Setting The Stage To Finishing Well

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This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Finishing Wealth, brought to you by CardinalGuide.com, with certified financial planner, Hans Scheil, best-selling author and financial planner, helping families finish well for over 40 years. On Finishing Wealth, we'll examine both biblical and practical knowledge to assist families in finishing wealth, including discussions on managing social security, Medicare, IRAs, long-term care, life insurance, investments, and taxes. Now let's get started with Finishing Wealth. Welcome to Finishing Wealth, a certified financial planner, Hans Scheil, and wow, it's already October and here we are.

It's a really neat show we have lined up for you today, in my opinion. It's kind of like foundational. That's why, you know, we're calling it, right, Setting the Stage to Finishing Wealth. And foundational from a standpoint of, you know, Jesus talked pretty clearly in the Sermon on the Mount about the wise man who built his house upon a rock, right? And so involved in that decision on his part, because my guess is, Hans, it was more expensive to build it on the rock than the real estate up there and the hills were probably a little bit more expensive. But because he made choices, right? In my opinion, choices to please God. Choices to please God. And he planned for storms, right? And so my good friend Hans, who's the goad, you know, this team, he's telling us, storms are coming.

I mean, there still are. And we're gonna need a foundation and we're gonna need a stage and a plan that we feel like God will be pleased with first and foremost. I've spent my career reading and analyzing statistics, and specifically when it comes to long-term care and long-term care insurance, when it comes to talking to clients and potential clients about it, we spend a lot of time talking about the odds of going in a nursing home or the odds of needing care. And statistics to me are very close to worthless when it comes to me personally, because I'm just, you know, like if I need care at some point in my life, then I'd say that I have 100% chance of needing this. And if I don't need care, I'm not gonna know that till I'm dead. But if I go through my lifetime and I can just completely avoid care, I'm not gonna know that I was right about that with a 0% chance and I'll already be deceased. My family will know about it.

Darrell Bock Right. So here I was just three weeks ago. I didn't think I was that old, but anyway, I was gonna trim my bushes. But I failed to read the directions properly and keep both hands on the hedge trimmer at all times. And so one hand got loose and next thing you know, the hedge trimmer decided to take a little shot at my little finger, which you could see if you're looking at Facebook. And it seemed like, you know, yeah, it needed to be stitched up. And yeah, it was a bad, you know, it was a bad situation, but it wasn't, in my view, life threatening at all.

It didn't seem like it. But the next thing I knew, the storm was upon me, because the finger started an infection that went back into my old injury into my leg when I'd been crushed with a Jeep. And the next thing I know, my leg is swelling up and my blood count's going high. And so, oh my goodness, you know what they have to do? They have to put you on a bunch of antibiotics.

Well, the antibiotics caused a diverticulitis flare up. And the next thing you know, I'm in the hospital with this thing and the storm's upon me, you know, just very quickly. And it's amazing how quickly things go downhill, but this is a movie that we're gonna see time and time again. And, you know, have we built our house on the rock? Have we made plans for, you know, what this might look like? Yeah. And so today we're gonna really dive into where are you gonna receive this care if in fact you do need care? And, you know, where I'm gonna go back to the statistics is there's a pretty good chance if you're listening to this show and you're in your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 40s, at some point in your life, you're gonna need help with the basic stuff of life. You're gonna need somebody to watch over you, care for you.

Right? I experienced that just last two weeks, right? I needed somebody to take me to the hospital. It was my wife. I was lucky. Sure.

I had that. And you're just 65 years old. Right.

You can imagine if something like this happens to you when you're 82, it's gonna be a whole different movie. Exactly. But the nice thing about the first level of or the first stage that we wanna set would be the one that clearly I would wanna fall in is, you know, where my family is doing the caregiving.

Yeah. And so we're gonna talk about today is we really have several different settings that we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about family caregiving. We're gonna talk about home health care, homemaker services, adult day care, continuing care retirement communities, assisted living, and nursing homes.

So we got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get started. So the first category up here, we're talking about family caregiving, and this is where most care or all care starts. I mean, you're at home, right? Or you've just been released from the hospital. Pretty good chance before you went into the hospital, some of your family did some family caregiving, but let's just say they didn't, just we're not gonna give credit to that. So when you, it could be that they're not gonna send you home from the hospital or release you unless somebody in the family agrees to be there with you for, could be your spouse, one of your adult children, but it just, so family caregiving, I mean, that's one way that it happens. Another way is just real slowly over time where people don't even realize that they're the caregiver for their spouse, but it just, at some point, it starts out where you're doing things for them that they can't do themselves.

It's a very loving thing. I mean, it starts out that way, and I have many clients that I've helped that kind of do that for each other. I've told the story about my mom where she was a, essentially a caregiver for her friend that was, that she described, my mom was a nurse of 60 years or whatever, and she was, she described Betty as an invalid, okay? It was her friend, but she was an invalid, and my mom initially befriended her, and she was taking care of it. Betty had trouble getting in and out of the car, and my mom would drive her to church and drive her to the grocery store and drive her to where they'd play cards and just whatever else they did. And then as my mom developed memory problems and Alzheimer's, and that's a progressive thing, and I was down there, you know, still wondering whether my mom should drive, and I was riding in the backseat with my mom driving, Betty riding shotgun, and my mom or I helped her get into the car, and I realized that between the two of them, they were caring for each other. My mom knew how to drive, she just didn't know where they were going or when they were going to get there or how to get there.

Betty couldn't drive, and she couldn't work the steering wheel and the brake and the gas pedal and the turn signal, but she, so between the two of them, they were, it was like driving Miss Daisy. So, you know, there are couples, older couples that they're essentially caring for each other, and there's a point where when it's one person taking care of another person, and many times it's a woman who might be a year or two younger or several years younger taking care of the man who tend to get sicker at a younger age, that's why you don't see a lot of men in these, in their 80s and 90s in these facilities or the percentage of them, they're mostly women because the guy died several years ago and she took care of them and now she's in the place. So when we talk about family caregiving, it's just the statistics on this are huge, is that that's your first point of contact, and where it becomes a problem is when the healthy caregiver is getting sick themselves and they're getting run down and they're not taking care of themselves and they're not able to do effectively the things that need to be done for the person. Yeah, or you may be the child that really, that's got to be able to take care of their own family and their own work and there's stresses on this thing that you really don't want your children to have to face, or your spouse.

Sure. And so that's part of what pleases God is, from my perspective, is you go, okay, when this reaches this level, you know, how do we call the Calvary? Yeah, and so the next category we're talking about home health care. And so home health care is, what we're talking about here is professional home health care. Home health care that's delivered through a professional agency and that in many cases, in most cases, insurance will pay for if you have the right kind of insurance to prepare for this. But before we talk about the insurance, that'll be on some of our later shows, we just want to talk like, what is it? And it's mostly delivered by home health aides, professional trained home health aides, and they're helping you with bathing, dressing, just those are the two easiest criteria to meet, toileting, transferring. And then once they're paying for that, or once the insurance is, you're getting that. And if you have insurance for this, they have a thing called homemaker services within those home health care agencies, where they're going to, you know, mow your lawn and clean your house and go shopping for you, take you to the doctor. So those are typically, it's another category on our list here of homemaker services, but typically administered through a home health care agency.

And you can't really get the homemaker services unless you qualify for the regular home health aide from health care. So we have got a lot to cover, as you know, in today's show, setting the stage for finishing well. We got a lot more stages to set, more stories. And again, you know, the idea is what kind of rock would please God that we set up, not only, you know, that we would be able to talk to our spouse, but actually bring our children into the equation and say, hey, these are the things that we're planning, guys, you know, when these storms hit our family. And this is, these are conversations, not easy to have, but nonetheless necessary. And we're so grateful, Hans, that you're goading us into these. So as always, this is brought to you by cardinalguide.com.

You can go to cardinalguide.com, find Hans' book, The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for and Living in Retirement. Of course, that's all part of how we finish well. And you can just email him there. We got a lot more finishing well. Today's show coming up. Stay tuned. Thank you.

Welcome back to Finishing Well with Certified Financial Planner, Hans Scheil. Today's show, we're talking about setting the stages to finish well and the different stages that are involved. And when we left our heroes, they were at the home healthcare stage. Yeah, well, and we're talking about the settings that you receive care in.

And if I want to get back to the language that the people in the industry that deliver this, if they, you know, so what are the settings? And we've already talked about family caregiving, which basically means your family's taking care of you, which is going to be part of everything. I mean, all levels of care in all settings are going to involve your family.

It's not like they're going to be kicked out to the curb or something. So family caregiving, home healthcare, and we talked a little bit about that. We talked about homemaker services or what are generally incidental benefits in a long-term care or a home healthcare policy. The homemaker services are a incidental benefit. And then next up is adult daycare.

So what is that? And it's just, if you think about the daycare that you use when you're a younger person with young children, where you take them there, they stay there all day, and then you pick them up after you're done with work. Now you're adding a whole nother element is first of all, you're 20, 30 years older than you were when you were taking your kids to daycare. And now you're taking your mom or dad to daycare.

I mean, it's typically what it is. And you got to get them ready, you got to get yourself ready, and then you got an extra stop on the way to work. And you got to get them in there. You got to be responsible for them. You got to be ready to go there if they have to be picked up or just like your kids. But it's not your kids. You know, it may seem difficult to get your toddler into their car seat and get them home when they were sick or something. Get them ready for that.

You know, try that with your parents. And many of you know what I'm talking about. And then you got the whole same thing in the evening in reverse. But nonetheless, a lot of these are wonderful places. I mean, they really look forward to it. Do they, you know, they have social activities, they have care, they, you know, they're just basically sitting with them and providing whatever they need during the day. Yeah, I especially think of people with memory, you know, care that, you know, Alzheimer's and stuff like that where you just can't leave them alone anymore.

Yeah, you just can't. Or they need to get up and be fed and they may be told when to be fed and when to eat and serve something to eat. Somebody's got to sit there with them, help them along, talk to them while they're doing that. Yeah, because I just go back to how easy it is to just fall, right?

And that fall, if it's like me, it could start a whole chain of reactions in my dad's case that can lead to all sorts of things that if you could avoid the fall to begin with, you know, with more consistent care, you know, wow, that saved a lot of pain. So the national average for adult daycare is 75 bucks a day. I mean, it could be less in your area, it could be more. That's the national average for adult daycare, which is 375 bucks a week, which is, I'm guessing, probably pretty similar to childcare. Yeah, I would think.

Yeah. Continuing care retirement communities is the next category, CCRCs. And, you know, what that is, is that it's really kind of an old term, are there these places, many times you've got a big downstroke of money to go in there, sometimes not. I mean, we had my mom in a CCRC, and they didn't have the 100 or $200,000 deposit, they had more like a $12,000 deposit for her to get in.

And then they had higher rent than that. And so they're going to have an independent living where you can move into a cottage or an apartment or something where you're basically living independently, and you're going to have access to meals and eating common meals and their gyms, some of these places are beautiful. And then you've got the assisted living, which is usually a completely separate section.

And that's where you need help. It starts to look and feel like a nursing home, but it's not because it's nicer, you know, and it's, it feels more like home, but it feels less like home than your independent living cottage did. And then, you know, beyond that, you've got, you know, beyond assisted living, a wing, you're going to have memory care and a full blown skilled care nursing home wing in a lot of these places. And they vary as many, there's all types of variances. But the point is, is it's a setting where you can move there, retire, and you can have multiple different different settings all within the same facility.

Right. So, so one of the things that has been developed over the last several years is the assisted living facility. And there's many of these around and many of these are very nice.

Oh, I've, I've done a devotion at one in Mocksville for 20 years. And, you know, a lot of times we see couples come in, you know, and then after a while, unfortunately, they usually the husband, you know, and then the ladies left and then over a period of time next to, you know, one day she's gone and they've taken her off, you know, because she can no longer, you know, even function in assisted living. So fortunately, you know, clearly for the ones that I'm, you know, their family had set some kind of plan into effect. They had options because they had invested the money to know that these storms were coming.

And so they had built essentially their finishing well house on the rock. Sure. Well, my plan and my choice is home health care. And I intend to finish well there at home.

Okay. You know, she's got to drive me out to, to an adult daycare just, just to kind of get away from me. Even though we've got home health care people there during the day, then so be it.

But, but, but I would just say that when that doesn't work anymore, for whatever reason, then I'm saying, I'm going to choose an assisted living. I mean, that's, you know. Which I really wonder because it, you know, just to be candid, my father in the very last stages of his life, it was all at home. I mean, he chose, it was like, any other money to do it? That was his choice. He said, no, I'm going to, I don't want to go back to the hospital.

I'm going to stay right here. And we had all those people come in and the same kind of physical therapy people, the same kind of people that help him get in and out of bed, the people that did all the stuff, you know, they came into the house. It's now, we, I have friends and people that I know very well that own and run these home health care agencies. And they can take care of you from the first day you need care to where you're calling the undertaker at the end of the deal. I mean, it's just, they, they're, and the hospice people are, are of great help. And insurance will actually pay for that. And Medicare will too. In the end, they'll, they'll come right into your home and, and let you finish, finish well. I mean, finish with them and you're in your house.

So, you know, when you go through all these, we got one more category, which is the, the traditional nursing home. Okay. And this is the bogey that people really are going to shut down the conversation when I'm going to have it.

I mean, this could be the point where you turn the dial off or you change over to a radio show that plays music or something is when we're, when we're talking about nursing home because it's just, it's the place that nobody wants to go. Okay. And what I'm telling you is you don't necessarily have to.

Okay. I mean, that doesn't have to be in the picture if you plan well. And it takes us back to the beginning of the show where we talked about choice and the resources that you've worked so hard for and that you've saved and the income that you have in retirement. And when you get in and when you get in this situation where you're needing care, which you probably will, it's nice to have some choice in this. A lot of people look to the medical professionals to just tell them what to do.

Well, you need to go to a nursing home or you need to go home or, you know, there's somebody has to go with you. And I'm telling you, you can challenge those people. You don't have to do exactly what they say.

That's what we did with my dad. Eventually we just had to say, no, he didn't do that anymore. I mean, we're done. Sure.

And being the kind of man he was, he was done. Having a plan. And that's where the family comes in, where we talk family caregiving and having a plan that it all involves your family. That's what we do in planning and financial planning, long-term care planning, estate planning is we involve the family right now. We get the powers of attorney so they can go in and do that stuff for you.

And they can act legally and they can say, no, he isn't going over to that place. We're going home and we're going to hire home healthcare privately. And we know Medicare doesn't pay for it.

That's why we have this insurance that does. And we already got that set up. So that's what we're doing. And so it's just, it's having that ability to make choices or have your family able to make choices that are good for everybody.

Right. Because as you talked about, we really, you know, I know in my, I want to please God. And I know that God's really concerned, not just about how I finish well, but the stresses that go on the caregivers in my family and what we can do to make arrangements ahead of time so that, because I do have a dear friend that ended up in that nursing home because he actually put his kids first. And I know the story all too well. And the suffering that they saw him go through, they were wishing that all that didn't happen. And I don't, I can't believe that God was pleased as he saw what all happened as a result of this particular plan.

And so if they'd sat down and done this, you know, I just think the heartbreak that all these people endured would not have had to happen. Well, sure. I just had a client who listens to the show regularly. He just became a client. He's almost 89 years old. Wife's 87. They're in great health. They want to stay in their home. And their home is two thirds of their whole assets. And the other third of their assets is still in an IRA.

And they don't really have much money that's not in an IRA and savings. And he's outlived many and most of his friends. And they've lived in all these different things up and down the list here.

And this fellow has lived a good life and been an executive. And he even said to me, he said, you know, I'm not, my doctor told me I'm going to live to 100. And he says, I'm not sure I want to live to 100.

He said, I've got all of eternity to enjoy. And so, and the real problem that he came to me with is, you know, they want to stay in their house. They don't want to go to assisted living or an independent living. And what if one of them has to go there? How's he going to pay for it? And, you know, it was really fascinating to me to sit down and talk to somebody at his age, still in great health. And it's a pleasure to me to help him solve the problem.

And we're going to. It has some fairly simple solutions. And he wants to stay at home. They like their house. They like where they live. If one of them gets sick, the answer to this is we're going to be utilizing home health care. And I think they're going to finish well at home. Yeah.

I, you know, when I think about that was to have had my dad in one of those facilities for the last three weeks of his life or whatever, it's unthinkable to me. So I was really glad that, you know, we had the resources of Cardinal Guide, cardinalguide.com, the complete cardinal guide to planning for and living in retirement. You know, the idea is to please God and finish well.

How can we build our house on the rock? Well, we want to help you do that. All you got to do is go to cardinalguide.com. You can order Hans's book or, you know, ask for a consult.

I mean, he would love to help you finish well. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Dozens of free resources, past shows, or to get Hans's book, go to cardinalguide.com. If you have a question, comment, or suggestion for future shows, click on the Finishing Well radio show on the website and send us a word. Once again, that's cardinalguide.com. Cardinalguide.com. This is the Truth Network.