Speaker 1: Episode three seventy seven. Should you be saving for your parents'
Speaker 1: long term care? With Lily the Tiarex Call.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life here your
Speaker 2: hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and today we are talking about
Speaker 1: a super sexy topic, your parents' long term care or
Speaker 1: maybe even your parents, maybe your grandparents, I don't know,
Speaker 1: any money in your life whose long term care you
Speaker 1: may be impacted by, negatively or positively. We're not looking
Speaker 1: at this, uh you know, like it's a worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: We're looking at how in real life does this impact
Speaker 1: me and how can I take best practices to prepare
Speaker 1: for it, whether I have the financial stability in order
Speaker 1: to prepare, or I have to look at just preparing
Speaker 1: mentally or time wise.
Speaker 3: We received such good feedback just about it being really
Speaker 3: helpful the last time we talked about this topic, which
Speaker 3: was probably at least over a year ago, so we
Speaker 3: are definitely due for another one. But you know us,
Speaker 3: we got to go to the experts, and Lily is
Speaker 3: absolutely that so We're glad you selected this topic today
Speaker 3: that you already kind of know what you're getting yourself
Speaker 3: into if you clicked yes on listening to this episode,
Speaker 3: glad that you're here, and I can almost guarantee you
Speaker 3: will walk away with something really helpful, depending on whatever
Speaker 3: stage you're in and thinking and planning it for.
Speaker 1: This Yes, but first, this episode is brought to you
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Speaker 1: So this survey is open now through February ninth. You
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Speaker 1: but will be extremely helpful in how we plan where
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Speaker 3: Mega. There's so many ways to help us. You know,
Speaker 3: we like people writing us reviews and signing up for
Speaker 3: the friend letter, and right now this is what we want.
Speaker 3: We want Mega, We want you to answer ten questions.
Speaker 1: That is so helpful, completely anonymous and helps us so greatly. So,
Speaker 1: like Jill said, the last time we talked about this
Speaker 1: was maybe maybe a year ago. Cameron Huddleston, well that
Speaker 1: was even longer. So the last one we did was
Speaker 1: episode two eighty five, how your Parents' Finances affect You
Speaker 1: and what to do next, and we referenced our interview
Speaker 1: with Cameron huddle Stin which we did all the way
Speaker 1: back in episode sixty two that was in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Still relevant, still relevant.
Speaker 1: These these two episodes aged very well, no pun intended,
Speaker 1: but This is something that Jill and I whenever we
Speaker 1: talk to each other, to our friends, this is always
Speaker 1: a topic that people are scared to talk about because
Speaker 1: they don't want to know, Like I don't think my
Speaker 1: mom or dad have saved her retirement or I don't
Speaker 1: know how much they've saved. You know, my dad's having
Speaker 1: a health issue and doesn't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: So there's there's all of these barriers and not talking
Speaker 1: about it, just like anything with money, but specifically this
Speaker 1: has a direct impact on our lives and our finances.
Speaker 1: And this specifically has a big impact on our lives
Speaker 1: and even how we make money. My mom, when she
Speaker 1: was taking care of my grandmother and her end of life,
Speaker 1: was actually fired from her job because she was taking
Speaker 1: too much time off caregiving for my grandmother. And so
Speaker 1: this has been a topic I have been super passionate about.
Speaker 1: And she was not able to save for her own
Speaker 1: retirement because of saving of spending so much time and
Speaker 1: money on my grandmother's caregiving, you know, aside from other things.
Speaker 1: But this is such an important topic. You already know
Speaker 1: that if you're listening to it. But so we are
Speaker 1: bringing on Lily Vy to Reskul to talk about all
Speaker 1: of the ways that there are to plan for long
Speaker 1: term care, and so we're not just we're not talking
Speaker 1: about your parents' retirement in this one, where we may
Speaker 1: have been talking about that in the last one. This
Speaker 1: is specifically they're closer to end of life care, and
Speaker 1: so I think this is the most important one. She
Speaker 1: sheds a lot of light on things that we may
Speaker 1: take for granted, covering these things, but also a lot
Speaker 1: of resources that if you're going to be somebody who's
Speaker 1: the physical caregiver for your parent to be aware of.
Speaker 1: We've got a link to more in the show notes.
Speaker 1: But Lily is a certifiable genius. She started college at fourteen,
Speaker 1: collaborated with NASA at sixteen, and she founded her company
Speaker 1: water Lily after a personal experience with a long term
Speaker 1: care event in her family. And so this experience, combined
Speaker 1: with her data science degree from UC Berkeley and decade
Speaker 1: in healthcare, is what led her to create water Lily,
Speaker 1: which is this AI program where you can put in
Speaker 1: different aspects of your life, your finances, your parents' life finances,
Speaker 1: all of these things, and it will create kind of
Speaker 1: like this template, not like rule, but like plan that
Speaker 1: you can start thinking about, like this is theoretically how
Speaker 1: much money I will have to save or have to
Speaker 1: have this amount of care? Where's the high approach? Like
Speaker 1: if I'm going to put in more physical hours, how
Speaker 1: much less do I have to say? It's a really
Speaker 1: cool program that I got to test out when I
Speaker 1: was at fin Con last year, and it's and Lily's
Speaker 1: amazing water. Lily is amazing and right now you can
Speaker 1: get on the wait list for it. Right now, it's
Speaker 1: only available to certain financial planning professionals. But Lily is
Speaker 1: a wealth of knowledge that we wanted to bring on
Speaker 1: to just start to talk about, to reintroduce some of
Speaker 1: these topics.
Speaker 3: Let's talk to Lily.
Speaker 1: Lily, welcome to Frugal Friends. We're really excited to have
Speaker 1: this conversation.
Speaker 4: I'm super excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: This is such an important conversation that even we on
Speaker 3: this podcast don't have enough and it's so important to
Speaker 3: be talking with experts like yourself. So thanks for being here.
Speaker 3: And just to kick us off, dive in right off
Speaker 3: the bat. Can you talk to us a little bit
Speaker 3: about why it's important for us to start planning for
Speaker 3: our parents' long term care early on. Many of us
Speaker 3: think about it maybe as they need the care, But
Speaker 3: can you talk to us about being a little bit
Speaker 3: more proactive why early on?
Speaker 4: I think one way that's a really great question. One
Speaker 4: way to approach it is talking a little bit about
Speaker 4: what I've seen happen when you don't plan, you know,
Speaker 4: early on, actually, which is the opposite. So in my case,
Speaker 4: in my personal experience, like we didn't plan early on.
Speaker 4: It just happened to us and my immediate family, and
Speaker 4: it lasted a little over two years. We had to
Speaker 4: navigate her care. It took it. You know, we had
Speaker 4: to take on a lot of physical care giving hours ourselves.
Speaker 4: We had to do a ton of research on just
Speaker 4: like you know, how to take care for you know,
Speaker 4: Doctors weren't giving us, you know, all the instructions that
Speaker 4: we needed as well, and it was a lot more
Speaker 4: expensive than we expected, and we spent a lot of
Speaker 4: money out of pocket that was not covered by you know,
Speaker 4: our health insurance at all, which is like a surprise
Speaker 4: since most people make the assumption like, oh health there,
Speaker 4: my health insurance is going to cover know everything, And
Speaker 4: probably the most impactful reason why, you know, I started
Speaker 4: a company around this topic and trying to help families
Speaker 4: have better outcomes here by planning is because of the
Speaker 4: lack of emotional and psychological, psychological preparation on this topic.
Speaker 4: And usually when you're in the thick of it, you're
Speaker 4: on all this like physical work, the financial, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: burden as well. It is also the lack of aligned
Speaker 4: perspectives on you know, how should we be delivering care
Speaker 4: to like let's say my aging parents, or how that
Speaker 4: person may want care and if anything, they're probably scared
Speaker 4: psychologically they never thought about it, and so you know,
Speaker 4: that's where a lot of you know, additional conflicts arrive
Speaker 4: and you have a lot of fights and it really
Speaker 4: strains a relationship. And so a lot of it is
Speaker 4: just this shock of all these things coming at you
Speaker 4: and the lack of resources you have at that time.
Speaker 4: And so that's why planning ahead of time is really
Speaker 4: important to address those pieces.
Speaker 3: Understanding like what the requirements are of long term care
Speaker 3: is a language that I think none of us want
Speaker 3: to become fluent in. It definitely means there's a lot
Speaker 3: of hardship and suffering at hand, which is probably one
Speaker 3: of the reasons we don't want to look at it.
Speaker 3: We think we're all going to be healthy for forever,
Speaker 3: not to mention thinking, well, these issues are going to
Speaker 3: come on later in life. And it's sounding like that
Speaker 3: was not your personal experience. And so when we even
Speaker 3: say like start early on in your mind, what does
Speaker 3: that mean, Like how early on are we talking? Should
Speaker 3: we be thinking about long term care for family members
Speaker 3: or maybe ourselves.
Speaker 4: We could definitely pull from best practices in the you know,
Speaker 4: one of the industries that I'm in, which is in
Speaker 4: wealth management, where they have existing planning infrastructure actually in
Speaker 4: long term care, which is really rare. Most industries, even
Speaker 4: the healthcare industry, has a lack of planning infrastructure on
Speaker 4: this topic. And so what they do is they try
Speaker 4: to bring up the topic with any of their clients
Speaker 4: when they're in their forties or sixties, because that's really
Speaker 4: the optimal time where you know, you have a plan
Speaker 4: for your children, if you're having any if you have
Speaker 4: any children, about helping them go to college. You're at
Speaker 4: a point in which you know you've kind of hit
Speaker 4: the stride in your career where you actually have quite
Speaker 4: a bit of wealth and you're trying to figure out
Speaker 4: how to you strategically distribute it. And your parents are
Speaker 4: getting older, you know as well, and so that might
Speaker 4: be more of a top of mind topic. So for
Speaker 4: a client themselves, we usually see them plan on behalf
Speaker 4: of themselves, like forties to sixties is the best practices.
Speaker 4: But in terms of on behalf of their aging parents,
Speaker 4: if they're not interested in doing it for themselves, their
Speaker 4: parents are definitely you know, on the precipice of needing
Speaker 4: care over the next like five to fifteen years, and
Speaker 4: given how expensive it is, we might want to start
Speaker 4: to strategically think about like are we going to financially
Speaker 4: support them or do they have enough? And even if
Speaker 4: they have enough, like are they aware of like how
Speaker 4: to use those financial resources to kind of get the
Speaker 4: care resources you know they're looking for as well.
Speaker 3: It's sounding like if we have family that we're planning for,
Speaker 3: then yes, now, now when we need to be thinking
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talk so much about emergency funds and how
Speaker 1: when you have an emergency fund, then these emergencies that
Speaker 1: can be crises and quite traumatizing, they become more inconveniences.
Speaker 1: And so this is kind of like a similar concept
Speaker 1: on a greater scale, because taking care of aging parents,
Speaker 1: it's going to happen eventually, and it can either be
Speaker 1: something that like for your family, Lily was super traumatizing,
Speaker 1: was a very hard season because of the lack of planning,
Speaker 1: because of the lack of knowledge about it. But if
Speaker 1: you do put in some planning and at least prepare yourself,
Speaker 1: even if you can't prepare fine financially, but you're just
Speaker 1: preparing yourself with knowledge, it takes a little bit of
Speaker 1: the burden off anything you can do. And I think
Speaker 1: it's a scary topic that we don't want to learn
Speaker 1: about because it makes it too too real. But like, so,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that we should know about,
Speaker 1: like long term care if for our parents or for us,
Speaker 1: like costs, like anything? What are what are you trying
Speaker 1: to What do you think is the most important things
Speaker 1: that people should know and be educated on.
Speaker 4: I think that there's definitely, you know, stepping into it
Speaker 4: from an intuitive side, and then there's stuff that is
Speaker 4: like definitely not intuitive that I could talk about, but
Speaker 4: like intuitively, actually, we take care of people all the
Speaker 4: time in our lives, whether it's like the children that
Speaker 4: we have and we've raised them and you kind of
Speaker 4: know what went into that, and it's a lot of
Speaker 4: work to take care of them physically financially, have enough
Speaker 4: so that you know they could be like supported, and
Speaker 4: then supporting them like throughout their life, like what are
Speaker 4: some resources they need. It's a or you might have
Speaker 4: like pets, or you might have really good friends where
Speaker 4: they've been in a pickle or they've gotten surgery and
Speaker 4: you've taken care of them. So I think that a
Speaker 4: lot of us have at least like one experience of
Speaker 4: taking care of another person, whether it's like a sibling,
Speaker 4: family member, or friend or you know, an animal, and
Speaker 4: in that sense, you kind of intuitively understand like what
Speaker 4: does it take for you know, to sustainably take care
Speaker 4: of someone or something, And then like kind of like
Speaker 4: leading into that a little bit more. It's like when
Speaker 4: it comes to taking care of our aging parents are
Speaker 4: thinking about it on behalf of our them, of ourselves.
Speaker 4: That's where I have the same three pillars, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: to focus on, which is like the financial piece. Big
Speaker 4: one is a lot of people assume that Medicare is
Speaker 4: going to cover everything when I turn sixty five and
Speaker 4: then when I grow older, like I have free Medicare,
Speaker 4: and I could always buy you know, supplemental plans on
Speaker 4: top of that, and the supplemental plans on top of it.
Speaker 4: Let's just like most people don't know how expensive that is,
Speaker 4: you know, to actually buy those health plans and even
Speaker 4: and then if you were to, you know, have like
Speaker 4: issues with basic things that keep you independent, whether it's
Speaker 4: like doing your laundry or walking your like walking around,
Speaker 4: or having mobility issues. Essentially because you've grown older and
Speaker 4: your body physically is like more like frail, then that's
Speaker 4: where you know, getting help. There is not exactly medical care,
Speaker 4: and there are some caveats of like you know, if
Speaker 4: something happened like you fell down, you broke a hip,
Speaker 4: then you went to the hospital and you were there
Speaker 4: for a certain period of time, and then you get
Speaker 4: rehab after that that is covered, but only up to
Speaker 4: last time I checked, only up to like one hundred days,
Speaker 4: and then the rest of that time that you need,
Speaker 4: especially if it's not a permanent disability, you now have
Speaker 4: to pay for that out of pocket, whether you know,
Speaker 4: either your family is like you know, paying for it
Speaker 4: by teaing care of you, by like you know, living
Speaker 4: near you or living like at the house and helping
Speaker 4: you physically since you have a disability that you can
Speaker 4: be independent or you have to pay for what's called
Speaker 4: a professional caregiver to help you know, physically take care
Speaker 4: of you. And I know that in addition to that,
Speaker 4: when you grow older, you might also have cognitive issues
Speaker 4: as well. Where you thought I can manage my money
Speaker 4: up until the point in which, like you know, I pass,
Speaker 4: and that's just like not true. You might have cognitive
Speaker 4: issues that might make you a liability to even your
Speaker 4: like financial assets as well. So learning you know, who
Speaker 4: do you trust with your assets that like might be
Speaker 4: your like a really good friend that's younger than you,
Speaker 4: or you know, your daughter or your son, or when
Speaker 4: you cognitively can't make decisions for yourself like anymore about
Speaker 4: like you know, the type of care that you actually
Speaker 4: want to receive. I want to age at home, or
Speaker 4: I'm open to going into, like you know, a community
Speaker 4: where I want to socialize more. Having someone else know
Speaker 4: those preferences ahead of time and you name them legally
Speaker 4: as a proxy for you to make those decisions is
Speaker 4: actually really key to kind of getting the quality of
Speaker 4: life that you're still looking for and aging in a
Speaker 4: really dignified, you know, way as like some light things
Speaker 4: so lightly touched on, like like physical, financial, like emotional,
Speaker 4: like psychological stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now those are all like important things to be
Speaker 1: aware of when you're thinking about long term care.
Speaker 3: So can you say a little bit about some of
Speaker 3: the different care choices for elderly parents and how one
Speaker 3: might pick the right one financially? Like there are so
Speaker 3: many layers that can be present in those three pillars
Speaker 3: that you've talked about, But what are some of the
Speaker 3: choices available for folks?
Speaker 4: So I could tell you the way you know, we've
Speaker 4: broken it down in my company as a way to
Speaker 4: effectively try to bring up the conversation. And I look
Speaker 4: at it from ultimately foundationally from like care hours and
Speaker 4: care span perspective, meaning like, you know, can we get
Speaker 4: a sense of like how much hours of care are
Speaker 4: you going to like need you know overall, and we
Speaker 4: estimate that as well as you know, how long are
Speaker 4: you going to have like you know your care needs
Speaker 4: you know for so under that like foundation of just
Speaker 4: like okay, looking at it from like how many hours
Speaker 4: of cararaine get a need for like what period of time?
Speaker 4: Then we could break that down into like the level
Speaker 4: of care needs. There's three levels of care needs that
Speaker 4: we break it down into, which is like you know activities,
Speaker 4: Like there's this concept of you know, activities of daily living,
Speaker 4: meaning you know, activities that you need to be able
Speaker 4: to do to be considered independent. So things like being
Speaker 4: able to, uh, you know, go, being able to walk
Speaker 4: across the room, being able to get out of the bed,
Speaker 4: being able to go to the bathroom by yourself, take
Speaker 4: a shower by yourself, like things that we intuitally know
Speaker 4: is like really hard to do if we ever had
Speaker 4: a knee surgery or something else where we have like
Speaker 4: mobility issues. And so there's about six of those activities
Speaker 4: of daily living and so for us, we break down
Speaker 4: care needs in terms of like, okay, like if you
Speaker 4: wanted to you know activity like you know eighty, I
Speaker 4: call them, like I guess name is like ADLs, Like
Speaker 4: if you want to do adeos, I call that early
Speaker 4: care phase. And what's really important about calling it that
Speaker 4: way is because or breaking it down in that structure
Speaker 4: is because different you know, environments where you want to age,
Speaker 4: whether it's aging at home or going to a community
Speaker 4: center or even thinking about nursing home they have different
Speaker 4: requirements for the level of care need that you have,
Speaker 4: and so I break it down into like one to
Speaker 4: two activities a daily living you have like issues with
Speaker 4: like one to two of them, or three to four
Speaker 4: or five to six. That's how you cleanly understand just
Speaker 4: like different environments that fit those care needs. And on
Speaker 4: top of that, like those different care structures where they're
Speaker 4: like aging at home or going into like some sort
Speaker 4: of community or facility center have different payment structures as well.
Speaker 4: So if you age at home, I think about it
Speaker 4: from an hourly cost perspective, like you look for like
Speaker 4: hourly professional caregaters that can help out outside of you.
Speaker 4: You can look that up easily online. Then when it
Speaker 4: comes to like community centers where they're like independent living
Speaker 4: or assistill living, they cover you know, one to two
Speaker 4: idios three to four and that's paid on a monthly basis,
Speaker 4: so you could actually look at the costs of them
Speaker 4: as well. And then finally, like nursing home that really
Speaker 4: like differs depending on if you want to like have
Speaker 4: your own room or you're willing to share a room
Speaker 4: like for budget reasons, and and you could get that
Speaker 4: cost publicly online. But it's helpful to kind of, like,
Speaker 4: you know, really break up the three sections because you
Speaker 4: can get a lot more precise about budgeting as well,
Speaker 4: because a lot of people assume, like, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: let's assume you know, three and a half years of
Speaker 4: like nursing home like national statistics, whened you there are
Speaker 4: hitting costs before that leading up to you having like
Speaker 4: nursing home level help.
Speaker 3: Your website is so helpful in also breaking down some
Speaker 3: of the things that you're talking about here, because it
Speaker 3: can be really hard to wrap your mind around really
Speaker 3: what ifs, Assuming that you're not in the position where
Speaker 3: you're trying to play catch up, but you're being proactive
Speaker 3: and looking into what might I need to be prepared for.
Speaker 3: It's hard to know exactly, and so I think having
Speaker 3: experts like you who can talk about averages and desires
Speaker 3: and where you might fall on the scale is so
Speaker 3: so helpful. And it occurred to me as I was
Speaker 3: going through your website that it almost might be a
Speaker 3: helpful tool to even be navigating these conversations with our
Speaker 3: parents and to be able to have a blueprint of
Speaker 3: how to move through it, because that can be a
Speaker 3: massive barrier too. I could be all goung ho about
Speaker 3: let's have this conversation. I just listened to a podcast.
Speaker 3: But then there's resistance for any number of reasons. But
Speaker 3: what have you seen as far as how to have
Speaker 3: these conversations with parents on these different layers and topics
Speaker 3: and what do they want? How have you encouraged people
Speaker 3: to begin?
Speaker 4: There are a couple ways, well, all first straw by sharing,
Speaker 4: like a lot of us are when think about taking
Speaker 4: care of our aging parents, like we have a lot
Speaker 4: on our plate, right, you know, we're in like our
Speaker 4: thirties to fit these we're in like the thick of
Speaker 4: our career. We're trying to build out, like you know,
Speaker 4: our own wealth. We're trying to budget appropriately for our
Speaker 4: own lifestyle. And then when we think about like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: you know what about my aging parents, they might be
Speaker 4: like pretty like we might immediately think, oh, are they
Speaker 4: like financially pretty well off or like financially a little
Speaker 4: bit more frugal and like they're you know, kind of
Speaker 4: like getting by. That is like probably the need at
Speaker 4: thought process of like, oh, you know, if they were
Speaker 4: to need more help anyway, can I like am I
Speaker 4: physically capable of like you know, stepping in to like
Speaker 4: help out just given all the other responsibilities in my
Speaker 4: life as well as, oh well, if they're going to
Speaker 4: start needing help, and if they might need to go
Speaker 4: to a lot of people assume a nursing home, or
Speaker 4: if they go into a community or or staying at home,
Speaker 4: but they need some help there if I can't physically
Speaker 4: help them, you know, do they have enough finances to
Speaker 4: like pay for someone to come and you know help
Speaker 4: them out, you know instead. And so when it comes to,
Speaker 4: you know, how do people try to bring up having
Speaker 4: a conversation with their parents or when is the right time?
Speaker 4: It really depends on the person. I think that a
Speaker 4: lot of the motivation ends up falling on unfortunately the
Speaker 4: children of like aging parents, like ourselves, because it's just
Speaker 4: the truth of the matter is that like a lot
Speaker 4: of parents who are part of like the baby boomer
Speaker 4: generation or the site like the silent generation, like right now,
Speaker 4: they've never really talked about that. It was almost assumed
Speaker 4: that like communally, like we would step in, like it
Speaker 4: was just like in like in the past, like like
Speaker 4: family structures were a lot closer. And I think that
Speaker 4: culturally that meant that if you're nearby. We know, we
Speaker 4: help each other out whenever we need to, and we
Speaker 4: just live in a completely different society. Now we're part of,
Speaker 4: you know, being able to build our wealth and build
Speaker 4: like be responsible for our lifestyles, meaning means that we
Speaker 4: have to find careers where oftentimes it's like on you know,
Speaker 4: polarized to the coastal cities. It's like what I've seen,
Speaker 4: and so now these are new concepts that we have
Speaker 4: to think about, which is like if I can't, you know,
Speaker 4: go move to the Midwest to take care of like
Speaker 4: my mom in some way, you know what will happen
Speaker 4: because like is do I have to financially pay for that? Well,
Speaker 4: I have to plan that ahead of time that like
Speaker 4: several like years in advance, like ten to fifteen years,
Speaker 4: because it's expensive, like long term care is easily a
Speaker 4: six digit figure number, And so quickly getting a sense
Speaker 4: or or finding the right skill set to try and
Speaker 4: talk to your parents about financially what can you forward
Speaker 4: and what are your preferences is important in terms of
Speaker 4: like gently trying to guide into that conversation. What I've
Speaker 4: found really helpful with the families that I've interviewed and
Speaker 4: talked to or within my company. Is first off, if
Speaker 4: you could get a sense of their you know, our parents'
Speaker 4: perspective in some way because I made some assumptions about
Speaker 4: culturally they grew up in this structure. But like they
Speaker 4: might just be very like extremely you know, independent, or
Speaker 4: they might like and so that might mean like, oh,
Speaker 4: well they financially have enough, or it just might mean
Speaker 4: they're so independent that they don't want to receive anyone's
Speaker 4: help even if they financially can support that, like Okay,
Speaker 4: that's a trickier situation. Or they might be really social
Speaker 4: and and you might think like, well, they're really social,
Speaker 4: but like, you know, dad is starting to have like
Speaker 4: mobility issues, So what's going to happen to mom? Like,
Speaker 4: you know afterwards, And so being able to just generally
Speaker 4: get their perspective around like, oh, how is retirement going?
Speaker 4: You know, uh, what are some goals that you have
Speaker 4: around retirement? You quickly get the sense that they thought
Speaker 4: about this or not already. And you can always start
Speaker 4: the conversation gently by being really respectful and really non
Speaker 4: confrontational and saying like, hey, I you know, I learned
Speaker 4: about this concept of like long term care. You know,
Speaker 4: I think everyone's going to age, and I saw some
Speaker 4: statistics here that were surprising to me. I don't know
Speaker 4: if you've already thought about this. It's a light way
Speaker 4: to kind of like say, I got I learned something today.
Speaker 4: I don't if you already know it. To get a
Speaker 4: sense of like you know, their knowledge on it. And
Speaker 4: I think the most important piece is, you know, when
Speaker 4: you do bring up the topic and they're kind of
Speaker 4: open to talking about like aging, considering their preferences and
Speaker 4: needs is like actually really important, which is like, uh,
Speaker 4: you know ask like fundamental questions that we ask are
Speaker 4: you know, how would you want to prioritize, you know,
Speaker 4: having how would you want to prioritize your financial security
Speaker 4: versus you know, getting your care needs met as you age,
Speaker 4: like for example, So they might say like, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: I want to I want to make sure I have
Speaker 4: as much wealth as possible, no matter what, and it's
Speaker 4: okay if it comes at the cost of, like, you know,
Speaker 4: my care needs, I'll figure something out. Or on the
Speaker 4: other extreme, they're just like, actually, like no, I actually
Speaker 4: really care about like, you know, aging with like dignity,
Speaker 4: and I want to have quality resources as much as possible,
Speaker 4: and I'm willing to pay whatever it takes to get there.
Speaker 4: Then there's a question. I think the other second fundamental
Speaker 4: question is like getting a sense of like, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: when you grow older, do you want to like how
Speaker 4: how would you want to like? Have you thought about
Speaker 4: how you want your family members involved in your care
Speaker 4: in some way? And so from there you lightly get
Speaker 4: a sense of like, oh, I really don't want I
Speaker 4: want minimal involvement. I don't want you guys touching me.
Speaker 4: I don't want anything of that to happen. Or they
Speaker 4: might say I really hate the idea of a stranger,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, stepping in and touching me in
Speaker 4: any way, And then that will give you a sense
Speaker 4: of just like what are their expectations already on you
Speaker 4: that you could start from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really helpful. I found a good segue. My
Speaker 3: mom is currently taking care of her mother and so
Speaker 3: she's in that stage, which has provided a nice segue
Speaker 3: for me to be able to talk with my mom
Speaker 3: about that, Hey, in your caregiving role, here's what I'm seeing.
Speaker 3: What's that like for you? What do you want? And
Speaker 3: I know that's not everybody's situation, but wherever we can
Speaker 3: find those segues as you're identifying can be helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I notice. So like even if you're your parent
Speaker 1: isn't even in a current caregiving role, if they have
Speaker 1: been previously in a caregiving role, or they might have
Speaker 1: somebody their office or in their community who is in
Speaker 1: a caregiving role, and if they bring that up, that's
Speaker 1: a great segue into talking about like, oh, it's like,
Speaker 1: how's your friend complaining about this? Is that like how
Speaker 1: would you you know, want it done? And so that
Speaker 1: so any any time that's in their lives, because it's
Speaker 1: so everybody I talk to in our age group, millennials,
Speaker 1: their parents did not save for retirement, and I so
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm sure that I live in like a
Speaker 1: select I can't say that that's for everyone, but for
Speaker 1: the people I interact with personally, we know that some
Speaker 1: kind of caregiving is going to fall on us. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I totally agree, Like forties is a good,
Speaker 1: really good time to start thinking about this and planning this,
Speaker 1: like really front loading our own personal retirement. Time in
Speaker 1: the market is going to you know, beat time in
Speaker 1: the market, and so yes, really set yourself up first,
Speaker 1: but the earlier you can start asking these questions and
Speaker 1: getting an idea for like what your parents' preferences are,
Speaker 1: and really tempering their expectations too, and saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: you think that I'm going to be caregiving one hundred percent,
Speaker 1: this is really what I'm going to be able to do.
Speaker 1: So it gives them time to temper their expectations as well.
Speaker 1: Even if they may not have the capacity to save
Speaker 1: enough in that you know, limited time span, they can
Speaker 1: start getting used to an idea of like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: collectively not going to have enough money for all the
Speaker 1: care I expected to be able to afford, because inflation
Speaker 1: is crazy and it has really changed a lot of
Speaker 1: people's like budgets for long term care. Right, So like
Speaker 1: when we're looking at this, they can say like, I'm
Speaker 1: not okay, We're not going to have the money to
Speaker 1: do everything. These are the things that are most important
Speaker 1: to me, right, or to say like, oh, my my
Speaker 1: children are not going to be able to participate in
Speaker 1: the capacity I assumed, let's think of other ways. And
Speaker 1: so it just even if financially we can't get all
Speaker 1: we want or give all we want in time, I
Speaker 1: think at least like I think tempering expectations or managing
Speaker 1: expectations is one of the most important things in this
Speaker 1: conversation because like it these conversations did not go the
Speaker 1: way I thought they would when I had with my mom.
Speaker 1: So it's not just tempering like their expectations, but it's
Speaker 1: also tempering yours. It may take you five plus years
Speaker 1: to get the answers to these questions that you want,
Speaker 1: Like it's your parents like may not come up, like
Speaker 1: just may not be willing to upfront, like is that Lily,
Speaker 1: Like when you are talking to clients, like how how
Speaker 1: how did those conversations go?
Speaker 3: Is that something like you've heard.
Speaker 4: It's it's so interesting, Like I actually really love the
Speaker 4: way you structured it, which is like how do we
Speaker 4: temper our own expectation? Like how do we temper our parents' expectations?
Speaker 4: But then you're like, how do we temper how do
Speaker 4: I temper my own expectations of like I think I'm
Speaker 4: going to live this lifestyle when in truth, it's like, well,
Speaker 4: if you have a existing relationship with your parents, especially
Speaker 4: like they're definitely going to have a say in like
Speaker 4: probably what your lifestyle is going to look like in
Speaker 4: order to like continue having a relationship with them as well,
Speaker 4: and as their needs grow. And so what I've seen
Speaker 4: is like it's it's across the spectrum of just like
Speaker 4: from you know, individual saying like, oh, my parents actually
Speaker 4: are prepared, and I didn't expect it when I brought
Speaker 4: up the topic. They actually had a binder or a
Speaker 4: list of like all like you know, just like their
Speaker 4: preferences of like how do they want to age if
Speaker 4: you know, if something happened where they fell down and
Speaker 4: broke a hip, like what was that one pager on?
Speaker 4: Just like you know, who to call and like like
Speaker 4: how to get access to like my finances, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And then if they also what's really important is like
Speaker 4: do they have a do not resuscitate form as well,
Speaker 4: which is like do they actually want to be like, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, do they want to sustain their life for
Speaker 4: as long as possible or do they care about actually
Speaker 4: the quality of their life? And they're just like, I
Speaker 4: don't really care about how long I live. I actually
Speaker 4: care about you know, I don't want to live. I
Speaker 4: want to minimize my suffering for as long as I live.
Speaker 4: That's that's it's just totally like, you know, they are
Speaker 4: really great communicators around their preferences when they get older
Speaker 4: and this major risk that may happen. Then on the
Speaker 4: other side of the spectrum, it is a oh, you know,
Speaker 4: I like, I have a lot of I have a
Speaker 4: troubled relationship with my mom and she's growing older and
Speaker 4: she's really narcissistic and she lives by herself and she
Speaker 4: won't talk to anyone else but me. And so in
Speaker 4: that case, and I've seen things in between of just
Speaker 4: like you know, like my parents lightly talk to me
Speaker 4: about it to your point, and like, over five years,
Speaker 4: I kind of get what I'm like, you know, looking for,
Speaker 4: you know here, And I think that I love the
Speaker 4: concept that you brought up with, just like you know,
Speaker 4: you have to put on your own oxygen masks first
Speaker 4: and then see what you could do from a financial perspective,
Speaker 4: and then see what you could do financially for them,
Speaker 4: but try to get ahead of any surprises. And so
Speaker 4: I think the concept of like really understanding yourself and
Speaker 4: what you're capable of doing, and what are your like,
Speaker 4: what do you like, what do you want to do,
Speaker 4: but then what are you capable of doing and really
Speaker 4: understanding that and so being educated ahead of time of
Speaker 4: you know, what are your likely roles either as a
Speaker 4: financial caregiver, as a physical caregiver, or a care coordinator
Speaker 4: for your parents, and your capacity to do any of
Speaker 4: those things could be really effective. And actually even talking
Speaker 4: to your parents about like factually like I'm not even
Speaker 4: good at this, or factually I am like good at this,
Speaker 4: but I have a forty hour commitment and I have
Speaker 4: to take care of my kids, and so I want
Speaker 4: to try to figure out how to make this sustainable
Speaker 4: with you. So I think being able to communicate really
Speaker 4: clearly of like what your boundaries are, what your preferences,
Speaker 4: what are your skill sets in being you know, a
Speaker 4: type of caregiver is really helpful to bring to the table,
Speaker 4: you know, as well to kind of get the logistics smooth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that communication piece is sounding so important, and I
Speaker 3: think even beyond I can hear these conversations. And some
Speaker 3: of why I avoid it is because I know I'm
Speaker 3: not ready to financially physically with my time and capacity
Speaker 3: be able to provide care. But all the more reason
Speaker 3: to talk now, to be able to prepare. But also
Speaker 3: this reality that it may not all have to fall
Speaker 3: on me, and knowing what the different resources are now
Speaker 3: doing the research. Having the conversations doesn't mean that we
Speaker 3: have to have all of the readiness currently, I think
Speaker 3: is what's standing out to me from our conversation. But
Speaker 3: speaking of communication and transparency and setting expectations.
Speaker 1: Yes, and this is a conversation that an answer we
Speaker 1: get every week instantly.
Speaker 3: The bill of the week.
Speaker 2: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 2: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 2: is Williams. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your
Speaker 2: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 2: that bill anymore. That's bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1: This is the bill of the week, Lily. Every week
Speaker 1: we invite our guests and our listeners to share with
Speaker 1: us their bill for the week, and we would love
Speaker 1: to hear yours today.
Speaker 4: So in terms of bills, I literally have to use actually,
Speaker 4: like we live in a very digital era, I physically
Speaker 4: actually had to use bills just yesterday because you know,
Speaker 4: I was furnishing my new home and there's a variety
Speaker 4: of neighbors around me that I was like picking up
Speaker 4: some stuff for them, and some used demo and some
Speaker 4: you know, use cash app. But there's a lot of
Speaker 4: them actually that used cash, and they're like, well, if
Speaker 4: you have cash and you know, like you know, this
Speaker 4: will work.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 4: God, do I have cash? And so that was super
Speaker 4: helpful me this week to actually have like literal dollar
Speaker 4: bills on hand in order to uh like financially transact
Speaker 4: with certain you know, individuals that are to be fair
Speaker 4: older than me.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I mean there is a certain saying that
Speaker 1: cash is king, but it is nice actually to have
Speaker 1: literal dollar bills, five dollar bills, twenty dollar bills.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying it's not, but we do love a
Speaker 3: green bill. Oh I love finding them on the ground.
Speaker 1: You you actually, I can't believe that you would not
Speaker 1: say that because you expect every time you go outside
Speaker 1: to find to find cash on the ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like to me when I this is why
Speaker 3: the envelope system never worked for me. Spending cash money
Speaker 3: feels like it's not even real because there's no way
Speaker 3: of tracking it. So it doesn't even it doesn't even to.
Speaker 1: Do anything on Facebook, Marketplace, did you buy furniture? Maybe,
Speaker 1: but will never.
Speaker 3: No one will know, they'll never find out. That's awesome,
Speaker 3: Lily that you're using Facebook marketplace to furnish your home.
Speaker 3: It's a great way to cut costs and avoid buying
Speaker 3: new hopefully save some of that money for long term
Speaker 3: caregiving of parents. If you all listening have a bill
Speaker 3: that you want to share with us, if it has
Speaker 3: to do about those green back bills, the football team,
Speaker 3: the just a person named Bill and we keep it
Speaker 3: vague on purpose forrgal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill.
Speaker 3: We are ready for it, and now it's time for
Speaker 3: the lightning round.
Speaker 1: Shoe pew you all right, So in this lightning round,
Speaker 1: we are all going to share a little brief synopsis
Speaker 1: of how we are doing this in real life, how
Speaker 1: it really looks for us uh and so basically, how
Speaker 1: does planning for your parents' long term care fit into
Speaker 1: your long term savings strategy? Lily, you you are the
Speaker 1: creator of this AI that does long term care planning,
Speaker 1: So we will let you go first.
Speaker 4: So I'll share a little bit about like my parents.
Speaker 4: They are Frisian regent immigrants. They tried to like script like,
Speaker 4: you know, like every dollar that they can, but they're
Speaker 4: also not very communicative of like financially like how are
Speaker 4: they you know, doing and so I have three other siblings,
Speaker 4: and so we actually talk pretty often about like the
Speaker 4: emotional state of our parents, like how are they doing,
Speaker 4: are they socializing enough? You know, are like do they
Speaker 4: have something that keeps them busy? But also secondly, it's
Speaker 4: like if they were to grow older and like need help,
Speaker 4: Like we talked about like like what are our skill
Speaker 4: sets in that, Like just like you know, my sister's
Speaker 4: a doctor, so she would probably like step in like
Speaker 4: for care coordination. She's also the closest, so she would
Speaker 4: step in for physical caregiving. So I've gotten ahead of
Speaker 4: and told her, hey, like you're already stressed out as
Speaker 4: a doctor and and stuff like that, and I know
Speaker 4: that you want to like go visit them and do things,
Speaker 4: and I'm worried about you burning out because if you
Speaker 4: burn out, like who's kind of like next in line
Speaker 4: to help out? And can we be effective like in that?
Speaker 4: And so I've already developed a light plan with like
Speaker 4: my siblings about like you know, what seems to make
Speaker 4: sense as well as you know, let's talk about plan
Speaker 4: being plan syed. What if they need a care then
Speaker 4: expected you know, we're trying to build our own financial wealth,
Speaker 4: like you know, how would we pot in money together
Speaker 4: to try to figure this out? For our parents? What
Speaker 4: are additional strategiies that they don't already know? So we
Speaker 4: already have a plan and all these like plan b's
Speaker 4: and Plan c's and resources that we could talk about
Speaker 4: and be flexible on. As soon as our parents become
Speaker 4: like incrementally more and more ready to talk about you know,
Speaker 4: aging and how they're trying to do that.
Speaker 3: That's that's can be the blessing of having siblings. Of course,
Speaker 3: you also have the possibility of siblings who are disinterested
Speaker 3: in helping in that regard, but is great when you
Speaker 3: have some camaraderie and desire for teamwork and who can
Speaker 3: kind of handle what and who has what skill set?
Speaker 3: That's beautiful, well done.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say that that's like how I
Speaker 4: do it for like like listeners that don't have access
Speaker 4: to our software. But I've also put in my parents
Speaker 4: information into my software, so I kind of around what
Speaker 4: age should we be prepping for, how much it's likely
Speaker 4: going to cost, how long it's going to go on for.
Speaker 4: So that gives me a sense of like how sustainable
Speaker 4: is it going to actually be? For a sister if
Speaker 4: she was like the primary caregiver as well. So that's
Speaker 4: been really helpful for me strategically to kind of get
Speaker 4: all those pieces laid out. But I cheated in that case.
Speaker 4: But yeah, Jenn, love to hear what you do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think you cheated. You you had
Speaker 1: to like build out all of the cheat you had
Speaker 1: to build the cheat code, so yeah, that counts.
Speaker 4: MP.
Speaker 1: I think you took the long way around. So for me,
Speaker 1: my mom has very little save for retirement, like it
Speaker 1: would not even last your year. I am so proud
Speaker 1: of her that she did after I started writing about
Speaker 1: personal finance and hosting a post personal finance podcast, she
Speaker 1: started saving for retirement. So super proud of her. That
Speaker 1: was only in the past like five years though. So
Speaker 1: we are planning, and I am an only child, planning
Speaker 1: to be her primary caregivers in whatever way that looks like.
Speaker 1: So thankfully I've set up my life to have a
Speaker 1: flexible job where most of it will be me, like
Speaker 1: physically caregiving. And thankfully my husband's parents they're going to
Speaker 1: be good to go. They have a business they're going
Speaker 1: to sell. It is a thriving business that people already
Speaker 1: want to buy and then their daughter. My sister in
Speaker 1: law is also very close to them and is just
Speaker 1: a natural caregiver.
Speaker 3: So thankfully we.
Speaker 1: Don't have two sets of parents to worry about, just mine.
Speaker 1: So we invested in a second home so that we
Speaker 1: can get some passive income and possibly if we need
Speaker 1: to like house her at all, but we're hoping to
Speaker 1: sell one of them for a profit that and that
Speaker 1: profit would cover her long term care, the financial part
Speaker 1: of her long term care. So that is our plan.
Speaker 4: The alternative legion. I'll just also share some resources, which
Speaker 4: is a lot of people don't know about, Like the States,
Speaker 4: like Triple A, you know, agencies are like Area on Aging,
Speaker 4: and they tend to have a ton of free resources
Speaker 4: that actually come from the Medicaid, you know, bucket of cash,
Speaker 4: so you don't even have to be qualified for like
Speaker 4: Medicaid to have access to some free local resources where
Speaker 4: they could probably transport food to your mom, you know,
Speaker 4: for free, or there might be some people that could
Speaker 4: come to the house, or you know, there are probably
Speaker 4: some programs to do home renovations. I know, aging at
Speaker 4: home is huge, so I would keep an eye out
Speaker 4: for government programs that are getting bigger and bigger on
Speaker 4: like stuff like that, and then separately, like if you
Speaker 4: don't have to pay out of like you're not obligated
Speaker 4: to pay out of pocket, there is still that safety
Speaker 4: net of like qualifying for like Medicaid based off of
Speaker 4: like you know, wherever your mod wants to live and
Speaker 4: she really doesn't have enough saved up, she can quickly
Speaker 4: get access to that and the most efficient way if
Speaker 4: you go down that path is with an elder law attorney.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, Okay, what's the website? Can people find like
Speaker 1: federal programs that would be applicable to their area?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So, I so government pages are like not super friendly
Speaker 4: and so on my websites. On my websites blog like
Speaker 4: joinwaterlily dot com, slash blog, we actually have a section
Speaker 4: that's called government programs, and so we actually talk a
Speaker 4: lot about just like the layout of like what you
Speaker 4: can start to look into and we point to some
Speaker 4: sources to make it easy to understand the structure there.
Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, and we'll link to that page in our
Speaker 1: show notes as well.
Speaker 3: That's super helpful. Yeah. So for me, I am having
Speaker 3: some of these conversations with my mom. Although Lily, you
Speaker 3: are highlighting the there's room for more. I think my
Speaker 3: mom and I have primarily discussed more the financial side
Speaker 3: of things, but not necessarily dug deep into when her
Speaker 3: needs go beyond financial needs, what is that going to
Speaker 3: look like. We've talked I will be her primary caregiver.
Speaker 3: We've talked about her moving closer to me, but beyond that,
Speaker 3: haven't said much so but as far as finances go,
Speaker 3: I mean, she thankfully has been very transparent with me
Speaker 3: about what she has currently. We've talked some strategy about
Speaker 3: the way that we can leverage what she does have
Speaker 3: and the amount of working years she has left. And
Speaker 3: for myself, she actually doesn't know this. I don't know
Speaker 3: why I'm keeping it a secret, Maybe because I'm like
Speaker 3: concerned about how much I can set aside. Although she's
Speaker 3: listening to this podcast here, here you go, Mom. If
Speaker 3: she's gonna listen to one, it's gonna be this one.
Speaker 3: It's probably gonna be this one. Yeah. I do, whenever possible,
Speaker 3: set small amounts of money aside monthly into a high
Speaker 3: yield savings account to be able to earn interest on
Speaker 3: that money. It's not a lot, but it's one of
Speaker 3: those things like if she does move down here, we've
Speaker 3: got a chunk of change to help with housing or
Speaker 3: maybe monthly needs, that kind of a thing. So my
Speaker 3: mind has been primarily on the financial aspect, but it's
Speaker 3: helpful to remember, yes, there are physical and emotional aspects
Speaker 3: to this too that I think there's more room for
Speaker 3: conversation for me. So thanks for the insight you've brought
Speaker 3: to the table today.
Speaker 4: Jill quickly on that note, I loved how you just
Speaker 4: said I put money aside in a high yield savings
Speaker 4: account because a lot of people don't understand the concept
Speaker 4: of the time value of money, and they think like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, I'll save up what I can and then
Speaker 4: if I need a payout, then I'll pay out at
Speaker 4: that time. And we built out this calculator within our
Speaker 4: software that makes it so incredibly obvious that we're not
Speaker 4: talking about normal inflation rate, like, actually, let's talk about
Speaker 4: long term care costs real quick. A lot of people
Speaker 4: assume that, oh, it's going to you know, grow at
Speaker 4: the same rate of you know, inflation three percent, but
Speaker 4: actually health care inflation rate, if you look at the
Speaker 4: actuarial tables, is closer to what's projected for the next
Speaker 4: ten years six point oh five percent. And so what
Speaker 4: that actually means in layman terms is that the amounts
Speaker 4: of money that you're gonna need is going to double
Speaker 4: every twelve years. And so actually putting money away today
Speaker 4: that actually is growing makes a massive impact on how
Speaker 4: much the monthly contribution is going to start looking like
Speaker 4: if you started today versus if you started five years
Speaker 4: from now, ten years an out or something like that.
Speaker 4: The other thing I'll take into account when you do
Speaker 4: budget is where you're putting that money, because you could
Speaker 4: pull you could pull money from high old savors account,
Speaker 4: but if you wanted to like invest it, like really
Speaker 4: understand what your tax bracket is is really crucial. And
Speaker 4: if you don't have like a long term care policy,
Speaker 4: which is usually tax advantage, if you pay for this
Speaker 4: out of pocket, understand your tax bracket and understand what
Speaker 4: portion of the funds that you'll probably be pulling for
Speaker 4: long term care expenses are qualified assets, not qualified assets,
Speaker 4: and not taxable like roths. So I wanted to just
Speaker 4: put that out there's like light things to research to
Speaker 4: optimize the budgeting.
Speaker 3: Will you are a welcome of knowledge and we're so
Speaker 3: grateful for you spending time with us today. When people
Speaker 3: absolutely need more from you, where can they go.
Speaker 4: So you can definitely contact us contact Actually it goes
Speaker 4: directly to me. When you go to our website joinwaterlo
Speaker 4: dot com. You're like, hey, I want to contact someone
Speaker 4: or reach out, like I love talking to all sorts
Speaker 4: of individuals, and so I get that email directly and
Speaker 4: I try to be really responsive. And if someone immediately
Speaker 4: is just like hey, I just need help, then you're
Speaker 4: welcome to just email me at like Lily at joinwaterlily
Speaker 4: dot com. Because sometimes there's just families that I've been
Speaker 4: following for a long time where they need resources and
Speaker 4: I'm just like here to like offer them. Of course,
Speaker 4: I just say, like, I'm not a financial professional an
Speaker 4: elder law attorney, but I do come from a little
Speaker 4: over a decades worth of experience and like healthcare, and
Speaker 4: I've seen like a wealth of resources like in the space,
Speaker 4: so I could just pass that along without any sort
Speaker 4: of like commissions or incentives. It's just like, yeah, I'd
Speaker 4: love to be helpful if I can.
Speaker 3: So fine, thank you so much for coming on today.
Speaker 1: Is a pleasure, And where can people if they want
Speaker 1: to like put their data into water Lily, like where
Speaker 1: can they find access to that?
Speaker 4: So that's a great question. It's the same thing. Go
Speaker 4: to our website, joinwaterloly dot com and you click on
Speaker 4: just like sign up or like contact us, because we're
Speaker 4: actually actively building out a waitlist right now for a
Speaker 4: self service model where I don't believe in families actually
Speaker 4: paying for this software. I think that there is so
Speaker 4: many government programs and so many other businesses that are
Speaker 4: trying to serve families. I think they should subsidize the cost,
Speaker 4: if not just pay on behalf of these families. And
Speaker 4: so we want to see I'm actually building out business
Speaker 4: relationships right now to see how can we make this
Speaker 4: free for families to build, to plan on and get
Speaker 4: some really strategic, great conversations there to have better outcomes
Speaker 4: on the topic.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, awesome, Thank you so much, Lily, And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope everybody goes to Joinwaterlily dot com and starts
Speaker 1: thinking about this really important, really tough topic.
Speaker 3: Ooh, I got some take aways, so much to consider here. Again,
Speaker 3: it still feels weighty and heavy for me. It's one
Speaker 3: of those I gotta do that I know, I gotta
Speaker 3: do that, but it does help to have other voices
Speaker 3: talking about it and the ability to kind of bounce
Speaker 3: ideas off of other people know that I'm not alone
Speaker 3: in it when it's just something I'm thinking about in
Speaker 3: my own home. But then they'd be able to chat
Speaker 3: with you, to chat with Lily, to know that there's
Speaker 3: a plethora of other people out there so excited about
Speaker 3: this resource that Lily's creating through water. Lily, I'm just
Speaker 3: I'm so thrilled, and I've got a lot of my
Speaker 3: own takeaways, so I'm also excited for our community and
Speaker 3: the takeaways really tangibly that can happen out of this episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think reiterating that it is definitely important to
Speaker 1: focus on your own life raft or your own oxygen mask,
Speaker 1: like in your youth, your twenties, and your thirties, for sure,
Speaker 1: you want to get time in the market, and which
Speaker 1: is why it's so important to start investing early, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we don't want to ignore investing for the sake of
Speaker 1: buying things and paying off debt. We need to be
Speaker 1: starting that early because in our forties is when we
Speaker 1: need to start thinking about, Okay, how do other people's
Speaker 1: finances affect me at this point, you know, like maybe
Speaker 1: it's not Maybe my own parents are fine, but what
Speaker 1: about my partner's finances? Right? And then maybe even like
Speaker 1: if I want to contribute to my children's finances, you
Speaker 1: know what am I doing there? So it just reiterates
Speaker 1: how important it is to start investing for yourself early,
Speaker 1: so that when when this topic comes up, it's not nauseating.
Speaker 1: It's just inconvenient, right, And I'll take inconvenient and maybe
Speaker 1: a bit of a bummer over nauseating and anxiety inducing.
Speaker 3: Thank you everyone for listening. We do hope that this
Speaker 3: was a fruitful, beneficial conversation for you. And as you know,
Speaker 3: we do have a newsletter. It's called the Friend Letter
Speaker 3: because we love to tell our friends about all that's
Speaker 3: happening with the freebies and the savings tips. It goes
Speaker 3: out three times each week and we talk life hacks,
Speaker 3: all sorts of money tips that just help you save money,
Speaker 3: spend better, all the things we talk about in the show,
Speaker 3: but then readable, so depending on how you learn, and
Speaker 3: you want to see visuals and graphics, we got it
Speaker 3: for you. We also want to give a shout out
Speaker 3: to this friend for sending us the sweet email last
Speaker 3: week in response to the friend letter. I hope this
Speaker 3: finds you well. Jen and Jill. I just listen to
Speaker 3: your latest episode on contentment and I really appreciated your
Speaker 3: vulnerability lightning round pertaining to motherhood as well as your
Speaker 3: thoughts on contentment pertaining to parenthood throughout the episode. Love
Speaker 3: the podcast and am so encouraged every time I listen
Speaker 3: to you both. You are both so inspiring and it
Speaker 3: makes me feel like I am not alone in my
Speaker 3: debt payoff journey. I also really appreciate the email encouragement
Speaker 3: for no spend January to keep me motivated and reminded
Speaker 3: me of why I'm doing this.
Speaker 1: Thanks Kara, Ah Kara, you are welcome. I am here
Speaker 1: to be relatable in that mother. I am the most
Speaker 1: average mother and super super proud of it.
Speaker 3: I think everybody feels that way. If there's anything I
Speaker 3: hear from, especially moms, it's that mom guilt. I'm not
Speaker 3: doing this perfectly, I'm not doing it well, So everyone's
Speaker 3: going to call themselves average. But y'all are out here crushing.
Speaker 3: If you're keeping your kids alive and fed with something,
Speaker 3: just something.
Speaker 1: Something is really my cuisine. It's my forte. So thank you, Kara.
Speaker 3: If you all are hearing this, and you want in
Speaker 3: on this community of emails, and you want the freebies,
Speaker 3: you want to know what you can get for free
Speaker 3: each week. You want the saving STIPs, you want the
Speaker 3: values based spending hacks, and you want the stupid graphics
Speaker 3: send to your inbox every week. Head to Frugal Friends
Speaker 3: podcast dot com slash friend letter to get all of
Speaker 3: the goodies. And if you already do get the goodies
Speaker 3: like I got them goodies, share it with your friends,
Speaker 3: give them some goodies and take the mega survey. Take
Speaker 3: the Mega Yeah, there's a link at the end of
Speaker 3: the friend letter that you can share. It's your specific
Speaker 3: referral link. When you send that and you get someone
Speaker 3: to say sign up, you get goodies. In addition to
Speaker 3: the friend letter, which is a goodie and a whole
Speaker 3: snack in and of itself. You get stickers or a
Speaker 3: tote or a mug, depending on how many people you refer.
Speaker 1: So go a wild and we want to know what
Speaker 1: you want to hear on Frugal Friends and in the
Speaker 1: friend letter in the upcoming year, So.
Speaker 3: Please we will.
Speaker 1: We are literally willing to share almost anything except for
Speaker 1: our credit card numbers and our Social Security count numbers,
Speaker 1: like pretty much anything else is on the table, so like,
Speaker 1: please tell us what you want. I mean, I will
Speaker 1: share also anything about Jill's life other than those things,
Speaker 1: So just tell me. The emails go to me, the
Speaker 1: mega survey goes to me. I just need to know,
Speaker 1: so we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 5: Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel kind of offended that you call
Speaker 1: the graphics stupid in a good way.
Speaker 3: I use that word adoringly.
Speaker 1: I it is something that people complain about, not really
Speaker 1: complain about, but they're just like, you don't need as
Speaker 1: many graphics. You're like, beautiful without all the filters. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, but I love.
Speaker 3: The filters in our email. No, that's a joke.
Speaker 1: That's like, the content's good enough, you don't need to
Speaker 1: like oversaturate it with all this stuff.
Speaker 3: And I was like, but I like this. It's how
Speaker 3: I drive home my point.
Speaker 1: I don't need the makeup, but I like the makeup.
Speaker 1: I'm not wearing any makeup right now. We look like Thursday.
Speaker 3: That's I have been wearing the same pants all week.
Speaker 3: Jen has finally come over to co work with me. Uh,
Speaker 3: which we'd have to talk about that too. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: So this is for you all listeners who are still
Speaker 3: here with us, because you you the true ones, You
Speaker 3: to real one. So Jen and I typically do not
Speaker 3: record together, even though we live fifteen minutes apart. Should
Speaker 3: we call in. Some of that has to do with
Speaker 3: it's more complicated to capture audio in person together than
Speaker 3: it is over the computer internet. But Jen has finally
Speaker 3: been coming over and co working with me. It's been amazing.
Speaker 3: We just obviously recorded this episode together. Come to find out,
Speaker 3: we are coming up on six years of podcasting together.
Speaker 3: I've lived here for three and a half and you
Speaker 3: hardly ever come over and work from here, partially because
Speaker 3: I've been under renovation, but my kitchen's been done for
Speaker 3: a year. Jen just told me this week that one
Speaker 3: of her main barriers to not coming and co working
Speaker 3: at my house where our studio is, is because I
Speaker 3: don't have a microwave. This is a fact.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows how I feel about microwaves and how Jill
Speaker 1: previously felt.
Speaker 3: That I just didn't use them. I'm not like morally
Speaker 3: opposed to microwaves. I just didn't use them didn't have them,
Speaker 3: but now I do have one again. My kitchen's been
Speaker 3: done for a year. Jen didn't know I had a microwave.
Speaker 1: My defense, It looks like you have a double oven
Speaker 1: on the wall, like that is a normal thing. Kitchens
Speaker 1: get renovated, they install double ovens. Right, yeah, And your
Speaker 1: microwave opens like an oven, looks like an oven. If
Speaker 1: it quacks like a duck, it typically is a duck.
Speaker 1: I've just never opened it to look inside and see
Speaker 1: that it is a microwave.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all of that is there. It does make sense.
Speaker 3: My microwave does look like an oven, and it also
Speaker 3: is a convection o. Right, yeah, it is also a microwave.
Speaker 3: What is laughable to me is that that was your
Speaker 3: main barrier. And now that she knows I have a microwave,
Speaker 3: he's here every day. Today's Thursday. We look like Thursday.
Speaker 3: We're dressed like Thursday. She's been here every day. She
Speaker 3: knows I've been wearing the same pants since Monday. And
Speaker 3: she's now here because she now knows my my thing
Speaker 3: that looked like an oven as a microwave.
Speaker 1: Well, now I can prepare my lunches to come over
Speaker 1: here and microwave them. I wasn't I didn't meal prep
Speaker 1: for this plan for this you know week, so I've
Speaker 1: been eating your food.
Speaker 3: Mostly, but I wasn't prepared.
Speaker 1: I just found literally, I just found it out that
Speaker 1: I'll prepare now and I will I will work over
Speaker 1: here more and.
Speaker 3: So we'll now record in person a lot more often
Speaker 3: and actually use our studio and baby give you guys
Speaker 3: more video content because I have a microwave, and am gave.
Speaker 1: Us permission to hold our microphones, oh, instead of have
Speaker 1: them on an arm. That was another barrier because it's
Speaker 1: like so awkward to record with you with about like
Speaker 1: I don't know with.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, with the with the we're so comfy right now.
Speaker 1: We're so comfy.
Speaker 3: We got our feet up. We are lounge and bad.
Speaker 1: And we're looking at each other.
Speaker 3: We're looking at Thursday. It's what we're doing. We're looking
Speaker 3: at Thursday. I know that this episode is coming out
Speaker 3: on a.
Speaker 1: Friday Thursdays, but we're recording on third.
Speaker 3: We look like Thursday.
Speaker 1: This isn't abnormally long.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: We just had a lot to say in a week.
Speaker 3: Well, and we're in person now, so that's what you get.
Speaker 3: Hour and a half episodes, There we Go, no