Long-Term Care: A 5-Step Process to Determine If You Can "Self-Fund"
Stay Wealthy Retirement Podcast
Taylor Schulte, CFP®
4.7 • 677 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You've heard it before—70% of Americans over 65 will need long-term care.
While that number is technically true, it's also misleading.
Because here's what many people don't realize: the vast majority of retirees will never face a catastrophic, six-figure care event.
In fact, nearly two-thirds will spend ZERO out of pocket during their lifetime! 🤯
So how do you prepare responsibly without overpaying for protection you may never use?
In this episode, I walk you through a simple 5-step process to decide if you can safely "self-fund" your long-term care needs, while still protecting your retirement plan and peace of mind.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Here's a stat you've probably heard before. |
| 0:02.1 | 70% of people turning 65 today will need some form of long-term care services in their lifetime. |
| 0:08.5 | That number gets thrown around a lot, especially right before someone tries to sell you in |
| 0:12.4 | expensive insurance policy. |
| 0:14.2 | And while the statistic is technically true, it's also a bit misleading because what many |
| 0:19.1 | people don't know is that only about 13% of people age 65 today will spend over $180,000 in lifetime, out-of-pocket, long-term care expenses. |
| 0:29.9 | And here's the real kicker. According to a Morningstar research study, roughly 63% of people age 65 today will have zero out-of-pocket long-term care expenses during their |
| 0:40.8 | lifetime. In other words, yes, most of us will need some level of care, but only a small percentage |
| 0:46.8 | are truly at risk for a catastrophic six-figure event. Now, that doesn't mean you should ignore it |
| 0:52.6 | and just hope for the best, |
| 0:59.0 | quite the opposite. Everyone needs a long-term care plan, whether that means self-funding, |
| 1:04.6 | buying insurance, or a mix of both. So today, I'm walking you through a five-step process to determine if you can competently self-fund your long-term care needs in retirement. In other words, |
| 1:09.9 | can your current retirement savings absorb a long-term care needs in retirement? In other words, can your current retirement savings |
| 1:11.9 | absorb a long-term care event without the need for insurance? Welcome to another episode of the |
| 1:18.6 | Stay Wealthy Retirement Show. I'm your host Taylor Schulte, and every week I tackle the most |
| 1:23.2 | important financial topics to help you stay wealthy in retirement. And now on to the episode. |
| 1:32.3 | Before we dive into the five-step process, I want to address a common misconception that |
| 1:36.6 | sometimes trips people up. Many believe that having a certain net worth or a certain portfolio |
| 1:41.6 | size is a good metric for identifying whether or not you can |
| 1:45.0 | sell fund for long-term care. But that's misleading because if we just look at how much money |
| 1:49.8 | someone has saved for retirement, we're ignoring their unique situation and perhaps most importantly, |
| 1:55.0 | we're ignoring their spending rate. For example, a person with $5 million might appear to have more than enough money to fund |
... |
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