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Yeah, have to do the Medicaid spend down of all assets. Just to get into some questionable assisted living.
As someone who is disabled, i recommend if anyone out there is disabled that they put their assets into a Special needs Trust, which will qualify you for Medicaid(for long term care) without having to spend down your assets. You can then use that Trust to pay for better standard of care at assisted living, such as a private room and even treats. Most dont understand that when you go into such longterm care you basically lose everything unless you can afford the 6k a month cost on your own. And very, very few can. And most people dont plan enough ahead to pay for the extra insurance to cover such care.
Hey, I fall into that group. I am GenX, divorced, and don't intend to ever marry again. I am only a little younger than my mom was when she became a widow (my dad died of cancer)... same with her mother who was also a widow in her 50s (my grandfather had a heart attack at work). And even my great grandmother who was a widow in her late 40s. These women all live into their 90s (almost to 100). They did just fine. So I really don't see how my situation is any different than being a widow. I don't expect my daughter to take care of me (although she jokes that she will move me into an in-law suite when I am too old to live alone).
Yeah, this is my dream home too (picture below). I found a plan for a cute one story, just under 1200 sq ft home (because it includes a garage) that I would love to build on some plot of land, maybe just outside a small town. It has one common room for kitchen, living room, and dining room, two bedrooms (I want a guest room), two baths, and porch to sit on out back in the summers. I've been looking for land to build it on but it's going to be a while before I move again.
Now that is a good looking house. Wouldn't it be nice to drive around and see houses like that rather than the hotel-sized monstrosities with two point five people and a cat living inside?
When I was a kid, most urban subdivisions had homes roughly from 800 sq ft up to maybe 1400 sq ft. That was a typical home for the time for the average family. Then something happened... we went super-sized... super-sized homes, super-sized vehicles, and super-sized waistlines. BUT... tiny families. At least in Victorian times when houses were huge (and very pretty, I might add), families had ten kids and maid's quarters. You actually NEEDED that space back then. Not anymore, yet homes keep growing.
Now that is a good looking house. Wouldn't it be nice to drive around and see houses like that rather than the hotel-sized monstrosities with two point five people and a cat living inside?
When I was a kid, most urban subdivisions had homes roughly from 800 sq ft up to maybe 1400 sq ft. That was a typical home for the time for the average family. Then something happened... we went super-sized... super-sized homes, super-sized vehicles, and super-sized waistlines. BUT... tiny families. At least in Victorian times when houses were huge (and very pretty, I might add), families had ten kids and maid's quarters. You actually NEEDED that space back then. Not anymore, yet homes keep growing.
The wealthy think bigger is better, and the underlings want to appear affluent. If you don’t have a 25x 30 room, that ‘70 inch tv will give you a massive headache. Do we really need that? We are wasteful. We waste energy in those huge houses with 2 people and the cat. We consume in repairs n roofs etc for areas we don’t even go in. I know some never go into the other rooms. Wasteful.
I just realized I made a mistake about the square footage when I pasted the link. I haven't looked at the plans in while and I had in my head that it was just under 1200 sq ft, it's just over 1200 sq ft. Six of one, half dozen more of the other I guess. I still love it though.
Love the house but if you are building it yourself you had better be strong enough to do the roof, and experienced enough to make all those angles work. I built a small house myself much the same floor plan but modern contemporary with nearly flat roofs.
That house would also cost a lot of money to build but if you have it that's no problem.
Younger people should learn how to build it isn't that hard. I have always built what I live in by myself. Obviously so zoning and codes can be a problem I always build where you can do what you want.
A chunk of land with a small house need not cost more than $75k in many places.
Location: Just transplanted to FL from the N GA mountains
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisC
Rather than concentrating on building McMansions through the years, we should have been concentrating on building reasonably sized small homes (and also NOT townhouses, apartments, and condos--i.e. "people warehouses") in small pocket neighborhoods for urban dwellers. There are such neighborhoods in various cities throughout the nation. They inevitably sell out very fast and go for a premium. The homes range from around 500 sq ft to around 1200 sq ft.
As an older single person who has no plans to ever get married again, anything larger is just too much house for me and makes no sense, logically. Once I am financially able (as in able to leave my job and move my butt out of here), I will be in around a 600 to 800 sq ft home in either a rural area or very small town.
I called a home builder yesterday. We are selling our McMansion and wanting to build a small 2 BR/2 ba one level home. Was told point blank... "We aren't building anything less than 2300 with a budget of 700K or over..... sorry"...... Good luck finding what you want because we are rural!
I called a home builder yesterday. We are selling our McMansion and wanting to build a small 2 BR/2 ba one level home. Was told point blank... "We aren't building anything less than 2300 with a budget of 700K or over..... sorry"...... Good luck finding what you want because we are rural!
You need to look for small independent contractors. One to do the foundation, one to frame, one to roof, somebody to finish. A crew here of three (efficient, competent, hard working) guys will cost you around $1,000 a day. That would mean if you don't have any weird roof design that is overly complicated the house would be roughed in and take about a month. The finish could go quick or take forever depending on your personal tastes.
I called a home builder yesterday. We are selling our McMansion and wanting to build a small 2 BR/2 ba one level home. Was told point blank... "We aren't building anything less than 2300 with a budget of 700K or over..... sorry"...... Good luck finding what you want because we are rural!
I have always loved the Sears Craftsman Homes, they are everywhere in this country. It seems we really are hitting a point someone can make money by getting those old plans and just follow the blueprints for mass manufacturing the needed material and shipping the kits out like they did a century ago. Those homes transformed America and we seemed to have lost the idea that normal Americans put those together themselves and no reason we cannot do it today as well. Except for perhaps a lot more laziness today and more red tape Government Regulations. And although I know some similar companies do such kits they are designed mostly for people with money instead of the bare bones most Craftsman Homes were designed to be.
As someone who is disabled, i recommend if anyone out there is disabled that they put their assets into a Special needs Trust, which will qualify you for Medicaid(for long term care) without having to spend down your assets. You can then use that Trust to pay for better standard of care at assisted living, such as a private room and even treats. Most dont understand that when you go into such longterm care you basically lose everything unless you can afford the 6k a month cost on your own. And very, very few can. And most people dont plan enough ahead to pay for the extra insurance to cover such care.
This post needs to be on every piece of mail that AARP sends.
In FL, I believe there is a period of time that the trust needs to be active, so doing it before things head south is a great idea.
Personal experience with this, as my aunt and uncle did NOT have a trust, and both wound up in a memory care facility in their dying days. I was helping my cousin with various things at their house, and he mentioned that the combined cost for both of them was $15k per month. They had a sizeable number of assets, but that is a lot of money.
I'm 63 and I think about this a lot. I don't have kids. I'm miles away from family. I do have long term care insurance. I own a house, but soon I know I'll be fine with a single family home.
In addition to current housing stock not being accommodating, modern senior communities are largely unaffordable for many. Several near my house have condos selling for more than $300K - $500K. They're two-story, which is not what most older people want. They're also 2,500 square feet - imagine downsizing to that from a house that's 1,280 square feet.
Forget the continuing care communities. Waiting lists at senior apartment complexes are months and years long, especially if they're subsidized.
So older people get stuck in their homes, which may not be safe and which magnify isolation if they are not mobile or if they don't have a large support network. I saw it all the time when I moonlighted at Home Instead.
At least most of the boomers have children. Gen Z married at half the rate that boomers did. Even when Gen Z do marry it's much later in life, which means the woman is less fertile to begin with, and couples today have much smaller families than their parents did.
Just think about all of these Gen Z who are either confused about their own sexuality or shun the opposite sex. Many of them will go into old age childless, and many without a marriage partner. FWIW, Medicare does not cover assisted living.
Medicare generally does not cover assisted living. Original Medicare includes Part A (hospital insurance) and Part B (medical insurance). The other two “parts” of Medicare, Part C (Medicare Advantage) and Part D (prescription drug coverage), also don’t cover assisted living costs.
that's going to be phenomenally expensive.
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