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How to Set Up a Caregiving Agreement
Tweet Share on Facebook January 30, 2009 Comment (33)More than 50 million family members provide more than $300 billion a year in uncompensated care to family members. Now, with older populations growing rapidly, the need for caregiving is rising, just as a brutal economic downturn is making money increasingly tight. But some family caregivers are being paid for their work, usually by an aging parent. And while authoritative numbers aren't available, family-care attorneys and consultants say they're seeing more families creating such caregiver agreements.
Experts caution that agreements need to be extensively documented and must stand up as arm's length contracts. Furthermore, family members involved in the process need to be sensitive to how the arrangement might affect relationships among family members. Here are five tips from elder care attorney Kerry Peck of Peck Bloom Austriaco & Koenig in Chicago, and Linda Fodrini-Johnson, who provides geriatric-care consulting in the San Francisco Bay Area and is president-elect of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers:
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What's Your Elixir for Recovery?
Tweet Share on Facebook January 28, 2009 Comment (113)The Best Life primarily deals with facts and advice: specific, black-and-white information. Life, however, is mostly lived in countless shades of gray, and today is a gray day.
What many of us are doing on this day, as we've been doing for some time, is trying to figure out how bad things are going to get and what it means for us. While we may be encouraged by the energy of a new administration taking office in Washington, it doesn't stop us from groping to find new foundations on which to stand.
Those foundations may be called by different names: a floor for the stock market, a reliable set of asset values for troubled financial institutions, a level of business expenses matched to a sobering declines in sales, or a lower balancing point for household income and expenses. We're looking for a secure living standard, and we might readily accept a smaller income figure than last year so long as we had confidence we could count on it.
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The Boomerater™ Report: Week Ending Feb. 1
Tweet Share on Facebook January 26, 2009 Comment (12)It’s time to speak up and out! As the online community grows, boomers and retirees are sharing their knowledge and experiences as never before. We’re partnering with one new collaborative site, Boomerater.com, that provides answers to questions across financial, consumer, and lifestyle categories. Check out some current posts below and then join the community by clicking on the highlighted links, adding your own answers, or posing new questions. Each week The Boomerater Report will feature a selection of the best posts. Say that The Best Life sent you!
Financial
Q. I've heard there are some expenses you can pay directly for a family member without being subject to paying a gift tax. I am especially interested in tuition for my children and medical expenses for my parents
A. You can pay for college tuition as long as you pay the bills directly to the college.A. School and medical bills are OK - but some other expenses are not. For example, if you pay for your grandson's music lessons or help pay to have an addition built on your daughter's home, the amount you contribute will be subject to the gift tax.
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3 Cautionary Tales of Target-Date Funds
Tweet Share on Facebook January 23, 2009 Comment (30)Target-date retirement funds, designed as age-appropriate portfolios to help investors achieve their retirement goals, have been widely slammed for their poor performance during the stock-market meltdown. Funds designed for people who will reach retirement age in 2010--just a year from now--fell by roughly 25 percent in 2008. That may be less than the 38 percent drop for all-stock mutual funds, but the 2010 funds include large percentages of bonds and were viewed as more conservatively managed. On the face of it, a guilty verdict is the right call.
Or is it? Here are three things investors should keep in mind when it comes to target-date funds:
Not all funds are created the same. "The funds did work," says Vanguard economist John Ameriks. "Younger investors were exposed to more risk, while older investors were exposed to less risk." Distant target-year funds contain more equities and are thus more exposed to short-term market risk. "Target-date funds are a very, very reasonable way to achieve your retirement income and funding needs," notes Rod W. Bare, director of asset allocation strategies at Morningstar. "Some people are quick to paint the divergence in 2010 [fund] returns as a case that something is broken, but not all 2010 funds should perform the same." Because people have different needs and income goals, fund companies offer target-date choices that employ different risk profiles. -
5 Ways to Pay It Forward
Tweet Share on Facebook January 19, 2009 Comment (95)My oldest son, 27, had just finished an extended holiday stay prior to moving to a new state, hopefully a new job, and the next chapter in his life. At the airport, I watched from the curb as he strode purposefully with his bags into the terminal, head held high in anticipation, and quickly disappeared.
It is becoming my son's world now, just as in Washington, it is becoming the world of Barack Obama and many new, younger public leaders. As we prepare to inaugurate a new president, that world is marked by deep recession, war and terrorism, and enormous climate and energy challenges. As retirees and older Americans, we must deal with looming financial and health concerns and highly uncertain—as well as personally risky—futures. Increasingly, we will also be deciding what we will do to shape the world we will leave behind for our sons and daughters and for their children.
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Top Travel Trends, Tips, and Destinations for 2009
Tweet Share on Facebook January 16, 2009 Comment (26)If you can travel in 2009, welcome to a world of bargains, last-minute deals, and relatively uncrowded hotels, resorts, and beaches. According to a recent survey from Travel Leaders, the new corporate name for Carlson Wagonlit Travel Associates, more than 90 percent of travel agents working out of hundreds of the company's offices say they're seeing customer cutbacks in travel. Agents also say nearly half of travelers are booking their 2009 trips later than in previous years to take advantage of last-minute deals and other concessions. Here are the five ways leisure travels are saving money, according to the survey:
- Flexible travel dates 75.7%
- Using all-inclusive resort packages 71.0%
- Using frequent flyers miles 63.5%
- Taking a cruise 56.3%
- Booking only if a promotion or deal is offered 50.9%
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7 Ways the Stimulus Plan Will Help Retirees
Tweet Share on Facebook January 14, 2009 Comment (104)Odds are that your nest egg is cracked, if not broken. Staying at or returning to work may be a necessity, not an option, assuming you can even find a job. Like people everywhere, you're tightening spending wherever possible, which is making the economy that much weaker in the short run. Meanwhile, inflation, the scourge of people living on fixed incomes, is not a problem right now. However, it seems likely to emerge as a serious concern after the economy struggles to its feet in 2010 or 2011. Don't act surprised when this happens.
These problems will be affected but hardly fixed by the evolving stimulus package of the incoming Obama administration. The stimulus plan's two-year price tag is expected to top $800 billion, and it's on its way to $1 trillion (and perhaps even more). Next year's budget deficit could exceed $1.5 trillion. If these figures seem irresponsibly large, toss a rock in just about any direction, and you'll hit both conservative and liberal economists who support an even larger 2009 version of the New Deal. So what stimulus programs would be good for older Americans? AARP recently issued seven stimulus priorities:
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9 Health Tips for Overseas Travel
Tweet Share on Facebook January 9, 2009 Comment (13)Travel costs are falling faster than Bernie Madoff's client list. Plummeting oil prices have already led to cruise-line fare reductions, and air travel bargains are showing up every day. And if getting there is becoming cheaper, so is staying, wherever your destination might be. Global economic weakness has hammered travel and tourism, spurring terrific accommodation and excursion packages.
But if overseas travel is part of your plan for 2009, you need to take careful steps to make sure your health needs are considered, and protected, when you are away from your local doctors, pharmacy, and hospitals.
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6 Tips to Save on Insurance Costs
Tweet Share on Facebook January 5, 2009 Comment (26)More than other age groups, people over the age of 65 are reluctant to consider changes in their insurance needs, according to a national survey of homeowners by Trusted Choice and the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America.
Overall, nearly 24 percent of Americans have made changes to their auto, home, life, or health insurance coverage in the past year in order to reduce costs; 18 percent have considered such changes in the past few months; and 33 percent would consider insurance cutbacks in 2009. The overwhelming reason for the reductions is the sorry state of the economy.
Compared with those overall responses, however, older consumers were less likely across the board to make reductions. Only 9 percent of respondents ages 65 and older had made insurance reductions in the past year; 12 percent had considered them recently; and only 10 percent said they would consider them in 2009.
