Have you factored rising Healthcare costs into your retirement planning? Here’s my latest MoneySense Retired Money column, which you can access by clicking on the highlighted headline: One huge cost to factor into retirement plans.
That huge cost is of course unexpected medical expenses, which tend to escalate the further along you go in your golden years. Typically, the early years of Retirement (say, in your 60s) are dubbed “Go-Go” years, which are the healthy ones during which you can travel, and medical costs tend to be minimal.
Costs rise as you go from Slow-go to No-go years
But as time goes on, often between the late 60s and early 70s, you can expect a few medical problems to emerge for at least one member of a senior couple, if not both. That’s why they some dub the middle period the “Slow-go” years.
And of course, the last few years is where costs can really mount up: the so-called “No-go” years, especially if you no longer “stay in place” in your home, or require extensive in-home care, or are forced out of the family home altogether to go to a retirement home or nursing home.