Welcome to the Money Mindset Podcast. I'm Ashley Patrick with Budgets Made Easy and today we have a special guest, Jen from Investor Mama. And we just have a relaxed conversation about taking care of your parents, your grandparents, you know, especially when you have young kids. Things that you need to keep in mind and make sure that you take care of because you know they're not always able to be able to either mentally or physically take care of themselves.

So what are some of the things that you need to know so that you can cover all your bases and figure out what you need to do to be able to help them? Before we dive into that conversation, I do wanna let you know that Monday, January 30th, we kick off the Money Plan Bootcamp. This is free, I only do it, well,

I've only done it once before, but I only plan to do it this year in 2023 twice. So this is your chance to kick off the new year, create a realistic money plan that you can actually stick to. I'm gonna teach live my five set framework for doing that, plus an amazing community along with prizes and giveaways. And of course you can ask me all the questions.

It's just a really fun group and a great group of people that will be there to help support you, cheer you on, answer your questions, and help set you up for success in this new year. So come join us. Your time is running out to join us. Sign up@budsmadeeasy.com slash bootcamp. Now let's dive into the conversation about taking care of your parents or grandparents.

Hi Jen, thank you so much for being with us today on the Money Mindset Podcast. Hey Ashley, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be on. Absolutely. And I really have enjoyed getting to know you and talk to you before we started recording this podcast because your podcast Investor Mama is a lot like the Money Mindset podcast where we have conversations and we talk about our journeys and all things personal finance.

So, but we had to narrow it down today about what we were gonna talk about. So what we're gonna talk about is really the financial side of helping your parents once they get to a point where they can't financially take care of themselves or they have health issues and so you're having to do a lot of the estate planning and handle all the paperwork and that type of thing.

Before we dive into that, can you just give us a little bit about background about yourself and your financial journey? Sure. So I have always been, I had very smart women in my family and that were very passionate about finance without even knowing That was like a thing. So even at a young age, I remember sitting down at the kitchen table with my grandma and she'd open up her,

back then it was, you know, the account statement with the stocks and she had coke and Disney and you know, the big companies and she said, you know, Jenny, just invest in something you know, and just put your money, you know, make sure, make sure you invest. And then the same time my mom, even though my parents didn't always make the best financial decisions at a very young age,

I remember she was the one that always did the bills and she would say, make sure if you're gonna buy something, you can afford it and always pay your credit card on time no matter what, you have to pay your credit card in full on time. And so those things have always stuck with me. And so as I got older, I always was attracted to learning about personal finance and you know,

I had a, I opened up a Roth IRA when I was in my early twenties and you know, didn't invest a lot but just at a young age started doing the right things and made a ton of mistakes along the way by all means, but always was passionate about it and then wanted to help others. Especially now as a mom, I feel that the money journey changes a lot once you have kids and throw it like we own real estate and you know,

o owning real estate prior to having kids and owning real estate after having kids, it's just very different. And things you spend money on and things you don't spend money on and navigating aging parents is, you know, yeah you become the parent. And then so many of us are the sandwich generation. So we're trying to, you know, save and invest for our kids and teach our kids about money and it's just so much and you're working and it's all the things.

And so that's kind of how I decided to start investor mama podcasts. And also we had some issues, you know, tragedy along the way a little bit too that made me really wanna be passionate about helping other women especially, especially you know, moms on their money journeys. Awesome. Well I'm glad you're here even and it's amazing that you're, the women in your life have taught you at such a young age to invest.

Because even if you make other financial mistakes, which we all do, especially in our twenties. Yes. When you invest that young, like you can't screw up because just the magic of compound interest is amazing. Like we made a lot of mistakes ourselves as everyone probably knows and but since we started investing in our twenties when we first got our real jobs,

you know, our first real jobs, we don't ha, we technically don't have to invest anymore because like we invested so much when we were really young. So that definitely is helpful. So now as a lot of people listening may know I had my grandma living with me for several years and you know, like you said, the sandwich generation of having to financially and physically care for our parents are grandparents,

you've had to deal with that as well. And so let's dive into that. Like some things that we can do to really prepare our, or try to not only financially But Mentally, like mentally it's so different when you're trying to take care of seniors and trying to take care of kids at the same time. I know it was very physically and mentally draining for me personally.

And so let's talk about kind of your situation as well, like how, what your situation was with that, having to take care of grandma and your mom. Sure. So in 2015 my mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at a very young age. I think she was, she was about to be 60, so she was young for the most part.

And I remember I was at work, oh she started losing her memory right after the time I got my, my grandfather had passed away and then we thought she was just very depressed cuz she was like staying inside a lot. And then I got married and I was out of the house and so we kind of just thought it was depression for, for over,

it took us like a year and a half, almost two years before we even got an actual diagnosis cuz the doctors, we went to neurologists, we went to psychiatrists, we went to psychologists, all these doctors and no one could, no, but we knew something was wrong and she knew something was wrong, she just couldn't remember like little things. Even her friends noticed she'd be on the phone talking,

no one just forget like words or things that you shouldn't forget if that makes sense. And eventually, you know, it started to get a little bit worse and worse and finally like I said, I think it was like two years later they found amyloid beta in the brain, which was a indicator of early onset Alzheimer's. And I remember like my world shook because I was still,

I was young, I was you know, ear early thirties like it's not young but it's not old, you know, and you know, we were just starting to wanna have kids and everything. So I told my husband we're having kids right away I was researching, you know, doctors and all. So I feel like in my case it was different in the sense that there was an actual disease,

it wasn't just aging, there was an actual specific thing. So the first thing I was trying to wrap my head around is I went into I need to make this better mode or I need to do all the research, I need to learn about this, I need to do whatever I can. And I was so overwhelmed and so drained because with Alzheimer's,

like the Alzheimer's Association is amazing. I provide tons of resources and I was literally just talking with someone about this before our call cuz her brothers diag just got diagnosed. But for as long as Alzheimer's has been around and for as much research as they have, they're still not far along at all in drugs. And so just trying to even learn how the disease works,

what drugs are out there going down the whole clinical trial path, it was exhausting and overwhelming and there's so many questions you have and you don't even know what to ask. And that was the biggest thing I learned in the beginning was knowing that there's gonna be things you don't know to ask and keep asking doctors, keep asking people what should I be asking?

Because every time I had asked that I'd find out something else that I would have never have even known to have asked because it's, you know, you're learning so much. And then I didn't have kids yet at the time when she was first diagnosed so I had a little bit more time to research but you know, if I would've had kids right at the early it would've been even more,

I don't even know how people do deal with it when there's something like that. And so I ended up getting pregnant with our daughter and you know, like pretty quickly after she was diagnosed, you know, and so I was researching at the time clinical trials, things that I could do to help her finding the right doctors. And the other thing I realized we had to do is all the estate planning and all this things.

So it could be a lot for someone from a mental standpoint. I'll go into kind of the more details of of things that you do need to have in place but from a mental standpoint is to really breathe and know it's gonna be hard. Get your own support group because you can't do it all and the more people you have, even if you just to vent,

it's just so helpful. Especially when you're dealing with something like a specific issue. Really, really make sure that you have your own self-care time too because it's very easy to go down rabbit holes and get very depressed. Like for me it was like very disheartening to find out that there was not much to do. And so when I was even looking for clinical trials,

there was all these technical terms and I didn't know if I was making the right decision and which trials should I get her in and what what, you know, research is available, are there any medications she could be taking? Can the medications harder? Cuz she also had other, you know, issues she had diabetes and just some other things and she was already on just you know,

normal aging health medications and trying to figure out what would work and what would wouldn't work. So I wish I had someone kind of do I wish I could have had a podcast listen to on what to do. So first thing is like your own mental health, get that in check, it's gonna be long, it's gonna be hard. Just know it going in.

And that's kind of the biggest like for your own sanity. Second thing from now, a more technical standpoint, depending on what the situation is, there's, we can go down that road, but from a big picture standpoint it's really important to have the difficult conversations with your parents on what their estate plans are. Do they have a healthcare directive? How are they planning on paying for medical care?

Do they have their caskets picked out? I know these are topics you don't wanna talk about and I encourage you to do this before they even get older. I had to have a lot of these difficult conversations after it was already kind of triggered. And I have found from others that it would've been easier if sometimes it could be easier if you say you're doing your own estate planning,

what's yours? It makes it a little bit easier on parents so that you can do it in advance instead of having to do it when it's already like you're in the whirlwind of things, you know. And then to have to add these questions on top of it makes it more difficult. But you really wanna make sure you have a, you know, a will and trust and these are,

these are really, really important estate docs that you want. One is that you know what the person's wishes are. So healthcare directive, I'll go to through that first is really your, what your parents' wishes are at the end of life. Do they wanna be resuscitated, do they not? Some people change as they get older too. So just because even if your parents do have one of these documents,

it's always good to have a family conversation really knowing what their wishes are. It's, it's so key. Knowing who makes the decisions is also important. So with a healthcare directive, it's gonna dictate who at the time, who needs to make a decision, not just what to make but who makes it. Which can be very important because you may think you're the one doing it but maybe you have a sibling or you have,

you know, another parent that's still alive but maybe they don't wanna make it and then it falls on you. So having all of that set up is extremely important. The will you want in place because if, especially if your parents have any assets, you wanna make sure that whatever they have is also going to the right people. If not, it will essentially go to the government to decide and it'll take a long,

it's called the probate period. You don't want that happening to your parent stuff. So having a will in place is also extremely, extremely important. Sorry actually I'm trying to think, is there any other, this is gonna, you can edit this, right? Yeah. Okay. There's the will, there's the healthcare directive and I'm blanking, isn't there like a third thing Power of attorney?

Yes. Thank you. Okay. And then the third important document that you are gonna want is a power of attorney. Because as your parents also get older, you may have to make decisions for them and you're gonna need to maybe go to the bank, move money around, do all these things and whoever is in charge, again, you should know who's in charge of that and what the actual responsibility is.

Making sure. With all that said, from a actual like technical standpoint, if you know that you are gonna be your healthcare directive or you know you're the power of attorney, there's also some things you can do to make your life a lot easier. First thing to do is get all of your parents' medications written down and their dosage have it saved on your phone.

That was so important. Whenever I had a call for doctors and things like that, they always asked me like what medications are they on? What is, you know, all the health issues. Get access to their re records. Also get a list of all their doctors, who are they going to for what, get their contact information, introduce yourself to them.

And you can do all this before there's an issue. Like this is just planning stuff. Obviously when there's an issue you'll have to do this sooner but before there's an issue, these are just good practices to do. So definitely know your parents doctors know their medications. Another thing to do is know where their money is. If you can start moving money around before there's an issue,

that's also great trying to consolidate it into all one bank. So maybe it's just not recommending any bank but you know the chase, all their accounts are at least at Chase or just Wells Fargo or wherever. You don't wanna have to be chasing around trying to navigate, you know, money and things like that. I love the idea of putting it in your phone like in the notes,

cuz I never thought about that. Like and to know where, where their life insurance stuff is because I know for like, for myself when I've done this is I've ha I have a bunch of like little ones that like certain banks where it's like you sign this and you get like 1500. Well nobody would know that, right? Like yeah so they have like,

it adds up. So you know, we have, for example, we have our term life insurance plus then we have insurance at our work and then we have like these little insurance accounts. You know, I have a pension fund, we have several different 401ks that haven't been like put together. We've got IRAs, like all the things. And so if nobody knows that you have that or where to find that information,

you know, it may just sit there and never get distributed or anything like that. So you're right to know that, that and to update it for me, I would personally recommend that you get a local attorney to do this for you. Not like legal zoom or online Yes. Type of thing because you want it to stand up in court. And so having a local attorney that knows your state laws because it's not just like,

you know, the United States as a whole, you know the federal laws, each state is different and so you really need to have somebody that knows your local and state processes for handling these things. And then you have somebody to go to when the time comes that you need to like do all of these things, right? And so you have just one person to contact.

So I did wanna mention that, but I love your tips and I know we, we kind of got interrupted a little bit, my kid coming in and the dog coming in. So let's, did you, did you finish your thoughts first of all before we got interrupted? And if not, what else did you want to say about kind of like the preparing part?

The, the other thing is depending on what your financial situation is, it's really good to go to an estate attorney, especially if you have assets because you're gonna wanna figure out how care is gonna be paid for. And so there's, if you can get your parents on Medicaid, I believe, and don't quote me on this, you need to talk to an estate attorney,

but you need to show a certain number of assets like below a certain threshold of assets and you also need to show an income. I believe it's below $2,000 in order to, to be eligible. With that being said, there are legal strategies on how to maneuver assets around so that you can still be eligible for Medicaid but not have to spend down your entire life savings.

Especially if you're married and you wanna leave some money to your spouse, especially if they're dependent on you, you may not want to go through all of your resources and so the government has something called the five-year look back. So the sooner you can move money out of your name espe into a trust and again speak to an attorney about this, but if you can do it before you get sick or you know whatever,

it'll make your life a lot easier because you wanna do it with five years before you actually need to access that money. So with my mom, we didn't have enough time to do it but net we moved everything over from my dad so that when his time it, it comes, we'll be able to move, move things around and there's certain loopholes, like if children are disabled sometimes you can move money within the window for them.

So because my mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, I then had to deal with my grandma's estate kind of stuff at the same time because my mom was not able to functionally take care, take care of her. And so I had to deal with that end too of you know, nursing homes and all of that stuff and making sure she had enough money because just for like a,

a regular nursing home facility to have like a private room, it was I think 10 to $12,000 a month and that was y you know, seven, eight years ago now it could be even more, especially with inflation and stuff. And so if you wanna actually have like real care for them and make sure you could pick the nursing home and there's a,

a gamut of what nursing homes look like and all that stuff. And so, or maybe you want private care government's gonna look into all of this stuff and see what you're eligible for. So the more you can kind of protect your assets before you need to highly, highly encourage you to do so because once it's too late your options significantly decrease. So if someone gets sick and let's say you may only have like within you know,

two, three years even your, your options just decrease. Decrease. So that's another thing to really, really think about before you even, you know, when you start having all these talks, I would say yeah, make sure the money situation what they want and how you're gonna actually pay for it is, is thought through. Absolutely. Now I have several friends that have been dealing with this and then my husband as well.

So his grandma has Alzheimer's and then his grandpa had passed away several years ago now, but before they even got to that point, like several years before they started doing these things and so they really set things up and let everybody know who was doing what, where things, what assets are going where, how it's all gonna be taken care of once they're gone.

And so I really looked at that as a great example of what to do and kind of how to prepare your family, especially as you get older. It's kind of hard as you know in our thirties to think about that. But you know, I still set all this up in my twenties but I guess I'm just such a rule follower and so it's like okay well I need to do this plus I was in a high risk job and so if anything happened to me I wanted everybody to know what to do.

But you know, most of us aren't thinking about about that stuff in our thirties when we have little kids and things to take care of. So, but if you can start having these conversations with your parents or your grandparents when you know that you're most likely the one that's gonna have to take care of it, it will make your life a lot easier.

And there are, like you said, legal loopholes. So you do need to talk to a local attorney because you know, maybe you can put your name, get on their bank account so you can still pay their bills and do those types of things while they're still living but may not be able to actually do it. And so if you go ahead and get on their bank account where they're still mentally cognizant and can make those kind of decisions,

then that'll make it a lot easier for you to be able to take care of things as things progress or if anything happens to them. So I, and it's not as expensive as you would think. Like I know people probably, well at least not here. I was surprised where you live it probably is, everything is more expensive. Yeah it was.

It was. It was very expensive. That's why. But it's, if you have some money it's definitely worth it because in like what you just said Ashley, in my, in my grandma's case, it was actually better for me not to be on it and my mom's case not to be on things. So that's why you really wanna talk to an attorney because it could depend on your situation and what actually would make sense.

Like maybe you just wanna be power of attorney or maybe you want it completely in your name, not in their name. And those are also difficult conversations to have that I'm gonna be taking over your money but like it's for the good but someone who you know may not want you to. Yeah. So Yeah absolutely. And so yeah it is is important to have those conversations and see what makes sense because everybody's situation is a little bit different,

you know, and there's living trusts and there's so many things that you can do but it all kind of depends on your situation and your assets. So it is important to talk to an estate lawyer about this and I think when we did ours it was free because I was a police officer so that was awesome. The nice, the office that did it for us did it for free for first responders but you know,

they gave you a sheet with how much you know it would've cost otherwise and it was like $1,200 which in the grand scheme of things is not that, it's not that much money, especially if you end up having to go through the court system and do probate and do all of those things, it's a much bigger hassle. And so, you know, $1,200 doesn't even feel like much nowadays.

It really doesn't. I know I, I know. So it may not be as expensive as you probably think it is. So call around, see, you know, kind of what it costs in your area cuz it will depend on where you live. So you know, once they, once we kind of have an idea of what the situation is,

I think it's also important to have conversations while you still can when they are still able to make decisions and think clearly and that type of thing. Like what, you know, do they want to, what kind of care do they want? Like you've talked about like what are the options like can they live with a family member who can, who can,

who has the time and can physically help support them, especially while they still are physically able to do things but maybe mentally are able to do certain things. You know, we've dealt with that in our family as well and kind of like what are the options and just making sure everybody knows what they want cuz that really is a boy, especially if you have a lot of siblings.

I have seen with certain families, like it was very important that they made it very clear ahead of time what their wishes were and who was to make what decisions. So I love that you touched on that, like who's the power of attorney but who is, because it doesn't have to be the same people who's your healthcare Yeah. Power of attorney who's your executor of the state,

who, who's making all the decisions about what. And I think it's really important because especially if you have multiple people that wanna make decisions, they're gonna have different opinions and it just causes tension. It can cause resentment, it can just make things in the family stressful and can and has ruined relationships in the past with yeah, fighting over what to do with people and their things.

And so it's very important to have those conversations, especially when you have kids and start young, tell them what your wishes are, make sure it's written down on paper and it's clear to everybody what should happen once you pass and to have those conversations with your family as well. But especially the ones that you know, that you're gonna have to take care of things or at least have a big role.

Yeah. In taking care of things. So what else have you found through your experience that people should keep in mind if they are having to prepare to help with parents, grandparents? So if you are gonna take on the role as caregiver and you know, that could look like a lot of different things too, but let's say you want the person to be in your house,

well you yourself should be budgeting also for that and also will be be a point most likely where like you said, they may not be able to eventually take care of themselves and it could be a very stressful situation. There could be a lot of guilt feelings involved because let's say your parents do want, don't wanna be in a nursing home, but I guess to a point where you just can't do it,

especially if you have kids and your, you know, your parents' physical needs or grandparents' physical needs, you know, get very hard. You know, that could just be very mentally draining. And so as much as yes your parents may not wanna go to a certain place, I feel like you need to be kind to yourself too and know your limits and boundaries and there most likely will be a point God willing if they're,

you know, still around and able to, you know, live out some of these things. But once they're mental and especially once they're physical capabilities decline, it's very hard. Very hard. And even, or if, even if your spouse, like my dad was my mom's caregiver and he was literally doing everything and eventually like his back, he could,

he had to like lift her and he couldn't, he couldn't physically do it anymore. So, and I know he felt very guilty about it, but you can't and you gotta give yourself a break and know when to hire someone. That's why I'm so big about the money situation because even hiring an Aiden or something, there's, it could be super expensive depending on what you need.

And then the amount of hours, there's a lot of rules around what home health aids can do, what they can't do. Some can administer medicine, some can't. So it really all depends on the needs and it's a lot of research and and things to look into. So to kind of have, have a game plan. But no, it may need to be adjusted and go easy under yourself if it does.

Yes, that's such a great point. And I would also like to mention that, you know, a lot of our, I don't think anybody, I think everybody says don't put me in a nursing home. I mean literally nobody wants to go to a nursing home. I mean why would you we're Not great, Right? But I think there comes a time that your parents or your grandparents,

they also don't wanna be a burden. And so I think there would come a time that even if you're feeling really guilty about having to put them somewhere that can help them better and help them more. Especially when you have little children and you know, Alzheimer's. Cause we're dealing with that in our family too. There comes a point where it's not safe like they need to be in a safers place,

you know, because leaving stoves on and and flooding the house numerous times and you know, and it's not their fault but I think that if you think about it in a way that they wouldn't want to put you in a situation either where you are getting depressed and you can't take care of your own kids that they, they would understand and if they were in the same situation,

they would totally understand and wouldn't want to put all that on you as well. So I think if you think about it that way, that would really help lessen the guilt. And I would say as well, just from my own personal experience, looking from things from the outside in that a lot of times it's better for them to be in a facility that can give them the resources and the help that you can't.

And once they settle in and they have a really good routine, they do a lot better. Even though, you know, of course they're not, they're not gonna be able to recover or anything from Alzheimer's of course. Like that's not how it works yet. But we have all this guilt and feel like we're the only ones that can take care of them and that they'd be better off at home or with you when in reality that's not always true.

There's a lot of good facilities out there, there are specific facilities that can help take care of people with Alzheimer's and it's a lot more structured which really helps them. So I think that we put all that guilt on ourselves and feel like that's the only way and if we're not doing it then you know, they would be upset with us. But in the grand scheme of things there,

there are places that are better equipped to take care of them better and I think that that is important to remember. Yeah, especially even if not even the physical, it's hard just to watch your parents deteriorate. Yeah. So it may, even if it's not physically draining, it could just be really emotionally hard for you to be the one that has to bathe them and be the one that has to like take them to the bathroom and be the one like they're your parents.

You know, we have these pictures of them as like these, well many people, some people have pictures of your parents as like superheroes or like, you know, just your parents and so it, it's also just emotionally hard to watch them too, like where you become the parent. Yes. And it's, it's very hard mentally and mentally draining when you h you're trying to take care of little kids but you're also trying to take care of an adult kid basically is Yeah.

How is what ha ends up happening. And so you're trying to make sure your kid's not jumping on the stove and turning it on and then you gotta make sure the the other one's not turning, turning off and leaving the stove on and causing a a fire. Which yeah has almost happened in my house. So you know, I speak him experience and so yeah I've got the three-year-old climbing on the stove.

I have to get buttons to get him to stop turning it on boys. I swear my first two girls did not do that. I did not have to do that. You know, and then you've got the big kid is leaving the stove on and doing stuff. It's like, oh my gosh, it's mentally draining. I mean even when they can physically take care of themselves,

it's mentally draining. Especially when you're the sole caregiver and you're trying to take care of kids and keep the house clean and do laundry and run to a million activities each week and all the things. It's just exhausting And you know, they, they wouldn't wanna put all that on you. So it's important to remember that as well. What are some things that you did to kind of help take care of yourself through this process?

I had amazing friends that I could talk to and just bounce ideas off of. And I, I mean I should actually say first and foremost, thank goodness my dad was here, is here he was. Cuz I didn't have to worry as much about my mom cuz he handled her physical care and I know it was really, really hard for him but he did it with spades.

Not everyone is fortunate and has, you know, somebody around. But that allowed me a little bit of a less direct stress. And even when my grandmother ended up going into the nursing home, he was there. We put her, this is another thing I think is also important to kind of acknowledge as we were just talking about before, of like not feeling guilty when you have to put them in a home.

But also it's like a very fine balance of then once they're in a home feeling like you need to go see them all the time but you have your life and then their life. So to make it easier, try to put them near you. It may not be the best facility but something that you can get to. My parents were, are like an hour from me.

So my grandma went into the facility, I put, I put her in one, it wasn't the best one, I felt guilty about it, but it was right near my dad's house and he could literally five minutes away he could go see her. My mom actually never really made it to a facility cuz by the time she declined it was just so rapid that we didn't even really get to that point.

But at least for, for my grandmother, we were able to get her someplace that was convenient for my dad. And that also kind of helped too, just with my mental stress cuz I knew she was, if I couldn't be there, at least my dad was there and he was able to kind of make sure she was, you know, taken care of and stuff.

But I know even when I went, she'd really only eat for me and she really didn't like the nurses and I know she was doing like, it was, she was miserable and I felt so guilty cuz I'm like, oh my goodness, I have her her in this place. And, and it, it was very hard. But it was having that support group,

my husband was amazing through it all just kind of helping me. Every time I would leave the facility I'd feel terrible. Like I, you know, literally abandoning her because I, like I said, I knew she would really eat more when I was there and she was just getting so skinny and when I would see her it was just, it like they sucked the life out of her but then when I would come she'd pop,

you know, it was like, you know, but I couldn't come all the time. It was really hard. So I, whatever, I guess for the individual, for me it was having, having that but I still, there was no real way to fly like cope with it. There's like, when you're kind of in it, it's just so draining.

Yes. Not, and I don't wanna be a Debbie Downer and just say like, ugh, but you know, whatever you need to do, do it. Try to, it's easier to say don't feel guilty than to actually not feel guilty. Yes, Absolutely. But The more you can, I would say is the better. And I think, well,

and I know that, you know, even with talking to your friends except they don't fully understand unless they've experienced it themselves, like yeah you just don't, it's one of those things in life that if you haven't had to do it yourself, you really, you can have empathy of course, but you just really don't get how taxing it is. And everybody's different too.

So it's like different for, you know, everybody's family and that kind of thing. But it is very hard when you haven't actually experienced it. Your like they just, they don't fully grasp it. Of course they can or a good outlet to vets and things like that. Yes. But if they haven't done it themselves it's, it's not quite the same.

And so I think it would be important for you to find a support group locally as well. There are support groups for caretakers and things like that. So I think it's important to just be cognizant that you need to do some things for yourself. It's still gonna be hard. Yes, it's still gonna be draining but it is helpful when you can at least be a little bit more intentional of making sure you're taking care of yourself as well because it's,

it's hard and now you can hear my kids. So yeah. So is there anything else that you want people to know or take away from this episode before we wrap up? I would say the sooner you could have these conversations the better. And also on the same token, if you don't have this stuff in place, definitely do it for your, your family as well.

Because as hard as it is for you to have these conversations, you don't wanna be a burden onto your kids. And the more things you can prepay in advance for yourself also the better. So we already have, we bought funeral plots, we already have like our casket, my husband supposed to be cremated. We have everything kind of picked out already paid for the service,

all that cuz we don't want my, my grandparents did that. God bless them. Like they even paid for the limo to take us to from our house to the cemetery, which they've even thought of. But they paid for a car service cuz they literally wanted nothing for us to do and they didn't, it's not like they had a lot of money.

That was just something important was to take care of their end of life so that they could go and not be a burden. And so if you're someone who doesn't wanna be a burden for your own family too, even if it may be difficult for you to have the conversation with your parents, at least set the example for your future and the sooner you kind of get all this stuff in,

it's just such peace of mind. And it also doesn't have to cost as much too cuz you could have plenty of time to pay cuz dying is not cheap. I love the idea of prepaying for funeral stuff, but it always gets me cuz I don't understand what if the business outta business and like, or what if they don't offer like whatever it is that you paid for or picked out at that time.

Like I don't understand the logistics of pre-paid. Yeah I don, yeah my, my grandparents paid like 20 years before and ev I mean we, they bought the cemetery plots they bought. So we own the land, we essentially own the plot land and then they paid, they knew which funeral home we wanted to do. So we're Jewish. So there's also expenses around the body and how the body's prepared and where do you keep the body before we do,

we do services quickly. Like we don't do wakes and things like that. So we go burial very fast, but they had all of that kind of plan for like covered. So I feel like Elise, even if that institution wasn't there, it would've been somebody else taking it on. Yeah. So, and even like cremation, there's, I feel like there's,

I know cuz my friend was telling me she's not Jewish and I know that there's like services you could pay for too that are cheaper to go the cremation out. And that's also another thing, do you wanna be buried? Do you want a fancy casket? And Judy is a, we believe in just like the plain basic wood go in, like that's it.

We don't believe in cremation but some people may have a religious belief and then still not wanna do whatever the religion says. So there's like all these things to think about as well. And even where do you wanna be buried? Who do you wanna be buried near? They're not fun conversation but they, they have to happen or someone else is gonna be deciding it.

That is true. Yeah, because like, cuz obviously we've already prepared a lot of this stuff too. Like I don't wanna be buried because I don't want there to be like h like how long is that gonna be there and like how long do you have to go and vi like people have to go and visit you and go to like, I've even told my husband like,

if I die in Iraq, I don't want the little memorial thing on the side of the road because then it turns into, well how long do you leave it and are you gonna feel guilty cleaning it up? And it's just, I don't know, that's just me Of course. And I don't wanna spend, yeah, like why waste so much money on a casket?

Like I like that's money that can go to something else. So for me, you know, that's just how I think about things and I'm just like, don't spend all that money on me. Like I'm, you know, I'm gone like it's fine, like just save it for something else. But, so it is important to have those conversations because if we had it,

you know, my family wouldn't know that and maybe they spent $10,000 on our funeral and I would be like, why would you spend $10,000 on a funeral? I don't like, don't do that for me. Like, you know what I mean? Of course. It's probably even more than that now. I'm sure that that's probably like a low end. So yeah,

I just feel like, I don't know, I guess I just, for me personally, and this is just for me because I'm talking about myself and I do understand like the grieving process and you know, it's a celebration of life for other people to help them with their grieving process. But for me, when I'm gone it's like I'm, I'm gone.

Like I don't care what you do, don't waste a bunch of money on it. You know what I mean? So yeah. Yeah, that's, that's just how I think about it. But it's important to have these conversations like you said and I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your experience and how you've dealt with these types of things. Where can people learn more about you if they want to follow your podcast or you on social?

Sure. You go investor mama.com, my website, you can see the podcast, you can also go to investor mama.com/connect. You can find all of my social media handles. The podcast is on wherever, you know, all podcasts are held on Apples, Spotify, Google, all that and yeah, definitely come, come on over. I'd love to meet you and yeah,

Ashley, thank you so much for having me on and allowing me to share my story. Thanks for coming on and being patient with all my kid interruptions today. That's what we do as Moms. Exactly, exactly. Thank you so much to Jen for being here with us and sharing her experience. Now don't forget, we start the Money Plan bootcamp soon and come save your seat.

It's free. Go to budgets made easy.com/bootcamp. I can't wait to see you there.