Staying at a Holiday Inn could be cheaper than a retirement home

Posted on 20 January 2020

Terry Robison is a 65-year-old Texas retiree who decided to live at a Holiday Inn because, according to his calculations, it works out cheaper than living in a retirement home. We wondered if the same could be true about retiring to a Holiday Inn in South Africa and did a little digging.

According to Robinson, the average nursing home costs $188 (about R2,730) a day, but a long-term stay and with a senior discount at a Holiday Inn in the US comes to about $60 (around R870). This fee includes a breakfast and happy hour.  According to Robison, his daily savings of over $130 (R1,890) is left for food and other spending.

In a 2018 Business Tech article the cost of moving into a retirement home in South Africa works out as follows:

‘Based on our calculations, pensioners require R20,500 per month for essential expenses, including frail care, to rent in a middle-market retirement village compared to R37,000 per month to stay in their home with 24-hour private home care,’ said Twané Wessels, product actuary at Just.

‘To cover R37,000 per month for life to stay in their home with 24-hour private home care, pensioners aged 75 with a life expectancy that is 25% shorter than the average life will need approximately R3.5 million as a male and R4.4 million as a female,’ she said.

If you take this top-end rate of R37,000 per month and divide it by 30, you get an average daily rate of R1,233. This is also more costly than a long-term stay, with pensioner discount, in South Africa at the Cape Town Holiday Inn Express.

The best price that we could find for a long-term stay (over three months) at this particular Holiday Inn, with a pensioner discount, for a single person is R882 per night. This also includes free breakfast, free WiFi and a swimming pool.

However, in both the US and South Africa the Holiday Inn does not include around-the-clock nursing care or on site medical or frail-care facilities.

 

Image: Pixabay

 






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