Sean Pyles

This episode's question is a long one, so Elizabeth and I are going to split up reading it.

Hi, nerds.

I'm a longtime listener of this podcast and really appreciate all the information you share.

Here's something I'm not sure you've tackled.

My father-in-law currently lives alone out of state, but this is not a good setup for him long term as he is starting to have health issues that could change his ability to care for himself at any time.

We are looking at how we can have him move closer to us into an independent slash assisted living situation.

He has some liquid assets that he has saved for his retirement, as well as a pension and social security for income.

We've looked at a couple of places, and they vary widely in their payment structure and levels of care that they offer.

Some seem to be based solely off a monthly payment, while others have a buy-in model, where you pay a lump sum upfront, but then have lower monthly fees going forward.

Some of these buy-in models are partially refundable.

Hey, Kate.

Good to have you as always.

We love bringing you on for the most technical topics.

So let's just get right to it.

Start by laying the groundwork for how much our listeners' father-in-law or really anyone in this situation might expect to pay for senior living care.

So the challenge here is that it's pretty much universally expensive, but that the cost really varies so much depending on where you live.

So I looked into some numbers here and in Alabama, the monthly cost is about $4,700 a month.

Meanwhile, in Hawaii, the cost is over $11,600 a month or about $7,000 more each month.

So given that, it seems like our listener first needs to figure out

how much the typical cost could be where they're living or maybe where the father-in-law is currently living, and also how much money is available to cover these costs right now.