LIVING SOLO or AGING ALONE? A Conversation About the Importance of Attitude and Planning with Senior Living Advisor and Advocate, Carol Marak
In America, every 8 seconds someone turns 65. Many of those seniors will find themselves alone at some point in their later years.
Carol Marak’s journey to help her fellow baby boomers manage aging alone as “Solo Agers” began while she was assisting her parents through their own aging process. Her parents were fortunate, Carol muses, to have her, their daughter, there to guide them through the myriad of issues - finance, housing, companionship and long-term medical care - that arise as we grow older.
Helping her parents turned out to be her wake up call. “Heck, I’m unmarried with no children; who will be there to take care of me?” she asked. “That’s when I got on the stick,” she added, “and began planning for my own life as a solo ager.”
Listen to our conversation as we discuss:
- Carol’s definition of Solo Ager--it isn’t just the unmarried or childless
- The significant limitations of typical retirement planning that focus only on finance, legal matters and estate planning
- The toughest question solo agers must address
- The Top Ten areas of concern to solo agers according to Carol
- How to overcome inertia and begin your own plan for the future
- Carol’s 5 Steps to successful living solo
- Why she started the Elder Orphan Facebook Group and how you can join her community of over 9,700 members who are aging alone
…and so much more.
“Solo living comes with its own set of concerns and challenges---beyond just aging,” according to Carol. “Planning for the long term can be unsettling, because aging is complicated and stacked with complexities and risks,” she adds. “But if you are a solo ager - someone without a spouse or children - enacting a plan will be one of the smartest things you can do.”
Resources
You can learn more about Carol, her Guided Roadmap for a Supportive and Secure Future, and her Living Well Assessment, at her website, www.CarolMarak.com. Also, check out her Elder Orphan Facebook Group.