Speaker 1: Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking preparing for the Unthinkable with Chanelle Reynolds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is a topic that's been on our minds,
Speaker 1: like literally for months, because this past summer we recorded
Speaker 1: an episode with our Wives that was episode seven oh four,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you want to go back and listen,
Speaker 1: and a listener had asked about our communication with our
Speaker 1: wives and how involved they were with our finances, because
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's really fun to dream work towards
Speaker 1: the different big financial goals that we have, and then
Speaker 1: of course the day to day discussions, right like what
Speaker 1: was the water bill that month? How much money's left
Speaker 1: in the entertainment category.
Speaker 2: Those are the kind of convos that happened pretty automatically
Speaker 2: as well. But given the fact that Joel and I
Speaker 2: were both money nerds, it's no surprise that both of
Speaker 2: us handle the bulk of our families finances. The logistics,
Speaker 2: and that question did spotlight the fact that if something
Speaker 2: terrible happened to one of us, that it might be
Speaker 2: difficult for our wives to figure out how to take
Speaker 2: the reins unless we made a plan for it and
Speaker 2: so that's why we are honored to be talking with
Speaker 2: Chanelle Reynolds, who has quite literally been on a mission
Speaker 2: for the past decade to help folks do what she
Speaker 2: wished that she had done before life takes a detour,
Speaker 2: so we keep it clean here on the podcast. I'll
Speaker 2: say that Chanelle founded get Your Shizz Together dot com,
Speaker 2: she authored the book What Matters Most, and both are
Speaker 2: dedicated to help folks face the inevitable reality of death. Chanelle,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for taking the time to talk
Speaker 2: with us today.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me here, of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So Chanel, the first question we ask
Speaker 1: anybody who comes on the show, Matt and I. We
Speaker 1: like to splurge. We spend more money than some people
Speaker 1: think is reasonable on craft beer. But hey, we're doing
Speaker 1: the right thing on the flip side of the equation.
Speaker 1: We're saving and investing wisely and on purpose. We're fundling
Speaker 1: a lot of money in that direction for our future selves.
Speaker 1: What is it that you maybe spore John in the
Speaker 1: here and now that some people might think is a
Speaker 1: little outrageous.
Speaker 3: I love it. I'm I'm torn between saying fancy cheese,
Speaker 3: which you know, growing up in the Midwest, we didn't
Speaker 3: always have fancy cheese, and so now if I'm at
Speaker 3: the store and there's like something perfectly adequate, but then
Speaker 3: there's something that's smaller than four times as much, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I want that one. It probably smells, yeah, like the
Speaker 3: dirty feet of angels, but I love it.
Speaker 2: The more the more cavities and crystallized salts that there
Speaker 2: are in any hard cheese, the more I'm drawn to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly exactly that. Or or a pair of boots
Speaker 3: like my winter leather boots, if there's a nice well
Speaker 3: sale even it's hard to say now.
Speaker 2: Interesting both of those are somehow related to feet stinky.
Speaker 3: I had never put that together before.
Speaker 2: Give me a thing to that well. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 2: you for sharing that. And we do want to spend
Speaker 2: some time talking about your story in your book. It's
Speaker 2: less of like a workbook where you're being super practical,
Speaker 2: and it's just an incredible narrative where you're sharing your
Speaker 2: story with the reader, but also walking folks who might
Speaker 2: be entering into a situation like that through just the
Speaker 2: headspace of kind of what to expect. Honestly, we hate
Speaker 2: to bring up what must be the worst day of
Speaker 2: your life but can you tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about the accident that changed everything for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well it was, you know, about a
Speaker 3: dozen years ago when my late husband Jose and I
Speaker 3: had a growing family and younger kids, and our son
Speaker 3: was just about to get he was just about to
Speaker 3: go into kindergarten actual and we'd done the thing that many,
Speaker 3: you know, younger growing families do is, you know, childcare
Speaker 3: costs were super expensive. We bought up bought a home that,
Speaker 3: you know, a bit of a stretch home that we
Speaker 3: were going to be in for a while. And so
Speaker 3: for those handful of years where we were stretching and
Speaker 3: you know, many costs were high, we we hadn't done
Speaker 3: some of the basic things that we knew of these
Speaker 3: like small incremental decisions of like buying the stinky cheese,
Speaker 3: let's say. And what happened was I was over at
Speaker 3: a friend's house with my son and went to get
Speaker 3: my phone out of my purse to take a picture,
Speaker 3: and notice there are all these calls from numbers I
Speaker 3: didn't recognize, and my husband had been in an accident,
Speaker 3: he had been taken to the hospital, and the tone
Speaker 3: of voice on the voicemail and the lack of information
Speaker 3: I was getting told me that something was very, very wrong.
Speaker 3: So I made it to the hospital. He was in
Speaker 3: the er. He had already been there for a couple
Speaker 3: of hours, and people are trying to find me. He
Speaker 3: had one hundred machines hooked up to him and tubes everywhere,
Speaker 3: and the er doc said that he had a fifty
Speaker 3: to fifty chance, and so that seemed better to me
Speaker 3: than what I had feared most. And then he said, actually,
Speaker 3: should I need you to listen? If he doesn't die
Speaker 3: at any second, The paramedics thought he was going to
Speaker 3: be a doa. If he's stable enough to get into surgery,
Speaker 3: there's maybe a fifty to fifty chance he can make
Speaker 3: it off the table alive. And that's when I realized
Speaker 3: that no matter what happened, whether he lived or died,
Speaker 3: and there was a fifty to fifty chance apparently of
Speaker 3: either that his life, my life, our lives were changed forever.
Speaker 3: And after a week he did. My late husband was
Speaker 3: a stubborn man, so he defied the odds as long
Speaker 3: as any body could. And after a week in the
Speaker 3: er and the ICU, all of the tests came back
Speaker 3: that his injuries were unrecoverable, and I made the decision
Speaker 3: that I knew he would want because we'd had some
Speaker 3: but not all, of these conversations and plans in place
Speaker 3: to remove what was then medical intervention rather than life support.
Speaker 3: And during that week in the hospital trying to just
Speaker 3: figure out what was going on and trying to take
Speaker 3: care of our son and stepdaughter, became clear to me
Speaker 3: that there were these hundreds of questions that came up,
Speaker 3: simple things like do you have your health insurance card?
Speaker 3: To what are the phone numbers to some of his
Speaker 3: family members, to do you have your affairs in order?
Speaker 3: And when the social worker asked me if we had
Speaker 3: affairs in order, it's just a phrase. Seems silly still
Speaker 3: to me. I kind of giggled, but then was very
Speaker 3: happy to say, yes, we did our wills and all
Speaker 3: of our stuff. And then a few moments later, as
Speaker 3: I was walking back into his room, I realized that
Speaker 3: we did get all of our wills done and they
Speaker 3: were sitting in my inbox and had been for a
Speaker 3: few months waiting to be finalized and signed. So some
Speaker 3: of the things that we had done, like having some
Speaker 3: but not enough life insurance, really did kind of offer
Speaker 3: that life boat for you know, as a bridge from
Speaker 3: the life we had to whatever the heck my life
Speaker 3: was going to be now. And some of the things
Speaker 3: we didn't do, like knowing passwords to phones. It took
Speaker 3: me dozens of hours to try to access something or
Speaker 3: get a phone turned back on. And you know, to
Speaker 3: this day, I still don't know if he bought bitcoin
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine because I can't find the information.
Speaker 1: So you talked about having some of those conversations already
Speaker 1: with your late husband about kind of what to do
Speaker 1: if you're severely injured. You talked about life insurance, talked
Speaker 1: about getting most of the way done on your wills.
Speaker 1: Where would you rate yourself on like a financial preparedness spectrum?
Speaker 1: Because you thought when she asked a question, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good, we've done the stuff. But you realize after
Speaker 1: the fact, what you think, There's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: I didn't realize needed to be done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So you know, there's milestones that happen in
Speaker 3: our lives where somebody responsible or reliable or pediatrician or
Speaker 3: parents tell us Okay, now it's time to get your
Speaker 3: wills done, or now it's time to get life insurance,
Speaker 3: and so we've done some of those long term i'd say,
Speaker 3: kind of generic things. So the fifty percent of the
Speaker 3: stuff i'd say was was primarily more like for that long,
Speaker 3: faraway future inevitable, you know, surrounded by our grandchildren on
Speaker 3: a lake in our you know, deathbed, laughing at jokes
Speaker 3: or something. But we hadn't really and that's even that's
Speaker 3: a challenging thing to do. You know, fifty percent of
Speaker 3: us adults don't have wills done, don't have advanced care
Speaker 3: directives or living wills done, and without some urgency or
Speaker 3: a trigger in some case, or an accident, we don't
Speaker 3: know how much it hurts until we see it or
Speaker 3: we live through it in some ways. So the parts
Speaker 3: that surprised me, i'd say, and I would not give
Speaker 3: us one hundred percent marks on having everything done in advance,
Speaker 3: but what we had done made such a difference. Some
Speaker 3: of the things like, you know, an emergency fund. We
Speaker 3: know that it can be hard just to get through
Speaker 3: the month paying the bills that we have, much less
Speaker 3: saving for an emergency, but having an emergency fund really
Speaker 3: does and did offer some kind of cushioned just to
Speaker 3: be able to figure out what's going on, or you know,
Speaker 3: let's say in somebody's situation, by a plane ticket to
Speaker 3: go visit a family member, that kind of thing. But
Speaker 3: you know, like the what if stuff, What if something happens,
Speaker 3: what would I want or need for the next twenty
Speaker 3: four to forty eight hours, What would I want or
Speaker 3: need for a few weeks? Or what if that what
Speaker 3: if thing is? What's happening now? How prepared am I
Speaker 3: and passwords, phone numbers, emergency contact plans, Having like an
Speaker 3: extra key outside of the house so someone could go
Speaker 3: feed the dog, so the dog wouldn't eat the couch.
Speaker 3: You know, just some of these things keep life moving
Speaker 3: somewhat forward. When a big bomb gets dropped in your life,
Speaker 3: whether it's a disastrous accident like in my case, or
Speaker 3: you know, a diagnosis or illness in the family, some
Speaker 3: of these things we know we'll find us one day
Speaker 3: or another totally.
Speaker 2: I mean, you mentioned the emergency fund, and what that
Speaker 2: is is it's margin. It's financial margin in your life.
Speaker 2: But I like a lot of the things that you're
Speaker 2: talking about are about creating wiggle room and margin just
Speaker 2: within your actual life, like not even when it comes
Speaker 2: to the finances, like you talking about the key thing.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, oh, yeah, that's just smart. It seems wise,
Speaker 2: it seems prudent. But oftentimes, like you said, we're always
Speaker 2: thinking of the best potential outcomes for our lives. I
Speaker 2: noticed in your Twitter profile, I think I saw optimist
Speaker 2: in there, which is we Oftentimes when we are more optimistic,
Speaker 2: we don't necessarily think that, oh, these are necessary precautions
Speaker 2: that we should take. It's almost a matter of waking
Speaker 2: up to the reality that this might definitely happen.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I am a serial optimist. Even even during like
Speaker 3: the lowest lowest lows, I'm still grateful that I have
Speaker 3: today and making these small incremental choices, you know, And
Speaker 3: I definitely understand like the buy the coffee type of philosophy,
Speaker 3: like we want we should be able to enjoy what
Speaker 3: we're doing and have some joy in our lives and
Speaker 3: balancing those with our financial priorities. And so we've done
Speaker 3: okay in the past with our financial priorities. Not perfect.
Speaker 3: And what I learned from that experience is when you
Speaker 3: don't have those things that you wish you could turn to,
Speaker 3: like you can't buy life insurance after you're dead, it's
Speaker 3: hard to build up an emergency fund while you're in
Speaker 3: the middle of an emergency and you need a little
Speaker 3: bit of flexibility and breathing room.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about how you guys divvied up kind
Speaker 1: of the financial responsibilities in the household. The reality is
Speaker 1: in relationships, it's like a ninety ten sort of split, right,
Speaker 1: And I guess would you recommend that people split those
Speaker 1: a little more evenly, or at least let their partner
Speaker 1: in more on kind of the realities of what the
Speaker 1: household financial management looks like, so that they're not completely
Speaker 1: out to lunch when or if, you know, the worst
Speaker 1: thing happens to their partner's spouse.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. You know, my late husband and I had,
Speaker 3: you know, different strengths. He was kind of the tech
Speaker 3: guy and the password guy, and I was happy to
Speaker 3: let him do that. I was much better at other things.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, having transparency and communication I think
Speaker 3: is really huge shared responsibility, shared energy going into your finances.
Speaker 3: You know, someone might really enjoy the cooking of the meals,
Speaker 3: someone else might really enjoy getting free heyat in the spreadsheets,
Speaker 3: and you know, optimizing and moving things around. So I
Speaker 3: think that's great and I wouldn't necessarily suggest someone who
Speaker 3: can't stand to look at a spreadsheet or or a
Speaker 3: financial statement all of a sudden take on fifty percent,
Speaker 3: because it has to be fifty to fifty, but.
Speaker 1: With tooth picks in their eyes.
Speaker 3: And but communication and transparency, so you know, there's been
Speaker 3: a number of ways people have been able to share information,
Speaker 3: whether it's a checklist or a spreadsheet. There are much better,
Speaker 3: more usable, easier to share password managers or online fault
Speaker 3: So my partner and I now we have what we
Speaker 3: call our monthly CFO meeting, and we sit down for
Speaker 3: an hour and we talk about what you had mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: how much was the water bill? But also what are
Speaker 3: our financial priorities do? I have all of the information,
Speaker 3: and we update our shared password manager. So if something
Speaker 3: were to happen, and let's say it's a four hour
Speaker 3: close call and I needed to be gone for a
Speaker 3: weekend and my partner would want to pay a bill
Speaker 3: or access something, they know where that is and I
Speaker 3: would know where their other information is. So now sexy
Speaker 3: future bonding intimate conversation is talking about like life insurance
Speaker 3: beneficiaries in my household. To be totally honest, and it
Speaker 3: really is an opportunity to talk about wanting your partner
Speaker 3: to be okay no matter what, want you wanting to
Speaker 3: be okay, no matter what, building a loving future for
Speaker 3: however long that future is for you together or your family,
Speaker 3: and then whoever whoever moves forward in that future. Because women,
Speaker 3: in particular, eight out of ten women and hetero relationships
Speaker 3: are going to live longer than their male partners or husbands.
Speaker 3: And so I think it's really important that we have
Speaker 3: these conversations, not just hey, babe, what's the Netflix password today?
Speaker 1: That's the most important thing.
Speaker 3: Well, sometimes it is. If there's a new show coming
Speaker 3: out and you got to see it, you're like, it's the.
Speaker 2: Finale, funny clamoring for the David Beckham.
Speaker 3: See whatever that is that could be that could actually
Speaker 3: be a financial life raft. Right there is sharing the password,
Speaker 3: but to the future as well. So you know some
Speaker 3: of those mundane admin you know, family household stuff. You know,
Speaker 3: my son knows he's the legacy contact for some of
Speaker 3: my digital files, and he also likes to crack jokes
Speaker 3: on Mother's Day that he knows how much my life
Speaker 3: insurance policy is and like you can't kill me and
Speaker 3: still be a beneficiary. But there's a level of transparency
Speaker 3: and communication which which for me takes a lot of
Speaker 3: that fear and a lot of that worry, and for
Speaker 3: a lot of people the wonder, like the wondering what
Speaker 3: would happen if something happened? I know or I know
Speaker 3: nineteen answers out of twenty and it's incredibly wildly reassuring
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, I like how you're kind of diving into
Speaker 2: simple practical matters and you know, we're talking a lot
Speaker 2: about passwords, but how do you go about doing that?
Speaker 2: Like where do you write down the login info for
Speaker 2: just all your different online accounts, whether you are talking
Speaker 2: about Netflix or Hulu or a retirement account, because that's
Speaker 2: a really important part not only identifying which accounts exist,
Speaker 2: but also how to go about logging in. How is
Speaker 2: it that you're able to keep that safe but also
Speaker 2: accessible to those that you want to have it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I think there's two questions to ask yourself
Speaker 3: about what is going to make a successful digital hygiene
Speaker 3: kind of plan for you and what's going to have
Speaker 3: a successful way to manage and share or hand off
Speaker 3: your digital assets. One of them is what system do
Speaker 3: you already use that maybe works, and what's a system
Speaker 3: that you're actually going to maintain, and then who is
Speaker 3: it that you are wanting to share this information with. So,
Speaker 3: for example, with my parents, I had purchased one of
Speaker 3: the more expensive kind of concierge organized much easier to
Speaker 3: use online vaults and storage, and they wouldn't use it.
Speaker 3: They wouldn't use it. They wouldn't use it, like, can
Speaker 3: I send someone to your house to set it up
Speaker 3: for you? They can bring some pie it just the
Speaker 3: answer was yes, of course, honey, this sounds great, and
Speaker 3: they never used it. So if I'm trying to communicate
Speaker 3: information to my parents or a generation of people, or
Speaker 3: somebody who thinks password managers aren't safe no matter what,
Speaker 3: or they're just not going to use it, I have
Speaker 3: my own password manager and there's a number of them,
Speaker 3: you know. Some of the ones that have been highest
Speaker 3: on review lists are Bitwarden and one password. I had
Speaker 3: used last Pass for a number of years until there
Speaker 3: were security breaches recently and the communication around them I
Speaker 3: didn't like, so I decided to move. I'm not affiliated
Speaker 3: with any one of them. There are you know, there's
Speaker 3: your Google Drive or there's an Excel spreadsheet. People who
Speaker 3: are good at and want to take care of, you know,
Speaker 3: they have their own system. You can create a safe
Speaker 3: or safer way to track your most important, most important
Speaker 3: passwords and accounts, and if you are going to hand
Speaker 3: them off to somebody who is not computer savvy or
Speaker 3: won't log into the password manager to get the email
Speaker 3: that says you know, you're the legacy contact and then
Speaker 3: they accept it. In some cases, I just have a
Speaker 3: folder and it's in my little waterproof, fireproof case. And
Speaker 3: every year or so when I see family, I hand
Speaker 3: off to my you know mom, now the updated folder
Speaker 3: with the spreadsheet, and my brother and my partner are
Speaker 3: my digital powers of attorney. And so that makes me,
Speaker 3: it makes me feel reassured that if something were to
Speaker 3: happen and I didn't log into my password manager account
Speaker 3: after a certain amount of time, they would get an
Speaker 3: email and they would be able to access the files
Speaker 3: that I've given them access to, so nothing will get lost.
Speaker 3: Right like when it comes to your analog or your
Speaker 3: digital stuff in your house for when you need somebody
Speaker 3: to come in and help you or pay bills or
Speaker 3: find something. There's absolutely things you don't want to get lost.
Speaker 3: You don't want your four O one K drifting off
Speaker 3: into the ether somewhere and nobody ever knows where it
Speaker 3: is and nobody ever gets it. And they are more
Speaker 3: gazillions of dollars out there that are unclaimed. My impression
Speaker 3: of the many insurance companies that are out there is
Speaker 3: they're not probably prioritizing finding people who haven't filed claims
Speaker 3: to get the money back from them. So we want
Speaker 3: our friends and family to find the things we want
Speaker 3: them to find, and also maybe not find everything. Right.
Speaker 3: There might be a special box somewhere of who knows,
Speaker 3: like really embarrassing journals when you wrote poetry, or some
Speaker 3: more consenting adult type things that you might not want
Speaker 3: your mother or your children to find. So you might
Speaker 3: want to have a plan for who comes and takes
Speaker 3: care of what, not just your digital files, but also
Speaker 3: like who you want to have your you know, Elvis
Speaker 3: impersonator outfit collection too.
Speaker 1: How did you know Matt's Stark's secret?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I wasn't going to out him, but
Speaker 3: it seems like you just did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, Matt. Well, yeah, it's one thing to have
Speaker 1: the insurance policy. It's another thing to communicate effectively to
Speaker 1: your loved ones. Then it exists, so they can you know,
Speaker 1: tap those funds when or if the need arises. And
Speaker 1: you know, we've got more questions were going to get
Speaker 1: to h with. You want to talk about wills, life insurance,
Speaker 1: powers of attorney, beneficiaries, A bunch of questions on those fronts.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that and more right after this.
Speaker 4: All right, we are back from the break talking with
Speaker 4: Chanelle Reynolds, and we've kind of talked about I guess
Speaker 4: thinking through I guess how it is you're going to
Speaker 4: kind of line up some of that information, who it
Speaker 4: is that you want to leave some of that information too.
Speaker 2: Let's talk more about the legal side of things. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about the state planning documents, specifically, how can folks
Speaker 2: go about planning in the first place? Yeah, can you
Speaker 2: maybe provide a good overview of some of the legal
Speaker 2: documents that need to be in place?
Speaker 3: Definitely so, in my opinion and the opinion of many
Speaker 3: other financial and attorneys who deal with the state planning,
Speaker 3: anybody who's eighteen or older should have some basic documents
Speaker 3: in place, and it doesn't have to be expensive, and
Speaker 3: it doesn't have to take more than you know, maybe
Speaker 3: a couple of hours. So it's just an important thing
Speaker 3: to start working into the speck of your life. The
Speaker 3: same way we go to the dentist and we you know,
Speaker 3: replace our furnace filters and we get mammograms. It's just
Speaker 3: part of the maintenance. So if we kind of take
Speaker 3: the scary way and just make it maybe like a
Speaker 3: boring tax I feel like it might be easier for
Speaker 3: us to do. In general, one of the things that
Speaker 3: any attorney who you would talk to about estate planning,
Speaker 3: any question you ask, generally, the first response back is
Speaker 3: it depends, and it does. It depends on a number
Speaker 3: of things, like which state you live in. You know,
Speaker 3: there are many as we you know here in the
Speaker 3: news and know from maybe personal experience, laws vary from
Speaker 3: state to state, and that's true also when it comes
Speaker 3: to estate planning and probate. So that's what happens if
Speaker 3: you die without a will, which you should not want, and.
Speaker 1: That's when the state ends up making decisions for you
Speaker 1: that when you could have made those decisions ahead.
Speaker 3: Of time exactly exactly. And so for some people, if
Speaker 3: you're married and you live in a community property state
Speaker 3: like let's say Washington State is and something happens, generally
Speaker 3: the legally married spouse gets everything, and so for some
Speaker 3: people that could be like a Okay, that's a pretty
Speaker 3: good backup plan. That's what I would have wanted anyway.
Speaker 3: So the cost of doing nothing is lower than perhaps
Speaker 3: somebody who's still legally married, strange from their partner, who
Speaker 3: and they have a really bad relationship with their family
Speaker 3: and the last people on earth they would want talking
Speaker 3: to doctors, being in a hospital room, or getting any
Speaker 3: of their stuff or assets is their legal spouse or
Speaker 3: anyone in their family. And so it can be devastating.
Speaker 3: You know, we've heard stories about you know, people not
Speaker 3: being let in the room and terrible, terrible arguments. But
Speaker 3: most foundational state planning packets have three documents. One is
Speaker 3: your will and that's who gets your stuff after you die,
Speaker 3: and other important decisions like guardianship, who you would want
Speaker 3: to be a guardian for your children, your pets, or
Speaker 3: I worked with somebody who had a really extensive plant
Speaker 3: a collection, and so there was like there was a
Speaker 3: guardianship plan for the for the plants. I'm like, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so now it's.
Speaker 3: Right. So now it's kids, pets, or plants, and and
Speaker 3: you name somebody as your executor who is basically the
Speaker 3: project manager of that will, and they have a legal
Speaker 3: financial fiduciary responsibility to follow the instructions in your will
Speaker 3: and audit your estate, pay legitimate debts, and then distribute
Speaker 3: the assets like you said, like I want, of course
Speaker 3: Matt to have my Elvis impersonator outfits, and Joel gets
Speaker 3: my Abba vinyl collection.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody knows that definitely.
Speaker 3: And so so that's one important document. One is the
Speaker 3: power of attorney, and that's somebody who speaks for you
Speaker 3: or can help you out pay bills, help organize your
Speaker 3: life when you're not necessarily at an end of life situation.
Speaker 3: So that could be it's often comes in handy, or
Speaker 3: it can be a really hopeful document if you have
Speaker 3: aging family member or parent. There are dementia provisions. Over
Speaker 3: the last few years people brought out and activated and
Speaker 3: used their power of attorney document. Let's say, if you
Speaker 3: had COVID and you were very ill or intubated in
Speaker 3: a hospital for a few weeks or a month, that
Speaker 3: can be really handy, so paperwork in life can still
Speaker 3: move forward. The third document is called an advanced care
Speaker 3: directive or a living will, and those are your wishes
Speaker 3: and instructions that you give in advance as directly as
Speaker 3: possible about the kind of care you do and don't
Speaker 3: want at the end of your life. So an example
Speaker 3: would be someone goes into hospice, you have a medical advocate,
Speaker 3: someone who can communicate with family or doctors or whoever,
Speaker 3: and say, you know, Chanelle and I talked about this.
Speaker 3: I have her piece of paper right here, I'm the
Speaker 3: person named. And she absolutely didn't want Abba playing. She
Speaker 3: absolutely wanted led Zeppelin playing, So turn the radio station
Speaker 3: to the Zeppelin radio station, and or Chanelle had said,
Speaker 3: this is these are her quality of life priorities where
Speaker 3: she's at right now. I know she would not want
Speaker 3: to do an invasive surgery with little chance of actually
Speaker 3: getting better, and her final days would be in pain
Speaker 3: rather than more present. And she wants fewer days, but
Speaker 3: better ones rather than lots of bad days.
Speaker 2: Which is even more important. I mean as advances in
Speaker 2: technology and medicine continue, that's something like there are more
Speaker 2: and more options.
Speaker 1: Available to focus. Patrie Bush is usually to extend life
Speaker 1: no matter what, regardless of the quality of life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's really import and really stands out
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Well, and I'll say, you know, and this
Speaker 3: was a dozen years ago, that week that my late
Speaker 3: husband spent in the er and the ICU, and we
Speaker 3: didn't know, but the difference between do everything possible to
Speaker 3: keep him alive until I get to the hospital to
Speaker 3: those first few days where I'm like, please, please, please
Speaker 3: let him live no matter what. Those last few days
Speaker 3: there was a very big shift that happened, and I
Speaker 3: was scared that he would have to be stuck like this,
Speaker 3: and he was. He never regained consciousness, He could never
Speaker 3: participate in the world in any way at all. It
Speaker 3: was way past his quality of life. His injuries were unrecoverable.
Speaker 3: And after a week in the er and the ICU,
Speaker 3: and this is, you know, twelve years ago or more,
Speaker 3: it costs like three hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more,
Speaker 3: I believe it for that week in the hospital. And
Speaker 3: had we not had healthcare, had you know, they're not
Speaker 3: been all of these other things in place, that medical debt,
Speaker 3: that amount of like you know, the bills. I started
Speaker 3: measuring them not in in numbers of pages, but inches
Speaker 3: there was like four or five inches of those like
Speaker 3: you know, those medical statements that you get, and I
Speaker 3: had to get like two binders because it wouldn't fit
Speaker 3: in one binder. So quality of life is important. And
Speaker 3: I certainly don't want to say, you know, cost equals care,
Speaker 3: but it is really really, really really expensive. And if
Speaker 3: you know somebody doesn't want something, it's really important to
Speaker 3: have that information from them. So advance care directive you
Speaker 3: give your directions in advance to people about your care.
Speaker 3: And each of those documents, often people will name their
Speaker 3: spouse or their you know, their primary person as the
Speaker 3: main person, the power of attorney, the executor of the will,
Speaker 3: and the medical advocate. And that's great, and that's a
Speaker 3: great option. You should always list a backup in case
Speaker 3: that person, let's say, is you know, in the Grand
Speaker 3: Canyon and off the grid for two weeks and you
Speaker 3: don't know where they are. You need a backup. And
Speaker 3: I have worked with and talked with many people who
Speaker 3: are like, I absolutely don't want my partner to have
Speaker 3: to handle all the finances. I'm going to hire somebody
Speaker 3: or I'm going to ask my good friend who's an
Speaker 3: accountant to help with that and you know, with transparency
Speaker 3: and communication. But I will say, during those months after
Speaker 3: my husband died, I had a young kid who I
Speaker 3: was trying to get to school on time. There were
Speaker 3: some days if I could like get up and find
Speaker 3: pants and get my son to school on time and
Speaker 3: make one phone call, I was killing it. So it's
Speaker 3: a overwhelmed amount of stuff to do. And you can
Speaker 3: spread that overwhelming amount of stuff to do. You can
Speaker 3: spread that love around to people who might be better
Speaker 3: at being a financial power of attorney.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And one of the things you say is that
Speaker 1: doing this stuff, not having done this stuff ahead of time,
Speaker 1: it makes a hard time harder. And so the things
Speaker 1: that we can do on the front end and help
Speaker 1: to alleviate some of those pain points on the back end.
Speaker 1: And you also say something about like it eliminates hundreds
Speaker 1: of hours of work that a few hours on the
Speaker 1: front end can really alleviate like many, many, many dozens
Speaker 1: of hours on the back end. Talk to me too
Speaker 1: about maybe where lawyers fit into this, or where online
Speaker 1: services fit in. So, for instance, getting life insurance that's
Speaker 1: often something you can do online pretty easily, or wills
Speaker 1: if you have a simpler kind of family situation, you
Speaker 1: might be able to do that from a DIY perspective
Speaker 1: at a site like trust and Will or free will
Speaker 1: or something like that, in which case is a lawyer
Speaker 1: nes to And when do people? Are people able to
Speaker 1: do it themselves online?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Definitely. So there are more and more online options.
Speaker 3: They offer state by state templates, and they kind of
Speaker 3: wizard you through the process like a turbo tax, but
Speaker 3: for your will. And for a lot of folks who
Speaker 3: don't have property out of state, who don't have more
Speaker 3: than a few million dollars in assets, and with home
Speaker 3: prices being crazy, if your aunt is going to give
Speaker 3: you her house and she bought a beautiful place in
Speaker 3: the Bay Area one hundred years ago, you probably that's
Speaker 3: probably going to be worth more. If you don't have complicated,
Speaker 3: let's say, like a blended family situation or an overly
Speaker 3: litigious family member, if you don't have international citizenship, most
Speaker 3: many people using an online template is just fine for them.
Speaker 3: I would say that one of the things that happens
Speaker 3: is we really really want to make these perfect documents.
Speaker 3: We want to have thought of every possible scenario, every
Speaker 3: possible edge case, and that can sometimes get us restuck
Speaker 3: in the process of getting it done. So for me,
Speaker 3: I think it's most important to think about what's most
Speaker 3: important to you. Is it that your legal spouse is
Speaker 3: the one who is still on paper, is the one
Speaker 3: who's going to talk for you and get all of
Speaker 3: your assets, update a few of your documents, and name
Speaker 3: somebody else as your medical advocate. Are you a solo
Speaker 3: parent and your biggest concern is guardianship of your children?
Speaker 3: Fill out a guardianship paper. You can do these things
Speaker 3: kind of bit by bit. You don't have you know,
Speaker 3: you can eat the elephant off your chest to bite
Speaker 3: at a time. And for those folks who spending the
Speaker 3: thousand couple thousand dollars to work with an attorney, you
Speaker 3: may not know what you don't know, and this is
Speaker 3: the attorney's job. You can talk to a few They
Speaker 3: usually offer free consultations for you know, twenty thirty minutes,
Speaker 3: and ask them how they charge and what they charge,
Speaker 3: and you know you're going to probably get a much better,
Speaker 3: much more comprehensive plan if you talk to an attorney,
Speaker 3: if you're not going to, if you don't need to,
Speaker 3: if you had a bad experience with an attorney and
Speaker 3: you just won't. And those online options can cost anywhere
Speaker 3: from free for a very very basic simple will to
Speaker 3: a few hundred dollars. And you can also get now
Speaker 3: some basic trust packages. And that's for folks who if
Speaker 3: we want to talk about like beneficiary designations and handing
Speaker 3: off assets. One of the reasons why we do all
Speaker 3: of this stuff is because I think most importantly it
Speaker 3: saves our family and friends those couple hundred extra hours
Speaker 3: of anguish trying to figure out where stuff is, who
Speaker 3: gets what. You know, like your weird neighbor Bob won't
Speaker 3: come over and steal the lawnmower, or if it does,
Speaker 3: you can go back and get it because you're like Bob,
Speaker 3: you're screwed. It's not yours. So it can make that
Speaker 3: really really hard time maybe just a bit softer for
Speaker 3: family members. Also, when it comes to like money transfer,
Speaker 3: all of your assets that go through a will, it
Speaker 3: takes you know, it can take on average about a
Speaker 3: year and hundreds of hours. And also you know some
Speaker 3: of your assets are subject to federal inheritance tax, a
Speaker 3: state tax, different things. So a trust or naming beneficiaries
Speaker 3: on all of your financial account is one way to
Speaker 3: simplify your estate dramatically, so the stuff left in like
Speaker 3: in your will, is going to be an easier process.
Speaker 3: It's you know, the Elvis costumes and the ABA vinyl
Speaker 3: and not necessarily who gets the million dollar life insurance policy?
Speaker 3: And then people start fighting over the house.
Speaker 1: Well, talk to me real quick about beneficiaries, because don't
Speaker 1: those typically supersede what your will states, right, So you
Speaker 1: might think you're covered by putting the right thing in
Speaker 1: the will, But let's say you're four to one K, Well,
Speaker 1: you never updated the beneficiary from ten years ago when
Speaker 1: you left all your money your best friend, and guess
Speaker 1: what now you're married and you want your partner to
Speaker 1: have that money. So yeah, how important is it to
Speaker 1: go in there and update the beneficiaries in the back
Speaker 1: end of those retirement accounts?
Speaker 3: So important? Right, Like in the case you just mentioned,
Speaker 3: you want your spouse, not maybe your best friend who
Speaker 3: tried to date your spouse, you know, to get the
Speaker 3: money and absolutely right. So if you listed somebody twenty
Speaker 3: years ago on a four to oh one K that
Speaker 3: you started and then totally forgot about, and then next
Speaker 3: week spend a gazillion dollars on like the best will
Speaker 3: in the entire world, but forgot about that that person
Speaker 3: you named twenty years ago is the one who will
Speaker 3: get it. So yes, transfer on death, payable on death.
Speaker 3: They trump the will, They beat the will. And nearly
Speaker 3: every financial account we all have has the option or
Speaker 3: the you can have a beneficiary designation. You're a four
Speaker 3: oh one K, you're checking, you're saving your investments often
Speaker 3: you know, stocks, pretty much anything you have. And then
Speaker 3: the other things that people can sometimes forget about is
Speaker 3: your life insurance policy. That is a transfer or payable
Speaker 3: on death account. It is immediately transferred to the person
Speaker 3: who's named as a beneficiary, and in about two thirds
Speaker 3: of states there's also as on death deed option, and
Speaker 3: the process for that is, you know, essentially going to
Speaker 3: a county office and writing up some paperwork. That isn't
Speaker 3: quite as easy as going to your online account and
Speaker 3: updating your beneficiaries on your you know, your credit union
Speaker 3: account online, which takes about five minutes. It's a little
Speaker 3: bit more of a process. But for many, many people,
Speaker 3: we have a life insurance policy, we have whatever savings
Speaker 3: we have, and for many folks, our homes are the
Speaker 3: biggest assets we have, and it isn't the perfect solution
Speaker 3: for everyone, and there may or may not be tax implications.
Speaker 3: But if but for many people they don't know that
Speaker 3: they can do a transfer on death deed, and then
Speaker 3: that house would be transferred to somebody else, and then
Speaker 3: you know, and that's not even really talking about joint
Speaker 3: accounts and how joint accounts are often treated differently when
Speaker 3: it comes to after somebody dies as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're talking about how the vary from state
Speaker 2: to state, and we're talking about wills here. I was
Speaker 2: surprised to learn in your book too, you talk about
Speaker 2: I think they're called holographic wills, which I did not know.
Speaker 2: This was the thing that literally, if you write it
Speaker 2: out in your own handwriting, it's completely legal.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: In something like half of half of states in the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in some states. I haven't actually looked that
Speaker 3: up in the last year or two. But a written
Speaker 3: will still is legally binding. You still need to have
Speaker 3: generally two witnesses see you sign the will and they
Speaker 3: sign it with you. Those holographic or those written wills
Speaker 3: are often less contested and I think more originally created
Speaker 3: an allowance for when it comes to people at war
Speaker 3: time or on hospital beds, So I wouldn't if you
Speaker 3: spent you know, a ton of money coming up with
Speaker 3: like a really bomb proof state plan in one of
Speaker 3: those like leather bound things, and then somebody shows up like,
Speaker 3: oh no, they wrote this on this post it note
Speaker 3: and they said I should have it all like that
Speaker 3: may not actually be as water tight as you might think,
Speaker 3: but but yeah, and you know, also I always get
Speaker 3: in trouble when I say this, but you are not
Speaker 3: legally required to have your will notarized for it to
Speaker 3: be legally binding. Is it a good idea? Yes? Do
Speaker 3: attorneys say you should do it? Yes? Do I think
Speaker 3: you should do it? Yes? You can hire a mobile
Speaker 3: notary to come to your office or a coffee shop.
Speaker 3: It helps make it even that much more secure. But
Speaker 3: for a lot of folks, you know, choosing a guardian
Speaker 3: can be a big hard blocker because it's hard to
Speaker 3: do and executing that will, you know, like you and
Speaker 3: your partner or you can't get to the bank with
Speaker 3: the notary, and so that I think is one of
Speaker 3: the reasons. Why Well that that's me making excuses. I'll say,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a hurdle.
Speaker 2: It is indeed to be something that keeps you from
Speaker 2: where the perfection is the enemy of the good enough.
Speaker 2: And I like a lot of what you're saying here
Speaker 2: is just truly about getting the ball rolling. And I
Speaker 2: think more of our listeners in particular could are benefiting
Speaker 2: from hearing this conversation because they're thinking, Man, I don't
Speaker 2: have to have it perfect. It doesn't need to be
Speaker 2: perfectly buttoned up. Don't let that be the enemy a
Speaker 2: good where it's never gonna ever change. It's like, this
Speaker 2: is something that we can revisit. Like you said, this
Speaker 2: is something as long as you get the ball rolling,
Speaker 2: that can go a really long ways. But we've got
Speaker 2: a few more questions for you here, Chanelle, in particular,
Speaker 2: just kind of navigating some of the relational waters. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they can get murky. We'll get to those right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, let's keep going, Matt, we are talking with
Speaker 1: Chanelle Reynolds. Were talking about preparing for the unthinkable, planning
Speaker 1: for on certain life events, things that we hope don't
Speaker 1: come to pass. But the reality is we're not promised tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And so, Chanelle, I guess when you were talking earlier,
Speaker 1: it made me think about not just preparing for my self,
Speaker 1: for my family, my wife, my kids. But they made
Speaker 1: me think about my parents, and they are in their
Speaker 1: upper sixties, and I don't know where any of their
Speaker 1: stuff is. Like, I know a few things because we've
Speaker 1: talked about and I've helped them with some of their
Speaker 1: retirement planning and stuff like that, so I know kind
Speaker 1: of roughly where they stand on some of these things.
Speaker 1: But if if something were to incapacitate one of them,
Speaker 1: like I think, I would be up the creek. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know where to go. So do you have any
Speaker 1: tips for talking to a loved one, a parent specifically
Speaker 1: about some of these things and how to you're talking
Speaker 1: about your parents trying to lead a horse to water, right,
Speaker 1: how do you actually help make sure that your parents
Speaker 1: are prepared and so that you're intern prepared when when
Speaker 1: or if something happens to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, it's such a good question. And you know,
Speaker 3: depending on your family, people can meet with different levels
Speaker 3: of enthusiasm we'll call it, when bringing up the subject
Speaker 3: with their parents and for personal reas religious reasons, cultural reasons,
Speaker 3: emotional reasons, childhood trauma reasons. Who knows, like it can
Speaker 3: be a really uncomfortable topic. So one thing. There are
Speaker 3: a few suggestions I have. One is if you start
Speaker 3: with you, that can be a good place. For example,
Speaker 3: for about five years after my late husband died, I
Speaker 3: would pretty much run around and put anyone like an
Speaker 3: a half Nelson and try to shame them to getting
Speaker 3: their estate plans together. And was that really motivating and
Speaker 3: successful plan? Now? It wasn't. When I would say to
Speaker 3: my close friends or my close family members, or my
Speaker 3: parents and my brother, hey I updated all of my
Speaker 3: documents again, that creates an opportunity to say, hey, this
Speaker 3: just reminds me, I don't know where your current documents are.
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what you'd want or how I
Speaker 3: can make sure I know what you want, so I
Speaker 3: can make sure you get that. Yeah, and so like that.
Speaker 3: That can be a great way to turn it into
Speaker 3: like a gift and a sharing rather than an obligation.
Speaker 3: You know, going up to your parents as I probably
Speaker 3: did however long ago, and saying, so, you guys are
Speaker 3: getting older, do you have your wills done? Like that
Speaker 3: may be the best way to do it. Also, the
Speaker 3: same guilt route, the shame guilt route, you know, it
Speaker 3: might work in other families. And then one thing too,
Speaker 3: is that it can be it's often not just one
Speaker 3: conversation some people. You know, if you bring up the
Speaker 3: topic of like, hey, let's talk about you know, your
Speaker 3: end of life or your funeral plans. Do you want
Speaker 3: to be you know, recomposed? Do you want to be cremated?
Speaker 3: I know we've got the family plot somewhere. More more
Speaker 3: often than people might expect, the conversation blossoms quickly and openly,
Speaker 3: and it can be such a huge reassurance. Sometimes people
Speaker 3: aren't immediately interested in having that conversation, so you know,
Speaker 3: come at it from a few different entry points. Is
Speaker 3: it like I want to be able to advocate for you?
Speaker 3: Is it tell me some stories about what's most important
Speaker 3: to you. One of the things that often happens when
Speaker 3: parents or somebody is getting to the point where they
Speaker 3: may not be able to live independently or in the
Speaker 3: home that they're in right now. Often the first question
Speaker 3: I get, or where people get the frustration energy centers
Speaker 3: is on what do I do with all the stuff?
Speaker 3: And sometimes like they're like, well, I got to go
Speaker 3: into the garage or I got to go in to
Speaker 3: the basement and start throwing out all my parents' stuff,
Speaker 3: and it's going to be really hard because my mom
Speaker 3: or my dad is going to take the stuff out
Speaker 3: of the truck and put it back inside. So rather
Speaker 3: than starting with the detritus of our lives and our stuff,
Speaker 3: I think it's so fascinating and so helpful to ask
Speaker 3: what are the most important things to you? And so
Speaker 3: if you had not one minute and not ten hours,
Speaker 3: but if you had an hour in your house to
Speaker 3: grab safely anything before the aliens arrive or a fire starts,
Speaker 3: what would you get and take with you what's most
Speaker 3: important to you in an hour? And then those are
Speaker 3: the things that you know are the most important, And
Speaker 3: then you can say, oh, so great, so tell me
Speaker 3: more about how we can make sure your sister gets
Speaker 3: this thing. So like starting with the important stuff rather
Speaker 3: than starting with the fear or the worry or the
Speaker 3: you know, boxes of national geographics from the seventies that
Speaker 3: are in the attic can be a really good way
Speaker 3: to start the conversation too.
Speaker 2: I love that it makes it more relational as well, right,
Speaker 2: because then it's something that sparks conversation in stories from
Speaker 2: the past that they then get to share with you.
Speaker 2: My father in law, he's actually over time he's been
Speaker 2: sending my kids letters with little notes, and literally yesterday
Speaker 2: he sent he included track and field metal that he
Speaker 2: won in high school that he shared with one of
Speaker 2: my daughters specifically, and this is something he's been carrying
Speaker 2: around for fifty years, right, and so it's obviously meant
Speaker 2: something to him. And so the ability to kind of
Speaker 2: share that with my daughter and kind of talk through
Speaker 2: this was It makes the relationship that you have now
Speaker 2: with that parent who is aging even richer, which I love.
Speaker 1: And I love that this is.
Speaker 2: Kind of the approach I think you're taking where you're
Speaker 2: either just starting with you, you're asking some of these
Speaker 2: questions knowing that this isn't a singular conversation that you're
Speaker 2: going to have, but that it's something that might evolve
Speaker 2: over time. And I think the same thing can be true.
Speaker 2: And you know, we talked about living wills, healthcare directives,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing too. But even when it comes
Speaker 2: to funeral plans, because I think oftentimes it's just one
Speaker 2: of those morbid topics and folks don't really want to
Speaker 2: spend time talking about that at all, but that can
Speaker 2: having brought that up can provide so much relief to
Speaker 2: those who have to make some pretty heavy decisions afterwards.
Speaker 3: Right absolutely. So, you know, I think back to when
Speaker 3: I had spent that week in the hospital, we'd removed
Speaker 3: medical support. The only thing in my head at that
Speaker 3: moment was you know, going home and having to tell
Speaker 3: my son that his dad's body died, and I didn't
Speaker 3: even know how to say that or like how the
Speaker 3: words would come out of my mouth. And then leaving
Speaker 3: the hospital, I had no idea that I would have
Speaker 3: to pick a funeral home right away. I had no
Speaker 3: idea that you had about you know, twenty four or
Speaker 3: forty eight hours before the body now you know, I
Speaker 3: had to get moved to somewhere, And at that point
Speaker 3: it had been a week for me in the hospital.
Speaker 3: Other people have spent you know, years managing a diagnosis
Speaker 3: or months in hospice, and we hadn't really thought about
Speaker 3: what happens after you die. I knew he didn't want
Speaker 3: to be buried and wanted to be cremated. I had
Speaker 3: some of the information, but I was not ready or
Speaker 3: prepared or even had any idea that funeral plans, death care,
Speaker 3: and after death plans are like right now, it's like,
Speaker 3: oh okay, there are more options too than we realized that.
Speaker 3: You know, in a number of states there is a
Speaker 3: recomposition body recomposting or composting process that's legal in a
Speaker 3: few states, and more and more are signing on. There's aquamation,
Speaker 3: so talking about what's important and you know, whether that's
Speaker 3: being buried in your Elvis impersonator outfit or whether that's
Speaker 3: you know, having somebody bring your body home or be
Speaker 3: home for a day. There are a number of things
Speaker 3: you can do. You just have more options, which is
Speaker 3: which is really great. And you know, somebody could say
Speaker 3: I had no idea that I didn't just get to
Speaker 3: pick animation or burial, and now you've got a beautiful
Speaker 3: plot buried under a tree. You never know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is interesting to because I always think of
Speaker 1: it as literally the two options, do you want to
Speaker 1: be cremated or do you want to be buried? But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the options seem to have expanded these days, so
Speaker 1: those those conversations are important to have too. Chanel, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us on the show today.
Speaker 1: Where can our listeners find out more about you, what
Speaker 1: you're up to and even have like checklists and resources
Speaker 1: on your website to help people kind of start to
Speaker 1: have these conversations and do the things that need to
Speaker 1: be done to be fully prepared.
Speaker 3: Right, definitely. Yeah, you can go to Chanelle Reynolds dot com,
Speaker 3: which has got all of the information about get your
Speaker 3: stuff together, and I have free checklists, you can get
Speaker 3: the book, and I also offer classes and workshops. Once
Speaker 3: the pandemic hit and we were all home, all lot
Speaker 3: of my classes and workshops and talks moved on line
Speaker 3: and now I can do classes with you know, groups
Speaker 3: of people from all over the country, which is really fun.
Speaker 3: So yeah, check out my website or send me a
Speaker 3: note through the website and I'd be happy to chat
Speaker 3: with anyone as well.
Speaker 1: Love it. Chanelle, thank you so much for talking with
Speaker 1: us today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. It's such a great conversation. Really
Speaker 3: appreciate it. Joel and Matt, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: All right, Matt, that was a that's a great combo
Speaker 1: with Chanelle and just such an important conversation. Oh my god, right, crucial,
Speaker 1: and it's to me. It gives me the information that
Speaker 1: I need to actually get the ball rolling, but also
Speaker 1: kind of the swift kick to the pants that it's
Speaker 1: going to take for me to actually get some of
Speaker 1: these things done too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, what's interesting. We kind of chatted with her
Speaker 2: quickly after we hung up there, but one of the
Speaker 2: things she didn't include in her story was the fact
Speaker 2: was how her husband died and the fact like he
Speaker 2: was biking, he was bicycling, And it's one of the
Speaker 2: things that drew us to her story. This is something
Speaker 2: that we do all the time, and so we're often
Speaker 2: drawn towards the urgent and not necessarily the things that
Speaker 2: are really important to have in place. Until you're faced
Speaker 2: with us story like this, we can see yourself in
Speaker 2: that situation. And I mean literally we like we're the
Speaker 2: same age as she and her husband about a decade ago.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay. One of the things she said, too, right
Speaker 1: if we wrapped away, was how much you could save
Speaker 1: by doing the right thing on the on the front end, right.
Speaker 1: So having the will right it avoids some of those
Speaker 1: potential legal costs, some of the costs you might the
Speaker 1: court costs of the lawyer fees. So if you are frugal,
Speaker 1: the right thing to do is to actually get some
Speaker 1: of these things done. You might say, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to pay the one hundred and eighty dollars to
Speaker 1: get the will made, but that one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: dollars could save you thousands or tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars on the back end. So even though she didn't
Speaker 1: actually say that, like during the podcast, you said it
Speaker 1: right after we like when we were just chatting afterwards.
Speaker 1: Well that's the financial argument. Yeah, And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: That's my big takeaway from this conversation with Chanel was
Speaker 1: just like, hey, guess what, Like, if you care about
Speaker 1: the money you have worked your butt off to save
Speaker 1: and invest, and you want to protect that inherentants for
Speaker 1: future generations, for your spouse, for the people that you
Speaker 1: that you love, and you want to inherit the things
Speaker 1: that you've amasked in the case of the most unfortunate
Speaker 1: event ever happening, then you're gonna want to plan ahead.
Speaker 1: You're gonna want to get these things done even though
Speaker 1: they cost money, exactly, and you want to do them
Speaker 1: ahead of time.
Speaker 2: And I loved she kind of an analogy when we
Speaker 2: were talking about emergency funds, and she was saying, it's
Speaker 2: hard to scrape together an emergency fund when you're in
Speaker 2: the middle of an emergency, and the same thing applies
Speaker 2: when it comes to a lot of this end of
Speaker 2: life stuff. But that's not my official big take a
Speaker 2: lay when she was talking about digital hygiene and one
Speaker 2: of the parameters that she put around how it is
Speaker 2: that you should approach keeping up with your information and
Speaker 2: passing along logins and accounts was going with systems that
Speaker 2: you a already have in place or b that you
Speaker 2: know are going to be successful because you can try
Speaker 2: to take this giant bite out of something that you
Speaker 2: think is, well, this is we got to do it
Speaker 2: this way because this is how you're supposed to do it,
Speaker 2: this is how it's going to be perfect. But the
Speaker 2: fact is it needs to be something that you're actually
Speaker 2: going to keep up with that's going to work for
Speaker 2: whoever the intended audience is going to be.
Speaker 1: It's like the same thing with working out, like do
Speaker 1: the workout routine that you know you can stick that
Speaker 1: you're gonna stick with, not the one that's the most
Speaker 1: ambitious exactly.
Speaker 2: So that was my big, big takeaway, and I think
Speaker 2: that that can make this seem much more approachable to
Speaker 2: a lot of folks out there.
Speaker 1: Agreed, but all right, let's get back to our beer.
Speaker 1: You And by the way, she does have a lot
Speaker 1: of info on her website that will yet you checklists,
Speaker 1: literal great recommendations and so if you're like, all right,
Speaker 1: I need someone to kind of hold my hand through this,
Speaker 1: Chanelle is the right person to help you do that totally.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, let's get back to the beer. So
Speaker 1: this one your time. It's called meg Levon American Imperial Red.
Speaker 1: It's home brewed by our listener, Greg lives around the corner. Greg.
Speaker 1: He's been telling me that he makes beer for a
Speaker 1: long time and finally we're getting to try it. So
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on this one?
Speaker 4: This was so good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be honest, a lot of times when folks
Speaker 2: are like, you gotta try my homebrew.
Speaker 1: It's okay, it tastes like arsenic sauce sometimes, all right, all.
Speaker 2: Right, but this being an Imperial Red, there is so
Speaker 2: much stink and flavor in this thing. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's really impressive. You've got such a strong backbone with
Speaker 2: this being an imperial right, So no matter what, there's
Speaker 2: gonna be a lot of flavors packed in there. But
Speaker 2: you don't have too many reds and so just the
Speaker 2: I would say, the floral notes that he's able to
Speaker 2: kind of coax out of out of the malts in
Speaker 2: order to make this red phenomenal. It's like an under
Speaker 2: so good, underutilized style, and so it's fun.
Speaker 1: It's always fun to try something that's a little off
Speaker 1: the wall, little little unique, and so Greg did a
Speaker 1: great job with this beer. It's like roasty super impressed.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's some roasty, toasty, roasty notes where yeah,
Speaker 1: it's piny, it's like caramel with a little bit of
Speaker 1: citrus twist. And so it this kind of incredibly well balanced. Yes,
Speaker 1: I would pay top dollar for this seriously greatly good beer.
Speaker 1: Greg gave it to us for free, so big thanks
Speaker 1: to Gregg. B We owe you a beer, Yes we do,
Speaker 1: we do. And do I know who you are? I
Speaker 1: don't know well last name. Thanks Thanks for letting us
Speaker 1: try your beer on today's episode. This was Yeah, but Matt,
Speaker 1: that's going to do it for this episode again. We'll
Speaker 1: put links to all the important stuff in the show
Speaker 1: notes up on our website at howtomoney dot com.
Speaker 2: That's right, buddy, So until next time, best Friends Out
Speaker 2: and best Friends Out
Speaker 1: Cope sh