Get smart with your money
By Liz Weston
If you or a loved one can no longer live safely at home, assisted living may be the answer. Residents typically live in their own rooms or apartments and get housekeeping services, meals and help with personal care.
But facilities can vary enormously, and people’s expectations about assisted living often clash with reality, elder care experts say. Here are some important things to know. In my latest for ABC News, learn 5 surprising facts about assisted living.
By Liz Weston
Retirement coach Sara Zeff Geber visited several Northern California assisted living facilities to interview “solo agers” — people, either single or coupled, who don’t have children to help them as they grow older.
At many facilities, she couldn’t find any. That puzzled her until she realized that adult children are often the ones pushing the move into long-term care facilities.
“Who is it that gets mom or dad to move out of the two-story, single-family home?” says Geber, founder of LifeEncore coaching service in Santa Rosa, California. “The kids badger and cajole.”
In my latest for the Associated Press, how ‘solo agers’ can protect themselves and live a happy life on their own.