YFP 321: Navigating Financial Conversations with Aging Parents

Award-winning journalist and author Cameron Huddleston joins the YFP Podcast to talk about navigating financial conversations with aging parents.

About Today’s Guest

Cameron Huddleston is an author, speaker and award-winning journalist with 20 years of experience writing about personal finance. Her work has appeared in Forbes, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Yahoo and many more print and online publications. She is a mom of three awesome kids and was a caregiver for her own mom, who had Alzheimer’s disease. SHe is the author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances. 

Episode Summary

Money talk isn’t always easy to initiate, but in some cases it’s essential. Today, we are joined by award-winning journalist and author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk, Cameron Huddleston, to discuss the often-overlooked topic of navigating financial conversations and decisions with aging parents. Cameron shares key insights into why these discussions are crucial, how to approach them with love and respect, and practical strategies to initiate meaningful dialogues. We discover the importance of estate planning documents, ways to involve siblings harmoniously, and the significance of long-term care planning to ensure a secure future for both parents and their adult children. Tune in to gain valuable advice and actionable steps to foster open, productive conversations that empower families to address financial matters and caregiving needs with confidence and compassion.

Key Points From the Episode

• Introducing award-winning journalist and author, Cameron Huddleston.
• Insight into her book Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk.
• The importance of talking to aging parents about their finances and long-term care planning.
• Key fears preventing people from having these conversations.
• Strategies to initiate conversations with parents about their finances.
• Why it’s important to involve siblings in these discussions.
• The basics you need to cover in these conversations.
• Cameron offers listeners a free In Case of Emergency (ICE) Organizer.
• What to discuss with regard to long-term care planning.
• The emotional toll of being an unpaid family caregiver.

Episode Highlights

“The benefit of having these conversations sooner rather than later is that you can avoid some of the emotional reactions that can crop up.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:08:34]

“If you wait until [your aging parents] are no longer mentally able to make decisions on their own, then they’re not going to be able to sign the document and you have to go through the court process of becoming their conservator.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:15:18]

“It’s a good idea, when talking to your siblings, to talk a little bit about what roles each of you is willing to play in your parents’ financial lives as they age.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:21:00]

“More than half of adults 65 and older will need long-term care at some point.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:25:46]

“If you make a plan, you have more options available to you. If you wait until that emergency — you can’t get long-term care insurance once you already need it.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:28:37]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• Cameron Huddleston Website
• Cameron Huddleston on LinkedIn
• Cameron Huddleston on X
• Cameron Huddleston on Instagram
• Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk
• YFP 161: 5 Key Financial Lessons to Teach Your Kids
• YFP 108: How to Effectively Talk with Mom & Dad About Their Finances
• Episode 222: Why Estate Planning Is Such An Important Part of the Financial Plan
• YFP 296: 5 Key Decisions for Long-Term Care Insurance
• Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
• YFP Financial Fitness Test
• YFP Disclaimer
• Tim Ulbrich on LinkedIn

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.8] TU: Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here, and thank you for listening to The YFP Podcast, where each week, we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

This week, I welcome back onto the show, Cameron Huddleston. Cameron is an experienced award-winning journalist and author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations with Your Parents about Their Finances. We talk through why it is important to have these conversations with your parents, how to start the conversations, and what to do if your parents are reluctant to talk.

Before we jump into my interview with Cameron, let’s hear a brief message from YFP team member, Justin Woods.

[YFP MESSAGE]

[0:00:37.5] JW: Hey, Your Financial Pharmacist community, it’s Justin Woods, director of business development at YFP. I’m curious, have you taken a pulse on your financial health lately? It’s so easy to get swept away by the day-to-day of careers, family, and life in general but now is a great time to hit the brakes and check in to see how financially fit you are. Are you heading in the right direction to meet your financial goals? 

Is your retirement planning on track? Do you have adequate insurance in place? We created a five-minute financial fitness test so that you can learn about the areas of your financial plan that you may need to work on, maybe where you’re crushing it, and resources that could help you along the way. So head on over to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/fitness, to see how your financial health is tracking. 

Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/fitness or click the link in the show notes below.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:31.3] TU: Cameron, welcome back to the show.

[0:01:33.0] CH: Thanks so much for having me.

[0:01:35.1] TU: I’m so glad to have you back and today, we’re going to be doing a deep dive into a difficult, yet very important topic and that is navigating financial conversations and decisions with aging parents, and Cameron, for our listeners that didn’t previously catch you on the YFP Podcast several years back, tell us why this topic is so important to you, such as it has led to you to speak and write extensively on this topic, including the work that you did in your book, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk. 

[0:02:05.5] CH: You know, it’s funny, I never set out to be an expert on having family money conversations, yet, I have found myself in this position largely because of personal experience. I have been a personal finance journalist for more than 20 years and when I was 35 and my mom was 65, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and I found myself having to get involved with her care and get involved with her finances.

But we had never had any detailed conversations about her finances and you know, looking back, I think, “Oh gosh, I should have known better, I was a financial journalist, I should have had these conversations with my mom” but it never crossed my mind that I needed to talk to my mom about her finances and so then, I found myself having to play detective to get the details I needed about her finances as she was forgetting those details herself. 

So that experience prompted me to write a book, to help people realize the importance of having these conversations before there’s an emergency. You know also, my dad’s story played a role on this too. He died at 61 without a will and he was in a second marriage and he was an attorney. He should have known better. He should have had estate planning documents and it came as a huge shock to me that he didn’t. 

You know a lot of times, we think our parents are on top of things or they might tell us that they are but are they really? And then you start to ask questions and you find out that they’re not as prepared as you think they are and so I just really want people to realize that these conversations are so important because there will come a point when you have to get involved with your parent’s finances, either if they need care or help as they get older or when they pass away and you have to manage what is left behind.

[0:04:04.1] TU: Yeah, Cameron, your story really resonates with me and I suspect that our audience as well. One of the things I shared with you before we hit record is that we’re seeing more and more folks in our community that are challenged, you know, with being stuck in terms of having, obviously, their own financial situation, perhaps young or growing family that is presenting financial needs and now there’s this component with aging and elderly parents that you know, may not only be difficult conversations but also there may be really real financial impact on their own situation as well.

And so I think you know, your story and what you mentioned about you know, your father being an attorney, somebody that knows the importance of these documents and not having them in place really speaks to just how emotional and challenging this topic can be and that’s really where I want to start, right? Because I think that for those that have aging adult parents, very common situation where the fears that surface when we consider talking about money with our parents.

I know it’s something that I have felt myself and so much so that in the book that you wrote, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk, you referenced a study from a care.com survey, showing that more than half of parents would rather have the sex talk with their kids than talk to their parents about money and aging issues. What are some of the fears that are holding people back from having these crucial conversations, right? After all, we know that they’re essential ones to have.

[0:05:32.1] CH: One of the big ones is that we are afraid if we have these conversations, our parents might think we’re being greedy, especially if you want to ask about those estate planning documents. We’re afraid if I ask Mom and Dad if they have a will or a trust, they’re going to think that I’m just trying to find out what I’m going to get when they die and so it’s a logical fear for sure. 

You know, we might be afraid that our parents are thinking we’re being nosey because most people are pretty tight-lipped about their finances. We might be afraid that our parents are going to get angry with us and it’s going to create a rift in our relationship. I think though if you approach these conversations out of love and respect.

[0:06:18.0] TU: Yes.

[0:06:19.7] CH: Then you’re not going to make your parents angry, they might be a little surprised initially that you want to address this topic but if you let them know that you are looking out for their best interest, that you want to know what their wishes are so that you can honor those wishes, they hopefully will recognize the value in having this conversation and they’re not going to think that you’re just trying to figure out how much money you’re going to get when they die, especially as long as you don’t start the conversation that way. 

You know, you don’t want to say, “Hey, do you have a will? I want to know what I’m getting.” Of course, they’re going to think you’re being greedy at that point but if you let them know, “Hey, I want to know what your wishes are so I can honor them” then you’re opening the door to having a productive conversation.

[0:07:16.5] TU: Yeah. You know, what really stands out to me there, Cameron, is honor, love, and respect, three words that you use there and I think if that’s the backdrop and the intention of a conversation, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be an easy conversation, right? We still may stumble through it and it’s challenging but I think the outcome of that is likely to be much more fruitful, fit in the spirit of that.

And as I shared with you previously, that is something I have struggled with personally, is that fear and sometimes it’s a story I tell myself but that fear that out of initiating these conversations, there could be a perception of greed, and while I know my heart is not in that place, you know, that is a concern, and I think some of the strategies that you talk about in the book to initiating these conversations.

I think, really, coming at it from a perspective of honoring their wishes as you said, and to be fair, there’s also a personal responsibility that I feel to my family and our financial plan, why I think both of our parents have done a phenomenal job in planning, you know, depending on long-term care, a topic we’ll talk about here in a little bit, and the expenses that may or may not come that could be a financial burden and implication on our family, on our personal finances and so I think there is a responsibility to lean into this conversation from that end as well.

[0:08:32.0] CH: I was going to point out that the benefit of having these conversations sooner rather than later is that you can avoid some of the emotional reactions that can crop up if you wait until an emergency. If you were talking to your parents about their estate planning, their retirement planning, their long-term care planning while they’re still relatively young and healthy, you’re talking about “what if” scenarios. 

“What if this were to happen, what do you want?” As supposed to waiting until there has been that diagnosis of dementia or a cancer diagnosis or whatever. At that point, you are in a crisis, and trying to sort out the financial side of things is going to be a lot more difficult because you’re not talking about a “what if” scenario. You’re talking about, “Hey, you probably need my help now we don’t have a plan, I need to get involved” and that makes it a lot more challenging to have constructive conversations at that point.

[0:09:41.1] TU: Yeah, that’s such a great point that you bring up because one of the traps, and you talk about this in the book, is assuming that a conversation can wait, right? And I think that’s another reason where, you know, having the conversation as early as possible before those situations are live and real and you’re in the moment, I think can really help with managing that conversation in a much more effective and productive way.

Cameron, one of the things I was thinking about is I find this cycle very interesting, right? When I think about the generational patterns that you often see with how we handle our money, right? So I talk with many pharmacists that grew up in a household where money is a taboo topic, right? So there is from the parent to the child relationship where maybe they’re not given the financial vocabulary or it’s a common place to have an open conversation about money and then you see this pattern repeat in reverse, child to parent, later in life or maybe they’re not comfortable initiating that conversation. 

And so I think for our listeners, I share that as hopefully some encouragement to break some of these cycles, right? That might be running generationally as it relates to how we handle our money but it’s so important. One of the implications we see often when we’re working through the financial plan is, it’s not just the exes and O’s, it’s not just the objectives. So much of this topic is emotional. 

So much of this topic comes back to how were we raised, what are the money scripts and stories that we grew up with and what are the implications of that on our financial plan.

[0:11:06.0] CH: I agree 100% and I think it’s a really good idea before you start having these conversations to spend a little time thinking about why your parents might be reluctant to have the conversation if you think that they will be reluctant. If money has been a topic that your family has addressed, you know since you were little, then you have a lot less story about and I don’t mean to say that you have a lot to worry about if it wasn’t a topic of conversation in your family but I do think it’s a good idea to think, “Why might my parents be reluctant?” 

“Are they embarrassed about their financial situation, do they simply believe that money is a taboo topic? Do they not like the idea of talking about aging in death?” If you can pinpoint the reason they might be reluctant, then you avoid approaching the conversation from that angle. So let’s say, Mom and Dad don’t like to think about death, they never talk about it. So you don’t start by asking them about what sort of estate planning they’ve done. 

You choose a different approach, you know, “How’s retirement going for you or what are your plans for retirement?” Something along those lines so that you don’t start the conversation off on the wrong foot because you don’t want them to shut down immediately.

[0:12:24.2] TU: Yeah, such a good point and that’s one of the things that I love about the book is I feel like you give very tangible, practical strategies such as conversation starters, right? Because I think that in theory, a lot of people hear this topic and they’re like, “Yes, I know I need to have these difficult financial conversations with my parents and I can understand why but how do I actually engage?” right? 

“How do I begin some of these conversations?” and you give very tangible examples all throughout the book. So I highly encourage our listeners to check out that resource, if they haven’t already done so. One of the things Cameron, you mentioned in the book, is when talking with reluctant parents, how important it is to start with the basics, the must-haves, and then to work from there and then to build upon that. 

What do you mean by the basics? What are you referencing there?

[0:13:14.7] CH: I think it is so important to find out if your parents have estate planning documents and I know some people think, “Oh, an estate plan, that’s something only wealthy people do. My parents don’t have a lot of money, I’m sure they haven’t bothered to draft a will or a trust” but all adults, all adults need estate planning documents. Of course, a will or a trust is important to spell out who gets what when you die because, without one, state law is going to determine who gets what and I don’t think a lot of people realize this. 

So many adults think, “Well, my family can just sort it out” and that is the worst, the absolute worst approach you can take because you might think everyone gets along but as soon as money comes into play, the dynamics change so quickly. I mean, I’ve heard this from estate planning attorneys, I’ve learned this from personal experience and so, you need to make sure your parents have a will or a trust that spells out who gets what when they die and you need to know where that document is. 

Again, you know, say, “Look, we just need to know what your wishes are so that we can honor them and honestly, so we can avoid any fighting down the road.” I think, more important though than that will is a financial power of attorney. The best type to get is a general durable power of attorney, this lets you name someone to make financial decisions and transactions for you if you can’t. General means you’re giving someone broad powers.

Durable means that that power remains in effect once you are no longer mentally competent and so this allows you to plan for dementia and capacity. If it’s not durable, it’s really not going to do you any good and so your parents need to have named someone as their agent under power of attorney. This has to be in place while they are still mentally competent because if you wait until there is a stroke if you wait until they are no longer mentally able to make decisions on their own, then they’re not going to be able to sign the document and you have to go through the core process of becoming their conservator. 

It can be very lengthy, it can be very expensive, you know, and I was lucky with my mother because she had some estate planning documents but when she was showing signs of memory loss, I was like, “Let’s go in and get them updated” and fortunately, she was still competent enough to sign those documents. So don’t assume if your parents are starting to show some signs of memory loss that it’s too late.

Meet with an attorney, don’t, please don’t use those inexpensive or no-cost forms that you can get online. If there’s any document that you meet with an attorney to draft, it is that power of attorney document because if you run into issues down the road, you can always get that attorney on the phone with the financial institution to say, “Yes, this document is legitimate, the person was competent when he or she signed it” and so meet with an attorney or make sure your parents meet with an attorney. 

But they also need to have a medical power of attorney to name someone to make medical decisions for them if they can’t and they need an advanced directive. It’s also called a living will to spell out what sort of end-of-life medical care they do or do not want. These documents are so important, parents need to have them and you need to know where they are because it’s not going to do you or your parents any good if you can’t find them. Start there, then get more information. 

You know, how do they pay their bills, this is part of the emergency planning. If Mom and Dad end up in the hospital and you want to make sure the bills are getting paid while they were in the hospital, you need to know how they’re paid. Are they set up to be paid automatically or are they writing checks? If they’re writing checks, someone else is going to have to be able to sign those checks for them, at least temporarily while they’re in the hospital. 

You know and then keep digging, what are their sources of income? You don’t have to know exactly how much money they have but you need to know, are there retirement savings, are they relying solely on social security benefits, is there a pension, you know, is there debt? Again, you don’t need to know down to the last penny how much debt they owe but are they still paying for a mortgage? 

Are they still paying for student loans that they took out for you or for themselves or for the grandkids? Whatever, just you know, a general idea is a good start. Of course, the more information you can gather the better because if you end up in a situation like I did where you have to manage your parents’ finances, then you’re going to have to know everything. 

[0:17:57.2] TU: So much there to take away and as you talk about in the book, those more advanced types of things, right? You talked about how you’re paying your bills, sources of income, bank accounts, outstanding debts, you know what I think about as like the day-to-day execution, right? You put yourself in the shoes of your parents and you’re responsible for managing that as you mentioned in your own situation, what are the things that you would need to know. 

But the importance of starting with the basics and when they are ready to share and when the time is right to be able to come back to those topics. So I think the progression here is a really important thing to highlight and I would just encourage our listeners, you know, Cameron, as you were talking through the estate planning documents, a reminder not only to our listeners for their aging parents but also for them. 

Many in our community have a young family, they may not have taken this important step and I think because there often could be fear and emotions around this as we see with many of our financial planning clients this isn’t the most exciting part of the financial plan to be thinking about but it’s so important to consider and it’s something that we’re also not just going to set once and forget but we need to come back throughout time and make sure that those documents are updated. 

We talked about the estate planning part of financial planning in great detail in episode 222, we’ll link to that episode in the show notes. I do want to ask you about the sibling component, right? One of the things you just shared is how money can become challenging when you think about the family dynamics, right? That we often hear those horror stories and so that got me thinking as you’re sharing, “Wow, how can even my brother and I prevent some of that?” 

How can we get on the same page? And for us, it’s only him and I and I would expect this becomes more challenging with more siblings, more personalities, you know, more brothers and sisters-in-law and so forth, they’re involved. What advice would you have to our listeners that are trying to think about, “How can I best navigate this relationship with my siblings so we are collectively on the same page in these conversations with our parents? 

[0:19:54.2] CH: I’m so glad you brought this up because sometimes the sibling dynamic can be more complicated than having the conversations with your parents and so I encourage people to actually talk to their siblings before talking to mom and dad so that they can get on the same page. If you have siblings and you decided to go to mom and dad and have these conversations and you don’t include them, then that can create resentment. 

It can create suspicion, “Oh, you talked to Mom and Dad about their finances, what were you trying to do? Get and go with them so that you get all their money when they die?” You don’t want that to happen and so call a family meeting with your siblings, whether it’s in person, whether it’s on Facetime, you know, better to talk but if you have to send a series of emails back and forth that’s certainly better than nothing. 

But you want to let your siblings know that you think it would be a good idea to talk to your parents. You want to figure out who is going to initiate the conversation. Is it one of you, is it all of you, when is going to be the best time to have this conversation? And I also think it’s a good idea when talking to your siblings to talk a little bit about what roles each of you is willing to play in your parents’ financial lives as they age. 

Now, at the end of the day, it’s going to be up to your parents to make those decisions who is going to be the executor of their estate or their trustee, who is going to be the financial power of attorney, the medical power of attorney but if you have had these conversations beforehand with your siblings and then you sit down with your parents and they can see that you’re on the same page, it can make it easier for the parents to open up. 

Because often times, parents are reluctant to have these conversations because they don’t want their kids to fight. I would caution though, if you have a sibling who is likely to sabotage the conversation for whatever reason, maybe the sibling doesn’t get along with you, doesn’t get along with your parents, there are mental health issues, you know, financial, legal problems, then you might not want to include that sibling in the conversation. 

You know, if you have siblings who simply don’t want to participate, it’s okay, don’t force them but I would encourage you to just keep them in the loop because you never know down the road if you do get involved with your parent’s finances, they might want to start getting involved and if you’ve kept them onto the loop all along, then you’re going to run into some issues there and so try to keep an open dialogue as much as possible with your siblings. 

[0:22:29.5] TU: Cameron, in the book one of the things you reference is the “in case of emergency” organizer and I think some of what you previously covered probably falls in here as well but tell us more about what is the purpose of this organizer, what should be in this, and how our listeners could get started with this for their own family or with their parents. 

[0:22:47.2] CH: So I actually created this downloadable file, you can find it on my website at cameronhuddleston.com, it’s free. You can use that or you can create your own. It’s essentially a way to get organized, to help your parents get organized. You can print it out and give it to them because sometimes parents are more willing to write down information rather than tell you directly. This allows them to maintain control over the information. 

So if they don’t want to talk, just say, “Hey look, I get it. This is a sensitive subject. Do me a favor though, here is this “in case of emergency” organizer, fill it out. Fill it out as best as you can, put it in some place safe, and tell me when and how to access it.” I mean, it asks for all sorts of information, social security number, Medicare number, health insurance number, military ID if you served in the military. 

All of your financial accounts, your usernames, your passwords, locations of lockbox keys and deeds, and marriage certificates. I mean, I try to cover everything and so it is a great way to get organized. It is a great way to get your parents organized. You know, if you are in a relationship yourself, I mean, this is information that your spouse or partner is going to need if something happens to you. 

So you know, like I said, if your parents don’t want to tell you information, you might have some luck getting them to write it down. 

[0:24:17.1] TU: Yeah, I really like that strategy and approach and I think also you know, to having a third-party resource can be really helpful. So you know if I, for example, I’m talking to my mom and dad. If I send them a checklist of, “Hey, these are the things I’m asking for, these are the questions that I have” you know, to your point about being intentional and strategic and how we have this conversation in an honoring and loving and respectful way. 

I think sometimes the third-party resource expert such as yourself, having that come from them can be certainly a powerful approach and strategy to consider as well. Cameron, I want to wrap up our time by talking about long-term care planning. In a recent version of your newsletter that you sent out, you talk about the financial and emotional toll that can come from being an unpaid family caregiver, something I’ve seen in my own family. 

With my parents caring for their parents and I suspect this is a conversation that many avoid but has massive implications. So talk us through why this conversation is so important and the strategies that folks can use to open up the dialogue around long-term care planning. 

[0:25:25.0] CH: It is so important to talk to your parents about what sort of long-term care planning they have done because I can tell you most likely they haven’t done any planning. Only 11% of adults have long-term care insurance, which will help pay for the cost of long-term care services but the thing is, more than half of adults, 65 and older will need long-term care at some point, you know? 

This is assistance with what are called the activities of daily living, bathing, getting dressed, eating, getting in and out of bed, long-term care can be provided in your home obviously by family members or paid help you bring in. It can be provided in an assisted living facility, adult daycare centers, memory care facilities, and skilled nursing and so it doesn’t necessarily mean a nursing home, which is a lot of people assume, you know? 

Their parents might say, “Don’t ever put me in a home, don’t put me in a nursing home” and I encourage people if your parents say that to you to not make that promise, to not say, “I promise.” I think the better strategy is to say, “You know, I understand that the idea of going into a nursing home seems really scary. Let’s talk about what sort of care you would want if you need care. Where do you want to receive care?” 

Most likely, they’re going to say in their home because that’s where most people want to receive care and then you say, “Okay, well, if you want to stay in your home, let’s think about whether your home is set up for you to age and place. You know, Mom and Dad, you got a two-story house. Your bedroom is on the second floor. You have a bathtub that you have to step into to take a shower.” 

“Maybe it would be a good idea to start thinking about downsizing to a smaller home with a bedroom on the first floor and an accessible shower with a smaller yard or no yard, a house that requires less maintenance. If we can start putting these plans in place now, then you can stay in your home” and you know, “Do you have a way to pay for someone to come in and provide care? I want to be able to help you in any way possible, however, I have a job.” 

“I have kids, I might not be able to take time off my job or to quit my job to provide care for you. You know, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you but let’s make sure there’s a way to pay for professional care” and maybe Dad says, “Well, you know mom is going to take care of me.” “Dad, can Mom take care of you if you’re both in your 80s? Can she get you up and down the stairs? Can she get you in and out of bed?” 

“Can mom really do this? Does she have the physical and emotional strength to do it?” People don’t think about these things because honestly, it’s depressing. It is but if you make a plan, you have more options available to you. If you wait until that emergency again, you know, you can’t get long-term care insurance once you already need it. That has to be in place, you have to buy long-term care insurance. 

You can get it in your 50s, your early 60s as long as you’re still healthy. You know maybe, they don’t like the idea of paying for long-term care insurance because they might never need it. There are now these hybrid life insurance products that include a long-term care benefit, maybe they have whole life insurance that has accrued cash value and so they can tap into that cash value of their life insurance. 

Maybe it’s a reverse mortgage, maybe they have enough retirement savings to cover the cost of care but you want to talk to your parents about what sort of resources they have and it is really important to discuss who is going to provide that care and to gently make them aware that they might not be able to rely solely on family to provide that care.

[0:29:44.5] TU: Yeah and as you articulate it so well, I mean, there’s all of these financial considerations but there’s the emotional consideration inside of this as well and I think that’s the piece that often gets overlooked, especially with family caregivers. You know, I’ve seen this right now of my grandmother where certainly, the family’s involved but it’s gotten to a point where she needs daily around-the-clock professional help with the home.

And while that’s been very beneficial and in fact, if it’s very, very expensive and it also provides a different dynamic, you know? In terms of obviously, you got different people coming into a home, it’s not the family that’s taking care of her at certain times, and so there’s just so much to consider here and I think more and more reason to have these open conversations as soon as possible, right? 

Before the event comes to be and this becomes even more challenging and more emotional and I think as with many things in life, right? The path to peace of mind and the path to feeling good about the outcome and solution is through the difficult conversations and so I think just huge credit to you Cameron and the work that you’re doing, not only through your book but through your newsletter, your blog, and the impact that you’re having on such an important topic. 

I’m so grateful for your time and the contributions that you have made to our community, which I know is going to be inspiring in their own journeys to make sure that they’re taking action on this topic. As we wrap up, Cameron, what is the best place in addition to folks getting a copy of the book, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk, what’s the best place for our listeners to go to connect with you and to follow your work?

[0:31:13.1] CH: My website is cameronhuddleston.com and so as I mentioned, I’ve got that free downloadable “in case of emergency” organizer. I’ve got a couple of other resources there. Another good place is to follow me on Instagram. If you’re on Instagram, it’s Cameron K. Huddleston. I share a lot of tips on financial caregiving, having these family money conversations.

[0:31:38.5] TU: Great, we will link to both of those in the show notes and thank you again so much for taking time to come on the show.

[0:31:44.9] CH: Of course, thanks for having me.

[DISCLAIMER]

[0:31:46.7] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information on the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. 

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog post, and podcast is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. 

Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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