Do you have retirement on your mind? Perhaps you feel like you are well prepared, or maybe you are uncertain if you will ever be able to save enough. According to a recent post on The Motley Fool, current estimates of the cost of retirement hovers somewhere around 1 million.
This number is colossal, and many individuals feel they could get by on much less. However, author Maurie Backman does a wonderful job of outlining why 1 million is a realistic cost of retirement for many retired individuals.
Backman’s calculation of healthcare, leisure, social security and everyday expenses totals about $461,300. This sum is far more comfortable for most individuals. However, these people are forgetting to account for one of the largest expenses for individuals of retirement age: long-term care.
While the article does a great job of explaining how much we truly should expect to save for retirement, it focuses mainly on the price of nursing homes in the case of a long term care event. However, the article neglects the fact that 80% of long term care is provided in the home – a much cheaper long term care option.1
Here are the facts:
- The national average of the cost of care for a private room in a nursing home is $92,378 annually.
- The national average of the cost of care for home healthcare is $46,332 annually.2
In a previous post on our blog, we discuss this shift to home healthcare in depth, as well as the ways that long term care insurance gives individuals the freedom to choose the long term care option that suits them best.
1 Congressional Budget Office, Rising Demand for Long-Term Services and Supports for Elderly People
2 Genworth 2016 Cost of Care Survey, conducted by CareScout®, April 2016
