Long term care Soultions

 
Stand Alone LTC
According to the nonprofit Insured Retirement Institute, there are four risks to a stand-alone long-term care policy: It can be expensive, it acquires no cash value, the premium may increase, and the underwriting can be time-consuming.However it is simple and straight forward and qualifying you for LTC is easier than Life insurance.

Fixed annuity with LTC benefits
Fixed annuities, those CD-like investment vehicles that can provide an income stream for life, are a tough sell in the current low-interest-rate environment. However, if you're a risk-averse shopper who can't pull the trigger on a use-it-or-lose-it long-term care policy, an LTC annuity may be worth exploring.

The annuity approach has several advantages: You retain access to your money (although fees usually apply), the cost of the LTC rider may be less than an LTC policy, and you can obtain coverage without health underwriting if you've been turned down for a stand-alone policy.
The disadvantage: Besides that steep upfront investment, the rider fee can eat into your annuity's interest income, and you'll be locking that money up today at a relatively low rate.

Life insurance with an LTC rider
There's one important question to ask before you consider a life insurance policy with an LTC rider: Do you need life insurance?

The life insurance approach to long-term care coverage is fairly straightforward: You invest in a cash-value insurance product -- whole, universal or variable universal life -- and select your LTC coverage terms in the rider. Once you trigger your long-term care insurance coverage, it comes out of your policy's death benefit, usually on a prearranged schedule. At death, your beneficiaries get what's left of your life insurance.
The upside: If you don't use the LTC, you've saved the premiums of a stand-alone policy.And its much cheaper to add LTC if you have a life insurance need to combo with.
The downside:Life Insurance is much harder to qualify you for than standalone and annuities.Also if you have no life insurance need than this is not for you.

Health Care awareness and Client situation

           Alright guys its been about a week since my last post and i hope all of you are doing well:) Schools starting again (bleh) lol and this just means I will be busier than ever! But hey who said that life was suppose to be easy.

This post will be primarily about retirement planning and the importance of health care costs in regards to retirement !

           Little update on my life, this week i managed to help my mother out with a client. Her good friend needed some help consolidating her retirement.Shes 51 and has worked for the school district for 15 years. She wanted to sit down with me and just find out if what she has is enough to retire .So I sat down with her and figured out her expected pension amount she will get from her work( Cal-Purs) and her total from her 403b accounts. I then factored in her social security shes expected to get and manage to tell her whats the monthly amount shes guaranteed to get after tax if she retires at 57, 59 , 62. Also she will also get social security at 65 to supplement on top of this. My advice for her was to consolidate her 403b into something better since she doesn't get an employee match and her current plan is giving her less than 4% annually.

 Whenever I help someone retire I help them in 4 major ways. This honestly is what I believe a financial advisor should do but most only focus on one.

1.Income -I must plan with you how you will retire by first making sure you have an income.Using personal savings, pensions or 401k, IRAS, and social security

2.Debts - I must make sure you retire without any debts your income truly is used for your retirement!

3.Healthcare- I have to make sure your health care costs are managed because if your sick what good is your money? also its much easier to insure someone healthy now than sick later.

4.Legacy- And This is my favorite part. Estate planning. I help you make a legacy. I help you use your money to make a difference. Whether it be a charity, or passing money to your family when your gone. I make sure that when the inevitable happens you know that you left something that your proud to leave behind.


All in all shes doing great and will likely retire with the same income she has been getting. Since her retirement is now known , I told her that whats truly important in retirement planning is not how much money you have in the bank, its your health.

        Im gonna post a lot of links for my sources but these are all either published medical journals or .Gov websites. I do not use opinion when it comes to financial or medical information.

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• Nearly two-thirds, or 62%, of all bankruptcy filings in the United States in 2007 were due to illness or medical bills. Source: American Journal of Medicine, June 2009
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• Among the medical bankruptcy filers in 2007, most were well-educated, owned homes, employed in middle-class occupations, and three-quarters had health insurance. Source: American Journal of Medicine, June 2009

  













   Now despite these shocking statistics, its not all bad. The cost of insuring you now is much cheaper than the cost of insuring you later. However most people don't know what to look for in health care options. They don't know the limitations of their current plans and what Medicare covers and doesn't cover.

When your young you get health insurance. However when your 65 you get something called medicare. When your younger health costs are low because your younger, stronger, easier to treat.
When your older thats the opposite. You are extremely expensive to treat.

"Medicare doesn't cover everything. If you need certain services that Medicare doesn't cover, you'll have to pay for them yourself unless you have other insurance or you're in a Medicare health plan that covers these services.
Even if Medicare covers a service or item, you generally have to pay your deductible, coinsurance, and co payments.
Some of the items and services that Medicare doesn't cover include

• Long-term care (also called custodial care)" 

Source: http://www.medicare.gov/what-medicare-covers/not-covered/item-and-services-not-covered-by-part-a-and-b.html


        Now this is a huge problem for Americans and is quite unknown. Im sure many of you guys reading this blog know someone in a nursing home or has an aide help them.These expenses are not covered by Medicare!!!Also most health insurances do not cover chronic illness! If you know someone with Alzheimers, dementia, Huntington's, chronic pain, or anyone who needs assisted living they are paying out of pocket or a family member is doing the services for them.

The question people ask me is who really needs long term care?
Almost 70% of people turning age 65 will need long-term care at some point in their lives.
Source:http://longtermcare.gov/the-basics/

            Many people believe that the medical insurance they currently have will pay for all or much of their long-term care. In general, health insurance covers only very limited and specific types of long-term care, and disability policies don’t cover any at all.The website below will tell you exactly what is covered and not covered!

Source: http://longtermcare.gov/costs-how-to-pay/costs-of-care/

Some average costs for long-term care in the United States (in 2010) were:

• $205 per day or $6,235 per month for a semi-private room in a nursing home
• $229 per day or $6,965 per month for a private room in a nursing home
• $3,293 per month for care in an assisted living facility (for a one-bedroom unit)
• $21 per hour for a home health aide
• $19 per hour for homemaker services
• $67 per day for services in an adult day health care center

 Source:http://longtermcare.gov/costs-how-to-pay/costs-of-care/ 

    
This graph shows current Long term care costs in CA from longtermcare.gov

  I dont want to scare you on the prices and statics on long term care but this is the reality you must face! The last generation did not plan for this because long term care is a NEW thing!!! Our life expectancy now is much greater than what the last generations was. Most seniors today didn't believe they would live past 75. Now you see seniors today out living their retirements because they are living longer than the planed for!!!Their medical costs and unexpected long term care costs are getting even higher and higher! We of the new generation cannot plan for retirement like our parents because we are living much longer. Most people today live past 80!!! If you saved 1 Million dollars for retirement at 60 you would have 50000 dollars a year for 20 years right? No you must factor taxes which is 11% marginal tax rate + CA tax rate+ social secuirty+other taxes.

Federal Withholding $5,928.75
Social Security $3,100.00
Medicare $725.00
California $2,125.40
SDI $500.00
Net Pay $37,620.85 

So you have $37620.85 a year for 20 years.
What happens if you live past 80?90?
Wheres that extra money coming from?
What happens if you are hit by Long term care costs?
Can you afford $3,293 per month for care in an assisted living facility (for a one-bedroom unit)?

Its becoming very common for people to reverse mortgage their homes  to pay for theses expenses ,which breaks my heart to see.

Now here are the solutions! There are 3 major ways to get LTC (long term care insurance)

When shopping for long-term care insurance, you'll find three main options:

• stand-alone long-term care, or LTC, policy,
• fixed annuity with LTC benefit
• Life insurance with ltc rider

I will post a separate post explaining each of these:)

http://luongcooking.blogspot.com/2014/08/long-term-care-soultions.html


All in all your have options to help you pay for LTC and all the options above are much cheaper than paying the costs of LTC without a plan. Hopefully this gives you food for thought:)
If your younger then im glad you are reading this and gain knowelege about topic relevant to our generations retirement.Share this with the people in your life who are older so they gain awareness about this problem as well. If you are older than i implore you to take this issue into your own hands and find out a solution to LTC.


Shout out to Niles, Johnny, and Jason for this beautiful picture of us in Humboldt county

My Life Story and New Direction with Asian Chef Adventure !

Hello guys i have been very busy there last 6 months juggling new careers and exploring new avenues ! A little update on myself, I have been living in Fullerton for the last year now and i must say it was the greatest decision i could of ever made for my future! I am on track to graduate from CSUF with my nursing degree but due to the long waiting list I am forced to wait until 2015 fall to start my bachelors. I was gridlocked!! 

       I couldn't go to school again for a year and had no financial aid to help support me living. During this transition I have been juggling as many jobs as possible to afford living down in OC and staying busy since I wasn't use to having free time. I was previously working for Staters in Phelan, Fontana, and Yorba Linda. But I was tired of being tired. Tired of always struggling for my bills and my poor mother didn't have much to help me out with so I was on my own.

       Thankfully I had my younger brother as you know Jason reach in and help change my life. He gave me the proposition to move to OC with him in the first place and offered to help me transition into a better job. With his support and the support of my long time GF Nicole Chance I was able to apply and become a host at olive garden. Now i originally took a big pay cut since hrs aren't very good in the restaurant industry but I saw this as an investment because I wanted to become a server and not continue to get paid minimum wage again for the rest of my life. I made it and quickly became a server at not only Olive Garden,but TGIF, and Buffalo Wild Wings.I was making great money. Working 40-50 hrs a week netted me 3-4 THOUSAND dollars! For someone who has been working and used to getting 1300-1600 a month at minimum wage i was ecstatic!! But I wasn't going to stop there!

      Now the real moral here is that don't be comfortable with where you are at in life. Always try and reach for more. If you believe you are worth more than chances are you are ,but only if you do something about it!

      On to my real reason for this post! I have been posting a lot of financial information and most of you guys probably skim through and wonder why I post them. Good question!The answer lies when i was 14 years old.

       Any of you guys who know me , probably know how much of a nerd I am. I spend hours a day researching and reading and the internet offers me just the avenue to do that.But I didn't start using this for my future until the day I found out how much my father had saved for our college education. Our family was hit really hard during the 2008-09 housing crisis and was left very poor. Our college fund also took a hit since my parents pulled some out to save our houses.(parents knew not of 529 plans and invested in mutual funds) We only had about $8000 each between jason and I. We couldn't afford even 1 years tuition at a state college....I was terrified. All my life I thought that if I studied hard could get into a good college but i was sitting at a 3.6 GPA and I knew that my financial aid could only go so far. So I took a risk. *******disclaimer I advise you not to do what I did unless you consult a financial consultant**********

        Now that I have that out of the way, I invested heavily into stocks and options. I researched day and night on how to read a prospectus and understand profit and loss. Assets to debt. Market perception. Investment mindsets and strategies from Warren Buffet, and other financial giants. Most of all I got lucky! Since the recession our market had predictably bounced back and we rode the wave.

         We rose our account from 8000 to over 39000 in a span of 1 and 1/2 years. I made more money each day 30 mins in front of a computer than I did in 8 hrs of staters, Hell probably 100 hrs. Lesson learned ,we taught ourselves from a very young age that if you ever want to build real wealth you need 1 of 4 things.

1.Have time

2.Have a lot of money

3.Have a lot of people making money for you

4.Take Risks when you can and Invest in your life (education, health, financially)

If you have time you have a much better chance to make money than the guy 10 years older than you. You cannot buy time once its gone its GONE!

If you have money you can make your money grow. DO NOT LEAVE IT in the savings account!!!!(now you must have a savings but once you pass that your money isn't doing you any good)

If you have people making money for you than you can leverage 10% of 100 people you get the combined effort of 1000% right? sure beats 100% of my own.THIS IS WHAT COMPANIES ARE!

If you take risks and learn to invest in your self you will expand your mind and expand your pocket books! You will be open to learn about what finances really are instead of hiring someone to do them for you. You will learn how to minimize taxes , make a more effective rate of return and more importantly you will learn why if you succeed why you succeed . And if you fail you will learn why you failed. Otherwise you are just getting lucky and good luck consistently trying to reproduce luck!!

I only had points 1 and 4 and I'm doing very well. I am now 21 and my retirement is probably healthier than a lot of adults I have seen.

I will continue to exercise my strengths and try and use all the points 1-4 and this blog will now be used to chronicle my journey to wealth. I hope I can hear from all of my friends and family who read this:) 

Please remember if anything that

Being wealthy isn't luck. Its discipline and courage.

Mexican Style Beef and Bean Burritos

Hello Folks! Welcome to my very first blog entry on my Adventure!!
Today is a very special day since I am embarking on a quest to taste the greatest culinary creations that can be enjoyed on a budget!

Our dish for tonight is Mexican Style Beef and Bean Burritos!!


Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1  large onion, chopped
• 1 clover of garlic chopped
•  6 oz of chopped jalapeno
• 3 pound of ground beef
• 3 teaspoon of kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper
• 6 tablespoons of chili powder
• 4 teaspoon of cumin
• 3 teaspoon of onion powder
• 2 teaspoons of garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon of Cajun seasoning
• 2 teaspoon oregano
• 2 (10 ounce) can of Rotel tomatoes, undrained
• 1 (4 ounce) can of green chilies, undrained
• 3 (15 ounce) can of refried beans
• 10-12 burrito size flour tortillas
• 1-1/2 to 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese

1.  Preheat oven at 350F
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium skillet; add the onion , garlic ,and jalapeno; cook until onion is soft but not browned. Add the ground beef and cook, breaking up with a potato masher, until browned. Add the salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, Cajun seasoning and oregano. Stir together and continue cooking for about 1 minute.  Add the diced tomatoes and green chilies; stir and bring to a boil.(TIP- add water and beef stock for extra long simmers) Reduce heat and let simmer until thickened and reduced, about 20 minutes. Set aside.
3. Heat up re fried beans in microwave or on the stove. Place tortillas on a large baking pan and roll 10-20 burritos up on the pan using one small scoop of beans and one small scoop of beef. Take care that all of the burritos are portion sized.
4.  Place pan in oven and bake for 20-30 minutes!