Hi! I'm Jody.
If you've seen me on YouTube, you're in the right spot! I started this website to help people who, like me, had no idea where to turn when their parents began to consider a new living arrangement in senior living communities.
When I began my research, I was bombarded with sales slop from corporate and unaccredited accounts that never clearly explained, well...anything!
No one seems to want to fix that problem, so I decided to try.
Our vision
Real Senior Living Guide exists as an independent resource, so families have the honest information they need to make their own informed decisions. We are not paid by any facility, community, or referral service, and we never will be.
Our mission
No family should have to guess their way through one of life's hardest decisions. We exist to give adult people the honest information and guidance they need to choose what's right for their parent(s) or family members — nothing more, nothing less.
About RealSeniorLivingGuide.com
My name is Jody. I'm a freelance journalist, writer, and content creator who has spent years covering unique corners of our world. Along the way, I noticed something I hadn't expected: aging people everywhere, from the most rural corners of other continents to the urban and rural spaces across the United States, quietly wondering how their lives would change as they got older.
That was never my beat — until, while I was thousands of miles away covering everything from conflict to cuisine, my own parents told me they were beginning to consider a transition to senior living. But they had no idea where to look, what to look for, and while I wanted to help, neither did I.
Did it mean someone coming to help around the house a few hours a week? Or a move into a community with other seniors, where they could enjoy events, socializing, and built-in care? And if it was the latter, which ones were actually good? Would they get taken advantage of? What if they ended up somewhere awful? What about the hidden costs nobody mentions until it's too late?
I had no idea where to turn. Honestly, it's one of the hardest things I've had to figure out as an adult child. When I started researching, I was buried in sales pitches, paid ads, and outright scams — and there's no reason this should be that hard.
So I started making YouTube videos to walk people through what to actually consider before making a decision, the way I had to. From there, I built a free guide so people could sit with the information on their own time, before making an informed choice about senior living — for their parents, or even for themselves.