ERE or Semi-ERE past Age 65

[Sclass]

IOW, one hardcore problem with "buying care" is that the most caring humans generally can't be bought.

Indeed.

[7Wannabe5]

There's a lot to think about there though I'm going to guess his approach to his financial affairs was what made him so successful in earlier life.

Absolutely. It has been my observation that outside of situations involving advanced dementia* or other mental illnesses/injuries, humans tend to die as they lived. For instance, my particular oddball flavor of frugality has me semi-consciously compelled towards using up every bit of my self before I die. Like Swedish Death Cleaning (which I already performed prematurely with my mid-50s dive into extreme minimalism) empties out the "stuff" from the cupboards, but I still need to use up the stuff that's eventually going to rot from the fridge and the garden. I think that's why I'm kind of annoyed with myself for "wasting" life energy on a grad tech degree at my age/phase of life. Like it's the last afternoon before the last morning at the lake house, and I went to the store and bought batteries and another large tub of smoked whitefish spread instead of the one or two ingredients that would allow me to combine all of the remaining leftovers in the fridge into a few last very good meals.

*Dementia has never occurred in my family on either side to the best of my knowledge, but it does run on both sides of my ex-husband's family. One of the reasons I have little desire to live to 100 is that I don't want to see my own kids getting old while I become completely decrepit. Although, on my last birthday my DS35 reminded me of the pact we made when he was 8 years old which was that I would live to 111 and he would be 88 and we would celebrate the U.S. Tri-Centennial together in 2076 At this point in time, it might be irrationally optimistic to even bet on the U.S. government holding together that long.

I said: IOW, one hardcore problem with "buying care" is that the most caring humans generally can't be bought.

Sclass said: Indeed.

Actually, I would like to rephrase that as "The most caring component of any human generally can't be bought." Although, it is sort of the same as with "innovation", you can't "buy" it directly, but you can create circumstances in which it is most likely to emerge. So, you could attempt to create a sort of Bell Labs situation for aging you, which is less likely to be found in your typical very expensive two-driveways-before-Applebee's-corporate-chain-assisted-living/death-facility.

[AxelHeyst]

JMGs wife passed away very recently. I think his post about her life is relevant to this thread.
https://www.ecosophia.net/a-life-remembered/

[Did]

@theanimal - Reading the interview - her position sounds similar to Jacob's. Leading the lifestyle, but with a financial backstop. Nice house. Multiple income streams. Enough money to identify as a value investor. Financially successful parents (inheritance?). Ivy league education.

Not a criticism - only acknowledgement that it's a different type of security. I hugely admire everything she's done. Looking at her current site, it's interesting to see the other forms of run-away capital. She's a pillar of the local community.

yeah shes well loved but if you look at her history I don't think there was ever an accumulation phase through labour, if you know what I mean. But she made the most of what she ended up with.

[chenda]

One thing to consider is that most people are not in a care home for very long, for obvious reasons. Digging into capital seems a very reasonable way of funding end of life care if necessary. If your pension covers say half the costs and you can supplement with cash savings for the other half for 5-10 years then you a very likely to be ok. Interest and government assistance (which will likely exist in some form) will further buy you time.

[DutchGirl]

Yup. In the Netherlands, 50% of inhabitants of long term care homes die within 2 years of entering such a home, 80% die within 4 years. It's (hopefully!) not the best part of your life, so maybe we should be glad that generally it doesn't last long.

[chenda]

@Dutchgirl - yes indeed, and also most people don't end up needing residential care, and whilst its common enough we should plan for the possibility its by no means inevitable.

[IlliniDave]

My main task for 8 mos of the year now that I'm retired is looking after my dad. He's 84, for far into the time period you're talking about. Here's some things he struggles with and essentially couldn't do on his own.

-Buy anything. He has money, but can't really drive on his own, can't use a computer or cell phone, and can't walk far enough to get to the nearest store that sells food. These are all things he could do at one time.

-Do laundry

-Remember/execute periodic maintenance and upkeep of the house: things like changing batteries in smoke detectors, changing furnace filters, installing screens and opening windows every now and again. He can't even hear the beeps from the smoke detector when the battery is low.

He can't figure out how to initiate or perform repairs that are beyond basic DIY stuff me or my brother can do for him. Latest was his land line went out during a recent electrical storm--couldn't figure out how to call the phone company because the number listed in the last published phone book he received maybe 10 years ago is invalid.

-Do even the most basic banking/financial task, including paying bills and income taxes.

-He can barely navigate the remote for his cable TV.

-Garden--he's a lifelong gardener and for decades it was a big part of his life.

It's pretty sobering to witness. I'd always discounted the probability of decline in old age being an issue beyond having to write my passwords down and hire out the more difficult manual chores. I don't have a plan for myself yet. Dad gets by because a) he's got money and we hired an in-home healthcare worker (who does household chores too) and b) he's got family nearby, some of whom pitch in (me and one of my sisters primarily).

[guitarplayer]

This is a bit saddening to read @IlliniDave, especially about gardening. But also more generally I think this is an excellent strategy to look at one's parents to try to figure out where one might end up down the road.

Like history which doesn't repeat itself but rhymes, I think so is the case with people aging. I see some traits of my late grandmother becoming more pronounced in my dad as he is approaching 70 and I will definitely observe closely how my parents age. To some extent to see what's coming, to some extent to see what to build coping strategies around.

Ironically, one can also flip the thread's title to talk about 'Re: ERE or Semi-ERE past Age 65' as a life strategy in the sense:
- get to some form of financial stability in your 30s (loose semi-ERE, along @JnG, or DW and I are going to be there next year)
- lead a meaningful life for 2-3 decades largely detached from employment
- become a support worker (like the one of @IlliniDave's dad) in your 50s-60s to get a shot of a bundle of meaning everyday from directly helping a person and earn the rest of the money to top up the ERE kitty.

This would require applying ERE principles throughout, so staying fit and sharp into one's 50s-60s. Given the demographics, I think the strategy is reasonably sound. I will keep this as another ace up my sleeve.

[ertyu]

I have a similar one, having bought Trash Place, the hoarder home of what was at one point an intellectually curious engineering professor at my home town's local university. As he became less and less able to care of himself, the place became more and more rundown and infested with roaches. Cleaning up after him is one of the reasons I've been thinking of hemlock.

[jacob]

It's pretty sobering to witness. I'd always discounted the probability of decline in old age being an issue beyond having to write my passwords down and hire out the more difficult manual chores. I don't have a plan for myself yet. Dad gets by because a) he's got money and we hired an in-home healthcare worker (who does household chores too) and b) he's got family nearby, some of whom pitch in (me and one of my sisters primarily).

Not having a plan is perhaps the biggest problem; specifically not having a plan that takes the trend of one's diminishing capability into account. I think people have a tendency to overrate the capability of their future [older] self. As such they reason---based on their current capability---that they can wait and solve future problems when they pop up. They forget that at that point they might not be capable of doing so.

A simple example would be spending a lifetime accumulating fishing gear for the day they retire; working until they're physically unable; then---to the surprise of nobody but themselves---discovering that they are also physically unable to go fishing. A sillier example would be someone planning that they're going to spend their senior years playing beer league hockey; ignoring that they'll probably break their hip within the first period.

Fundamentally this all falls under "Swedish Death Cleaning", that is, a general preparation to become old. It's simply thinking ahead and solving future problems when one still can. For example, I'm already in the process of revamping my supertanker of a portfolio for a more hands-off approach. I'm 48 and it'll take 10+ years to unload (if I want to sell at the right time), and therefore I'm starting already.

[chenda]

My main task for 8 mos of the year now that I'm retired is looking after my dad. He's 84, for far into the time period you're talking about.

Has he given you power of attorney ? If not I recommend he does asap, it makes things much easier for next of kin. Trying to get it after a person is incapacitated can be an expensive and lengthy legal battle.

[Ego]

Pulling this over from candide's journal. They are not interested in discussing... but I believe it is a good point that may be useful to think about.

My father-in-law passed in early April. He had been my mother-in-law's care giver as she battles Parkinson's. This has made a lot of work for my wife and I, from the funeral, to financial stuff, to downsizing the home of boomer levels of accumulation, and working to get MIL into assisted living.

I think back to the thread on the end-game of life:
viewtopic.php?t=13073

And I got to say I only have further confirmation of how mistaken many of the opinions were there. But I didn’t get the impression anyone making those takes was trying to learn then, so I’m not going to waste my time elaborating now... Also, as I realized in that thread, many of the conceptions were fine for the period of relatively gradual decline, but there is just a cliff that happens at the end of life (if you live long enough), and sadly you can remain in this deskilled spot for 5-10% of life. I don’t wish this on anyone, so may all of you have better luck -- or may technologies bail us all out.

One of the things that struck me as I reread this thread is that no one really discusses what end of life care looks like for the 50% of the people who are below the median....

Recall that the median 65yo working stiff has but some 75k saved for retirement or retirement-homes.

Are we simply fearing the unknown? Does money really buy much better care?

[7Wannabe5]

My sisters and I are currently engaged in an experiment with converting my decrepit bi-polar 84 year old mother's fairly small 2 bedroom centrally located senior apartment into a more useful extended family WFH hub. In fact, I am typing this from the mini-office space created in one of the bedrooms. Since my mother can only sleep in a mechanical chair in the living room, a second office space was created in the 2nd bedroom, along with sleeping spaces still retained in both bedrooms. The services of a paid caretaker/aide for around 10 hours/week were also included in this design.

The theory behind this design is that if any one of us stayed with our mother and provided care solo, we would lose our minds in short order, but creating fully functional space for two of us to stay with her intermittently actually makes the environment into more of a fun multi-generational family hub of activity. For example, we've been doing arts and crafts activities together in the little used community room of the senior complex and having movie nights.

The semi-controversial note I will make is that one of the problems with multi-generational senior care family hub design is the integration of middle-aged men/husbands/BFs into the design. A less gender-biased and/or heteronormative take on this would be that it is difficult to design for both "room of one's own" space for individuals and private couple's domain for each pair-bonded-couple in a multi-generational living design. So, for example, while my sister and I inhabit this space, one of my aging (63) poly-partners who currently lives by himself in a luxury apartment sends me text messages like "How do bread crumbs stay shelf stable for a year?"

[jennypenny]

I had a bad accident last month. I am out of the wheelchair and able to use the bathroom by myself now but still sleeping in a chair, wearing a boot, arm casted to shoulder, and having lingering cognitive issues. It has really shown me what can and can't be farmed out effectively when a person is not able to care for themselves. It's a shocking amount of work just to clean, dress and feed a person, let alone manage tons of PT and doctor visits. If you are the ERE brains of your tribe, systems grind to a halt. I will elaborate when I am more myself.

[J_]

Sorry to hear, wish you betterment Jennypenny. Glad that you will inform us how things will develop around you and your family.Hope to learn from it.

[Scott 2]

@jennypenny - wishing you strength in recovery. Rebuilding to a new normal is especially challenging. I'm very interested in your story.

[Sclass]

I had a bad accident last month.

hope you recover soon. Anything that puts you in a wheelchair is serious.

I don’t factor in getting taken out of the game temporarily. When it happens my “machine” comes to a grinding halt. My wife likes me to take care of the complex stuff. Hence if anything goes wrong with me (usually something like a kidney stone benches me a week) things get complicated fast around here.

I’m still dumpstering my mom and dad’s home in LA. They just didn’t give up till the very end. They had no idea of Swedish death cleaning. It’s like they believed they’d never die. As I dig through their junk I’m so angry at them for leaving such a huge hoard of junk. But then I realize it’s a free country and it was their stuff and they could do what they wanted with it while they were around. It’s emotionally awful because the anger is mixed with gratitude as I thumb through their receipts and cancelled checks for things they bought for their kids. They just tried to hold off the inevitable by either denying reality or by leaning on me while they were alive.

What I see is a world that was slowing losing management. A world slowly spinning out of control. I tried all kinds of tricks to keep their dream going but pretty soon the house becomes a hospital and it’s full of strangers surrounding these helpless creatures in the middle. Mom and dad had money but it was a dangerous thing. I’ve said in many of these aging threads that running out of money means you deal with the inevitable sooner. Having all their financial resources was like having a really well equipped overland 4x4…you get a lot deeper into he outback than anyone else before you find yourself stuck.

[7Wannabe5]

If you are the ERE brains of your tribe, systems grind to a halt.

Yup. This is why social/human capital redundancy is as important as financial capital redundancy. Or as Peter Bates expressed it, why every permaculture project requires at least 3 adults on board.

Wishing you the very best on your recovery. In my experience, later middle age is a sucky phase in which to suffer such a blow to functioning.

[jacob]

There's a risk of becoming dependent on a partner/person in the household but perhaps equally risky is becoming interdependent. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801835240/ describes how one of the early space shuttle crews trained for teamwork. There was an emphasis on nobody becoming "overfactored". A team will often be in a situation where one person knows more and can do the job better than just about any one of the rest of the team. The danger here is that the rest of the team comes to rely on that one person. To avoid that, the person (I forget who it was, Bob Crippen?), would often hold back answers and let the other crew members make and fix mistakes. Obviously, as the hypercompetent efficiency freaks that many ERE people are, this can be hard to be, but it is recommended.