writing on Financial Samurai. I was free to kick back and do whatever thanks to passive income, but I refused to live a life of leisure after the first six months of freedom.

Unnecessary self-imposed pressures are why so many of us aren’t as happy as we should be. As soon as I let go of my perennial goals of outperforming the S&P and reaching ever higher website growth, I started to feel happier.



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Happiness By Age: Stay Away From 35-60 Year Olds

Updated: 01/27/2023 by Financial Samurai 93 Comments

Everybody wants to be happy all the time. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unhappy and lonely people all around us, especially post pandemic. This post looks at happiness by age.

It’s interesting to see how much happiness changes at different points in our lives. Thankfully, we tend to get happier as we get older.

How Happy Am I Currently?

We should all ask ourselves how happy are we currently.

Today if I were to rate my happiness on a scale of 1 – 10, 10 being deliriously happy, I would give myself an 8. Historically, I’d say my happiness probably fluctuated between a 5-7 during my high school years, a 7-9 in my college years, and a 6-8 in my 20s and early 30s.

High school was stressful because I knew so much of my future was riding on getting good grades and SAT scores. Combine academic pressure with athletic demands and peer pressure to be “cool,” I wonder why more kids don’t fall into the deep end, especially with absentee parents working all the time.

College was pretty exhilarating due to all the sudden freedom. Food was plentiful and the parties outrageously fun. Being able to date so many people was a blast. Oh yeah, and learning new subjects was a nice benefit too.

The only real pressure from college came from the expectation of finding a good job. Spending four years of time and lots of money only to end up with nothing would be a great disappointment.

Peak Happiness

The relief of actually getting a full-time job catapulted my happiness to a 9. But the happiness didn’t last due to the 70+ hour work weeks. Getting in before sunrise and leaving after sunset got depressing after a while. My happiness tumbled to a 6 when I realized all my work in college had led to one big endless grind.

Even a generous promotion at age 27 only made me a 9 level happy for a couple months. Then it was back to being a whipping boy for clients and playing corporate politics. By 2011, my happiness again dropped to a 6. The financial crisis had taken its toll and I was tired of doing the same crap.

It was in October 2011 while drinking an overpriced Mythos beer at the top of Santorini, Greece that my happiness rocketed to a 10. 

I was overlooking the crater on a sunny 78 degree day and had just earned $1,200 via Paypal from an advertising client in the span of 30 minutes. It wasn’t the money that made me happy, it was the realization that I found a way out of prison.



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Proof Your Weight Is Almost Entirely Genetic And Not Your Fault

Updated: 01/04/2021 by Financial Samurai 145 Comments

Are you overweight? Did you gain several pounds during the pandemic like many people have? Well, let me provide you some proof your weight is almost entirely genetic and not your fault.

After reading this post you will hopefully: 1) stop beating yourself up for why you aren’t in shape, 2) stop feeling guilty about what you eat, 3) stop spending money on diet fads, 4) stop spending money on exercise equipment, and 5) gain more confidence and self-esteem.

My Struggle With Weight

I’ve struggled with staying in fighting shape ever since I entered college. As an athlete who played competitive tennis, I was always about 152-155 in high school with a body fat percentage of under 7%. I benched 1.5X my body weight and clocked a 4.5 second 40 yard dash.

When tennis season was over, I ran the anchor for the 4X100 and 4X200 relay. Sports was a huge part of my life and I don’t think I can happily live without it.

By the time I graduated college, I permanently gained the freshman 10. After my second year of working 70 hour weeks in NYC, I ballooned to 175-180 lbs. My strength and speed dissipated. I got sick a lot, had horrible allergies, and even came down with the weirdest case of plantar fasciitis.

My breaking point came when a female colleague I fancied nonchalantly said I looked like another out of shape colleague. I was crushed, but knew she was telling the truth as I looked in the mirror to spot the first signs of jowls. What the hell are jowls?!

I proceeded to work out like crazy for six months in the gym upstairs. I even bought those “Ripped Fuel Extreme” pills filled with ephederine, a substance that is now banned!

In three months, I got down to 165 and felt better. But you know what? I’ve been 162-170 for the past 20 years no matter how much I exercise or how little I eat. Something must be up!

Genetics Determines Your Steady Weight



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Track Everything! We’re Eating And Spending WAY Too Much

Updated: 09/16/2018 by Financial Samurai 118 Comments

Building wealth has become second nature to me. It’s what happens when you write more than 1,300 personal finance articles over seven years. Not only does writing help you get smart about the topics you write about, many of the articles themselves are moneymakers thanks to the internet!

Of course, everything may go to hell once the next financial crisis hits. But hopefully, all the articles that talk about cash management, not being too proud to work side hustles, and following a recommended net worth allocation will help you feel less pain when the hammer falls.

One key to growing my wealth is through meticulous tracking of all my financial accounts. I used to write everything out in a spreadsheet each month. This practice helped me zero in on underperforming accounts so I could do something about them. Nowadays, I’ve got my accounts aggregated online so everything is automated.

Here’s what happens with me every week

1) Personal Capital e-mails a performance report. They compare my various investments (You Index) to the S&P 500, a US Bond index, and a foreign stock index. If I’m tracking within +/- 2% of the S&P 500, I’m content. I don’t even bother logging in to check out my net worth allocation in such a scenario. All I really want to do is grow my net worth by 2-3X the risk-free rate of return each year (3.5% – 6%). I only do a thorough net worth analysis when I’m underperforming or losing money.

According to my latest weekly update, my overall investments are up about 6.16% in 2016. The outperformance over the S&P 500 is largely due to a large holding in bonds, which have outperform stocks. My five investment portfolios are up between 3% – 6.5%. But if I’m to take a look at my net worth growth, the figure is higher due to strong appreciation in SF real estate and good cash flow from my business.

Personal Capital Weekly Performance Report

Weekly Performance Report

2) In the same weekly e-mail, I view my current month-to-date spending versus the prior month’s spending to see if everything is normal. The basic tenet of always spending less than you earn is always pertinent. Based on an October spending report, I’ve spent about $30,000 this month, which is $53,212 less than what I spent during the same time in September. High five for being so frugal! Or, what the hell was I spending $80,000+ on in September?! I don’t see no Range Rover in my garage. Oh yeah, I added to some existing stock and bond ETF positions given both markets sold off.

Each month, I try and invest $5,000 – $20,000 on average in various investments. I invested more in September because my dollar cost averaging system propels me to press when there is more volatility. Now, I’m back to my normal monthly investing cadence and will wait for new opportunities to arise. The biggest opportunity I see is waiting for SF real estate to correct by ~10% and buy another single family home at the end of 2017/early 2018 before the IPO lockup periods expire for the 10,000+ Uber and Airbnb employees.

Personal Capital Monthly Spending Report

Spending/investing less in October

3) After spending three minutes reviewing my weekly report, I just go about living my life without worrying about my finances. I know that worst case, I’ll find out in one week if something is wrong e.g. hacked credit card, bad investment, etc. Now think about what could happen if you only go for a full health checkup every two years. It’s possible the day after your checkup, you contract some type of cancer. If left untreated for two years, you might be dead!

The goal of automated financial tracking is for everybody to spend more time living life than worrying about money. If you have a good financial structure in place, all you need is time to grow your wealth.

Personal Capital Retirement Planner Assumptions

Planning for the future with the Retirement Planner tool

Regular Health Monitoring Is Crucial

Although I’m relatively good at making money, I’m bad at staying lean. The benefits of regular health monitoring are equally as beneficial to health and fitness as regular financial monitoring is to wealth. Yet, for some reason, I never bothered to track my fitness and caloric intake until this year!

Like so many of you, every year I have a goal of losing 5 pounds. Yet every year, I fail by staying the same weight at roughly 165 pounds at 5’10”. I’ve been this weight for 16 years now. This year, I’m on track to gain 5 pounds. What the hell is going on? I still play tennis three times a week and I even started lifting weights twice a month to build some strength and definition.

My weight gain all started in the summer of 2015 when my sister and nephew came to visit. I treated them to bubble milk tea drinks every other day for a week. I thought they each had about 150 – 200 calories MAX given a can of illicit Coke has 140 calories.

I was wrong! A typical bubble milk tea drink with lots of extra goodies has a whopping 1,000 calories! In other words, I was drinking 7X more calories than I thought. Of course I gained weight a couple months later with my newfound addiction. Stubbornly, I didn’t know why until the summer of 2016 when I finally downloaded a fitness app called MyFitnessPal. Until then, I just chalked up my weight gain to old age.

Bubble milk teak

Bubble milk tea is a cup full of addiction

For those of us with a penchant for gaining weight, I strongly believe it’s because we have NO IDEA exactly how many calories we are eating. Our health IQ is so low, by the time we figure things out we’re much heavier!

Take this 9 question quiz and see how you do. Answers are at the bottom so don’t cheat. You must get 5 or more right to pass.

How many calories are in HALF of a full-sized watermelon (~16 lbs)?

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How many calories are in one amazing piece of baklava?

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How many calories are in a plate of caesar salad with dressing on top?

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How many calories are in a 16oz Starbucks Peppermint Mocha?

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How many calories are in four fried dumplings, Korean style?

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Best Baklava Ever

Baklava is the best dessert ever. Only 4,000+ calories in this box.

How many calories are in a Big Mac?

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How many calories are in a Ruth's Chris, 16 oz, ribeye?

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How many calories are in one piece of Hamachi Nigiri (Yellowtail)?

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What is the recommended total daily caloric intake for a 170 lbs, 5'10" man trying to lose 1 lb a week?

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So how did you do? Everybody should have gotten at least two questions right if you guessed on all questions. My thesis is that only folks who scored 5 or more questions right are in excellent shape. Full disclosure: I only got four right.

Answers: Watermelon 678 calories, Baklava 334, Caesar Salad with dressing 1,441, Starbucks Peppermint Mocha 410, Four Korean Fried Dumplings 572, Big Mac 550, Ruth’s Chris ribeye 1,152, One piece hamachi nigiri 51, Recommended caloric intake of 5’10” man trying to lose 1 lb/week 1,560.

But wait! I hear the cacophony of complaints about how my test is unfair! What the hell is baklava? I’ve never eaten no hamachi nigiri before, only Big Macs! The answers all seem so similar! Wah. Welcome to my world.

When I was taking the SAT for college entrance, I was constantly thinking to myself, who the hell wrote these questions and answers? Surely not an Asian guy who grew up in Zambia, The Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan before coming to America for high school. After doing some research, sure enough, the SAT was created by a Carl Brigham, a professor of Psychology at Princeton University in 1926.

Here’s an interesting quote from the Wikipedia page:

“In his 1930 paper “Intelligence Tests of Immigrant Groups,” Brigham recanted his 1923 analysis of the results of the Army Mental Tests. Due to having used prejudicial test administration and analytical techniques in his original research, he acknowledged that his conclusions were “without foundation” and stated, “that study with its entire hypothetical superstructure of racial differences collapses completely.”

Man, if the SAT was created by someone with my background I’d surely kill it! Hamachi nigiri and Korean fried dumplings for all!

Track Everything Often

Ideal Weight Chart For Men

Ideal Weight Chart For Men

Ideal Weight Chart For Women

Ideal Weight Chart For Women

If I can’t lose 5 pounds, I’m damn sure not going to gain 5 pounds this year. Running around the tennis court with dumbbells tied around my legs isn’t going to help performance. Further, I don’t want to die early from heart disease before my kids grow up to be contributing members of society.

One of the greatest paradox I see today is the existence of unhealthy looking rich people. If you are rich, one of your main goals is to try and live as long as possible because life is so darn good! All you can eat caviar (85 calories for 100g) baby! Don’t artificially truncate your lottery winnings by dying young.

Most of us here are rich or will become rich one day. Therefore, it’s only logical that we continuously track our finances and our health. Setting financial and fitness goals in an app that keeps you honest will help you succeed. Or, you can simply hang out with professional athletes. Whichever way is easier.

Readers, anybody out there who is rich and overweight? Do you track your finances religiously yet don’t track how much you eat and exercise? Why do you think there’s this disconnect? If you’re poor, wouldn’t it be even more important to be fit since it doesn’t seem great to be poor and unhealthy? 

Almost Everyone Is Overweight, Obese, Or Borderline

Updated: 11/29/2021 by Financial Samurai 146 Comments

Healthy weight?
The ideal figure?

What’s concerning in America is that almost everyone is overweight, obese, or borderline overweight. The pandemic has greatly highlighted how dangerous it can be to be overweight or obese.

As I grow older and now have two kids to raise, I’ve found myself slowly gaining weight as well. As a result, I’d like to use this post as motivation for all of us to get in better shape!

Besides going through my new year financial checklist every year, I also like to see a doctor at the beginning of the year as well. I figure worst case, if I get extremely unlucky and get cancer, the most I’ll live with the disease untreated is 364 days.

I also spend about $9,120 a year on insurance premiums for a “silver plan.” $760/month seems like a lot for a guy who is relatively healthy. So I figure I might as well get at least something out of it while helping subsidize some of my brothers and sisters who pay less.



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The Conquer Cancer Foundation: Funding The Hopes Of Many

Updated: 02/15/2021 by Financial Samurai 20 Comments

Conquer Cancer Foundation Tom RobertsRecently I had the pleasure of participating in a Conquer Cancer Foundation event at the home of my friend, Dr. Thomas Roberts and his beautiful wife Susan. Tom used to be an attending staff oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School before joining Farallon, one of the first hedge funds in the world to manage university endowments.

My favorite thing about Tom is not that he’s a very smart and successful guy. The thing that stands out most about Tom is how nice and thoughtful he is. You might think a man of his stature wouldn’t bother hanging around with someone like me, yet he’s been nothing but kind and magnanimous with his time. We met on the tennis court several years ago and have been good friends ever since.

Tom is on the board of the Conquer Cancer Foundation and I’ve promised to help him spread the word about this devastating disease that has affected so many. Although I cannot match the funds that many generous benefactors have offered, I do have an online platform to help raise awareness. My grandfather died of skin cancer before the age of 65 and my good friend’s father was recently diagnosed with bladder cancer. It seems like everybody I know has been affected by cancer to some degree, whether it be a family member, close friend, neighbor, or colleague.

Here are some cancer statistics:

* One out of every two men and one out of every three women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.

* There will be over 1.6 million new cancer cases diagnosed and nearly 600,000 cancer deaths in the US in 2014.

* Cancer remains the second most common cause of death in the US, accounting for nearly 1 of every 4 deaths.

* There are nearly 14.4 million survivors worldwide.

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Taking Care Of A Elderly Family Member’s Health And Finances

Updated: 12/30/2020 by Financial Samurai 19 Comments

taking care of elderly family

The following is a guest post by reader Dave Scott who shares his experience of taking care of elderly family, specifically, his 97 year old grandmother.

I’m thoroughly impressed with Dave’s sense of duty and attitude throughout this entire article. You can tell he feels it’s an honor to take care of his grandmother and he’s looking for more insights on how to be a better caregiver.

I’d like to have an open discussion during the holidays addressing the issues of cost, environment, emotions, responsibility and estate planning. 

Taking Care Of Elderly Family

It can be a great honor and a huge sense of responsibility to manage all the aspects of a aging family member’s affairs when they are in need of your help. For approximately 20 years, I have been managing my grandmother’s investment portfolio. All other aspects of her life were managed by her with a little bit of help from my father.

In late 2010, all that changed. At the age of 97, my grandmother needed to move into assisted living and was no longer capable of fully taking care of herself. During the same time period, her relationship with my father, her only living child, began to become strained and my father was battling his own health issues. As a result, I made the decision to move my grandmother from her current independent living home in Arizona to reside near me in Texas.

The responsibility dynamic changed, almost overnight, whereby I had just agreed to manage 98% of all of my grandmother’s affairs. I was definitely up for the challenge and thought I was the best suited to take it on. However, it doesn’t diminish the fact that this is not a trivial  undertaking.

Managing all aspects of a family members’ life

This is not about a ‘power grab’ to control all aspects of a family member’s life. For me, it is only about effective management. I approached this as just another offshoot of managing my own affairs.

If you are going to effectively take on such a role, it is prudent that you do it in an all  inclusive, non piece meal, way. You are the quarterback for their team and, as such, you need  to ensure that their life is being managed to maximize their well being and quality of life.

When I  am referring to managing all aspects of their affairs, I mean everything from ensuring they have an ample amount of household supplies, to insurance, to utilities, to doctors, to dealing with management at their assisted living facility, to managing their investment portfolio.

While it may be obvious, the most important thing is having someone that is willing and able to take on this role. Some family members may be willing but are clearly not capable. It takes a large amount of organization to ‘operationalize’ all the aspects of another person’s life. However, I have found  that once a good set of processes are established, everything generally runs on autopilot.

Managing Cash Flow 

My main goal is to ensure that my grandmother will not outlive her assets and that she will maintain a healthy, active lifestyle. She is thriving in assisted living and I want to ensure that his remains for as long as possible. As such, I have paid careful attention to the balance between maximizing income and reducing expenses where feasible.

Lets start with income. As many of you know, assisted living can cost ~$5K/month or more (depending on the level of care needed and the location in the country). While my grandmother has a reasonably sized portfolio for her age, it doesn’t generate enough cash flow to only enable her to live off the dividends / interest without touching the principal.

Managing Investments

I have structured her portfolio in a conservative manner so as to generate reasonable cash flow while ensuring it isn’t too negatively impacted by a market downturn. I try to keep her portfolio as simple and consolidated as possible through the use of only a few funds and ETFs. For example, Vanguard Wellesley Income Fund has worked well for her for many years. It provides a conservative balance of equities and bonds with a low expense ratio.

I was a bit concerned about her bond exposure earlier this year so I lightened up on any bonds that were too far out on the yield curve in favor of shorter term ETFs. While her portfolio was negatively impacted during this year’s downturn in bonds, it wasn’t enough to cause significant concerns.

As you would expect, if you estimate an approximate 4% return on  a conservative portfolio and account for an average 7% increase in the annual cost of assisted living (and associated expenses), it doesn’t take too long to identify when the portfolio will be exhausted. However, interest rates have gone so much post-pandemic, that a 4% return may be too aggressive.

Managing Expenses

It is a bit scary to think that the seniors in our society who are fortunate enough to live to be 80+ and live in assisted living are still confronted with the possibility of outliving their nest egg in their final years. One aspect of maximizing her income that I gathered information, but didn’t pursue, was the option of having my grandmother take advantage of spousal veterans benefits.

The government currently doesn’t have a look back period on veterans benefits unlike Medicaid which does have a 5 year look back period. Your loved one could theoretically gift away all of their assets today and apply for veterans benefits tomorrow with no impact on the amount they would receive as a result of their recent gifting.

While there are a lot of people that have taken this route to curb the costs of assisted living, and there is pending legislation in congress to close this loophole and implement a look back period on VA benefits, it just wasn’t the right course of action for my grandmother at this time.

From the expense side, there are several things that can be done to minimize unnecessary expenses. This is an iterative process as your loved ones needs change or circumstances change.

Note: In order to be eligible to receive Medicaid coverage while in a nursing home, an individual can have no more than $14,400 in countable resources. Certain assets, such as the home and retirement accounts, may be exempt in some circumstances. The idea is to give away your assets to loved ones to qualify for government assistance before the five-year look back period begins, or else you will be disqualified. 

A few expense reductions I implemented are:

1. Evaluate Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) options on an annual basis – identify if there is a more cost effective plan in my area based on the latest medications that my grandmother is taking.

2. Purchase grandma a big button cell phone with a basic $10/month plan – tether it toher wheelchair so that she is always available for a call. Cancelled her land line thus saving her $20-$40/month in unnecessary phone costs.

3. Eliminate all monetary gifting to family members – this one could be a bit more controversial. My grandmother has always been very generous to her family during birthdays & holidays. However, this was adding up to be several thousand dollars per year that could be used for her care. Therefore, I set the expectation with the family through a message that started something like this: “I think we would all agree that grandma’s assets should be, first and foremost, used to benefit grandma….”. Everyone agreed and there has been no discussion since.

4. Negotiate with Assisted Living – this is not always effective but I try to have the assisted living facility reduce the annual increase as much as possible. If I can get them to reduce the increase from 7% to 5%, that can make a marked impact.

Maintaining Your Loved Ones Quality of Life for as Long as Possible 

When deciding on a location of an assisted living home, there are the expected tradeoffs of  location, quality and cost. For my grandmother’s situation, I wanted her to be close to me  such that I could be seen a lot. I wanted to get to know the staff and the daily workings of my  grandmother’s assisted living facility. I have found that this is invaluable when first taking on such an endeavor.

Just as no one cares about your money more than you, no one cares about your loved one more than you. Therefore, if you are visible and the staff knows you, you can get a lot done, immediately course correct if something is not to your liking, and ensure that your family member’s quality of care is maximized. I was fortunate as the assisted living facility close to my home has a great reputation for quality.

One key aspect of quality that you can look for is how long has the staff worked there. In the case of my grandmother’s place, the same  management team has been together for 15+ years. This demonstrates a continuity of care and  dedication that I think is critical. In the short term, I was willing to tradeoff the slightly higher cost of this facility in favor of its great reputation and location.

A practice run for retirement

If you are fortunate enough to have the experience of caring for all the aspects of a loved one’s affairs, it will give you a new appreciation for what we all will face when we hopefully are there as well.

For me, I feel like this is a practice run for when I retire and certainly a reality check on the costs associated with maintaining a balanced, high quality of life. In hindsight, we probably should have established some type of long term care insurance for my grandmother years ago. While it wouldn’t have addressed all the cost concerns, it would probably have helped to alleviate some of them.

There are other financial options that I continue to explore in the event that her health deteriorates and she needs skilled nursing care.

The changing role of grandchildren in caring for aging grandparents

In the past few years, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to deepen my relationship with my grandmother. If it wasn’t for a set of unique circumstances, I may never have been given this opportunity – and for that, I am grateful. My situation has enabled me to reflect on the possibility that grandchildren may play an increasing role in helping to manage their grandparents affairs in the future.

Besides the opportunity to deepen your relationship with your grandparent, the relationship is different than a parent/child relationship, and thus may be better suited, for these types of situations.

Grandchildren don’t carry the same ‘baggage’ that children do when dealing with an aging parent. In my experience, where my grandmother may have given more pushback to my father in a decision he may have made on her behalf, she doesn’t question me, her grandson, in the decisions that I make on her behalf (well, maybe she  questions me sometimes).

Once my grandmother realized that I had everything under control, she was willing to let go and enjoy her days without worrying about the details. Taking care of a elderly family member is an honor and responsibility none of us should take lightly.

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