Multi-Generational Living & Caregiving - Part 1

We all must immediately focus ourselves in our financial planning with long term care and begin exploring our surroundings consistent with what's possible for the ones we love and the community we live in.

As we move through this moment in history with bail-outs, what the residual effects will have on 21st century families remains to be seen. Whoever takes office on January 20, 2009 will be impacted on what they can do with health care reform. Bottom-line, the funds will not be there for long term care or home health care. It will be vital that families tighten their belts and Prepare2Care with a very strong stay at home health care plan in the event of a long term illness or accident.

While we catch our breath and prepare to embark on the next decade, the playing field has changed. For many of us, there will be a shift in our living arrangements. Sadly, some will lose their homes and the value of many homes and nest eggs have been deflated. So what does this mean for many families?

Generational and community living under one roof will be a common theme in days ahead. Having resources to deal with family caregiving to lighten the heavy-lifting and pause the financial burden for a fallen family member has never been more important. As we stride our way through economic storms that have been put in front of us, we all will have to examine our current and future resources individually and more importantly, as a family unit. AARP states that over 6 million American homes are currently multi-generational, including homes with grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, sisters and brothers.Â

America has been here before. In years past it was very common for multi-generations to live under one roof. There was no shame then, there should not be shame now. History has a way of repeating itself and teaching us humility and compassion for one another.

Change, of course, is seldom easy. Many of us prefer the comfort of the familiar but unsatisfying to the risk of the great unknown. It is perhaps our good fortune to live in an age when so many changes are demanded on so many fronts at such dizzying rates that "tried and true" assumptions are bound to be challenged by new discoveries, new insights, new social and personal realities. We are an inventive society when we stop, look and choose.

Life can change on a dime - whether due to the sudden onset of a disability from an accident or illness, or just due to the natural result of aging. Now is the time to take action, before an event happens.

We all must immediately focus ourselves in our financial planning and begin exploring our surroundings consistent with what's possible for the ones we love and the community we live in. Our future is not confined by the present nor the past. At any moment, each of us has a choice to take care of one another and what is possible depends on how we Prepare2Care so that we are not blind sided by the demands of long term care.

Having Cash4Care that pays the unpaid caregiver or a home health care focused policy - whether it be a cash benefit account, a short term home care plan or a cash first policy that pays the unpaid caregiver â~S in addition to professional services will be a critical tool for the 21st century family.