Mastering Financial Caregiving Techniques with Beth Pinsker

Caring for aging parents often means managing their money, too. On this episode of The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide, Candace Dellacona talks with Beth Pinsker—CFP, MarketWatch columnist, and author of ‘My Mother’s Money’—about the financial realities of caregiving. From red flags to powers of attorney to navigating sibling dynamics, this episode is a must-listen for anyone supporting an aging parent.

 

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:55 Beth Pinsker's Journey to Financial Expertise
03:27 Writing 'My Mother's Money'
07:52 The Importance of Power of Attorney and Healthcare Proxy
15:59 Handling Financial Responsibilities and Scams
26:39 Sibling Collaboration and Financial Realities
33:48 Conclusion and Book Promotion

To learn more about Beth and to purchase her book, visit her website at https://bethpinsker.com/  

Follow Beth on Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bpinsker/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethpinsker_ny
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bethpinsker.bsky.social

Creators and Guests

Host

Candace Dellacona

Principal, Offit Kurman

Producer

Eric Kovac

Creative Team Manager, Offit Kurman

What is The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide?

Welcome to The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide, where we explore the challenges and strategies of navigating life caught between work demands and supporting our loved ones while maintaining our own well-being. Join us in this dynamic podcast series as we uncover the complexities individuals face balancing multiple roles in the modern world. Our host, Candace Dellacona, shares personal experiences and professional insights to guide listeners through this complex journey.

Candace Dellacona: Welcome to the
Sandwich Generation Survival Guide.

I am your host, Candace Dellacona,
and I am thrilled today to be

joined by writer Beth Pinsker.

Beth is a certified financial planner
and a columnist at MarketWatch,

which is actually how Beth and
I met most recently though.

And importantly, Beth wrote a book called
My Mother's Money that was released

just last month to great fanfare.

Welcome, Beth.

Beth Pinsker: So nice to be here.

Thank you.

Candace Dellacona: Thanks
so much for joining us.

As I mentioned, you and I met, I think
I was a source for one of your articles.

I think there are so many people
who look to you as a thought leader

in the space of personal finance.

But before we get there, I know you
had a bit of a roundabout way finding

yourself in this area of being what
I think is an expert in sort of

the aging retirement money space.

So can you give us the inside
scoop of how you landed in

this very specific niche, Beth.

Beth Pinsker: Yeah, no, it doesn't
make sense to me or anybody else.

I started out as a film critic.

So I have really no rational way of
explaining how I ended up being an

expert in this particular subject matter.

I just know I got more serious about my
reporting subject matter as I went along,

and I ended up at Reuters as a retirement
columnist, and that is when the CFP became

available to me, and I took the coursework
and I got my CFP designation after passing

the test, and I just sort of dove in
head first to all the subject matter.

I just really liked it
and engaged with it.

And when it came time to take care
of my mom, I knew all of these

things that were book learning.

And it turns out that when
you have to take care of a of

somebody in your life who's ill.

It takes more street smarts
than it does book learning.

And so I wanted to be able to help
people through that, given that the

financial knowledge that I have and
the way that the backend of the systems

work, I was, sort of able to explain
it to people in real human terms, how

to get through the rest of this stuff
that nobody ever talks about and nobody

ever, has an instruction manual for.

Candace Dellacona: I love that.

And what you kind of glossed
over, which I think you should be

bragging a bit more, is to become
an expert in your field as a writer.

You took the CFP, which is the
Certified Financial Planning Exam

series, which for those of you
who don't know, is no easy feat.

So, kudos to you Beth, for really
taking on that role and kind of

diving in head first to become
extremely educated in this area.

Because it is so vast and one of
the things that you just said that.

I think is so true for all of our
listeners and all of us in the

sandwich generation, is that there
is no guide, there is no manual.

And what I hope with this podcast is
to provide people a survival guide.

And that's why we have experts like you.

So talk to me a little about making
the jump from a CBS Market Watch

columnist to actually putting
the pieces together as an author.

And the overview of the book and
how that process started for you.

Beth Pinsker: It really started with
my column because I had just started at

MarketWatch when my mom had her surgery.

So I started at MarketWatch in like
September of 2022, and my mom's

surgery was in November of that year.

So I was really brand new to this job.

I had been at Reuters for many years
before I had been, various other places

doing personal finance journalism,
but I was new to Market Watch.

And I'm sitting there, by my mom's bedside
in Florida and I have a column due and

I'm thinking like my brain was just mush.

Like when you're sitting in
a hospital room time stops.

Like you can't think about anything
else but the task in front of you.

And I thought what am I gonna write about?

I need to turn something in.

And I was looking around, I'm
like, I'll just write about this.

This is what retirement and, this is
what it looks like in America these days.

Somebody's gotta take
care of somebody else.

And so I did.

And that first column was about, all
the information my mom had assembled

for me before she went and had surgery.

She had this like cheat sheet that she
put together, this one sheet of paper that

was just like absolutely essential to me
that had all of her pertinent information.

The healthcare, insurance coverage
information, her Medicare information,

all her doctors, all her conditions, all
her surgery, previous surgeries, all the

stuff you, as a 52-year-old woman at the
time that I did not know about my mother.

Because, like I knew all those
things about my own children, but

I didn't know them about my mother.

Like, what year was my
mother's appendectomy?

You know who knew I wasn't around?

So she had all that stuff
on a piece of paper.

So I wrote about that and I heard from
so many people after I wrote that column.

And so each time I went through
something with my mom that was

significant that I thought people
needed to hear about, or, that if I

was having a hard time with it, other
people were having a hard time with it.

And so I started to write about these.

I had the spine of my narrative
starting with those columns.

And then my mom got really sick, and
she went home on hospice and we had

about nine months of ups and downs.

And then she passed away.

And then I couldn't write any
more columns 'cause I couldn't

face, writing about that.

I, like I had been writing about
her illness for, a length of time.

And then it was like, okay, now
I'm gonna have to, if I write about

this again, I'm gonna have to write
a sentence that's like, I'm sorry

to have to tell you, but my mom has
passed away and I couldn't do it.

Candace Dellacona: Yeah, I think that
that's such a common emotion for so many

of us, where, we're sort of identified in
some ways as a defacto caregiver, whether

it's financial or otherwise, and filling
people in or even admitting to ourselves

that that part of our life is over.

But going back to what you said about
creating the spine of this book, you

know, the infrastructure of this book
with each of your articles, and for those

of us who are devotees of your work,
it's pretty easy to see how you came

up with a book from all of the subject
matters that you really were able to

attack and then translate for the rest
of us trying to make our way through.

I think what's so unique about this
book, Beth, is that you were a caregiver

for your mom, for her physical being
and her daughter and her advocate.

But you really talked about
and this book really became

caregiving in a financial sense.

And I think that that's
really unique about your book.

I don't think that there's another book
on the market that provides this depth.

Of exploratory and explanatory
information into someone else's finances.

We all play roles where the daughter
or the niece or the next door

neighbor who loves your elderly
neighbor and trying to look out.

So when you think about that list
that your mom started with, is that

where most of us in the middle, in
the sandwich generation, is that

where we should begin with our
aging parents asking them to start?

Beth Pinsker: Well, I think it actually
starts a little bit earlier than that.

Because what we needed most of all,
and this was like the second column

I wrote was the power of attorney
and the healthcare proxy and a lot

of people skip over this, and I
think it is the caregiver's, motive,

like the caregiver should be the
one motivated to get this done.

And what I have been telling people to
do and what I did it was as soon as my

father died, I said to my mother, you
need take care of a few things for me

because now I'm responsible for you.

Right.

My, my mom and dad were both alive.

They were responsible for each other.

But when my father died, my
mom became my responsibility.

If something happened to my mother,
they're gonna make a phone call,

somebody's gonna make a phone call,
and that phone call's gonna come to me.

And not just because I'm the daughter,
although that is usually what happens

in American families these days, or
families everywhere, I think is, the

core, I mean, some families have multiple
daughters and some families don't have

daughters at all, but there's always
somebody in the next generation and the

caregiving generation who is the doer.

The person who gets stuff done.

The person who assigns the
dishes at Thanksgiving.

The person who tells everybody what to
bring or where to go for the holidays.

That plans of vacations and that makes
the phone calls and connects everybody.

There's always that person no
matter what gender they are

in the family who is the doer.

It just happens that in, in many
families, that that is a daughter

and it's often the eldest daughter.

I happen to be the only daughter in
the family, and I have a brother but

I'm the one that gets stuff done.

And this is financial stuff, is my
expertise anyways, so, if my mom

needed facts about Abraham Lincoln
while she was sick, my brother

would've been fantastic at that.

Candace Dellacona: I wonder.

So that's interesting, but I wonder
what he does, but, going into,

Beth Pinsker: college professor

Candace Dellacona: well that, okay.

Beth Pinsker: Like, go find
a practical application for

that in a caregiving scenario.

So I can handle bills.

That's what I'm good at.

So I want caregivers out there, or
potential caregivers, the doers in

the family to like email everybody
that they are responsible for and

say, if you want me to be able to
help you, I need these two documents.

I need a power of attorney
and a healthcare proxy.

And I know in your business you
would never do a plan for somebody

or plan for a family that did
not include those two documents.

But there are people out there
practicing estate planning, who

will do a will for you and won't
and you come out of the process and

you don't have those two documents.

I don't understand how that happens.

And also, people go to their financial
planners and their financial planners

say, you should have a trust.

You should have a what a will,
you should have all these things.

And they leave out the power of
attorney and the healthcare proxy.

And, it's not like a standard part of the
package that you're necessarily getting.

And to me, the caregiver is
the one under deadline, right?

If somebody dies and you don't have
these documents, they're already dead.

And, you've got all the time in
the universe to settle everything.

But when somebody's sick,
everything's on a deadline.

Their mortgage still needs to be paid.

Their electric bill still needs to
be paid, that you need to keep up

on their life insurance and their
long-term care policy and all of these

things, and everything's on a deadline.

If you don't have the right paperwork
you're like hitting a brick wall.

Candace Dellacona: Yeah.

And thank you for bringing that up, Beth.

As an estate planning attorney by
trade, my first place is documents.

And I know that that's not everybody's
first place, but as you point out, and for

those who are unfamiliar with what those
documents are, a healthcare proxy and a

power of attorney are part of a category
of documents called advanced directives.

And the reason why they call them
advanced directives is because

it's your directive to say who's in
charge in advance of your incapacity.

So a healthcare proxy is
exactly what it sounds.

Some states call it a
healthcare power of attorney.

There are other states who
only have living wills, but in

essence they're the same thing.

It's appointing a person to speak for you
in the event that you cannot articulate

your wishes in a healthcare setting.

And a power of attorney is similar,
you're appointing a person to

make financial decisions for you.

So that's your person in the finance
world and the healthcare proxy or

your healthcare power of attorney is
your person in the healthcare world.

And I think one of the things that you
said is really important, Beth, because

you talked about when the first spouse
passed away, and I think you're right.

I think that kids think about these
things, or sandwich generation

members if you will, think about
these things almost a step too late.

You thinking about it and you having that
direct conversation with your mom when

your dad passed away was so smart and
it probably set you up for such success.

But, being a daughter and being a writer
and being somebody who's pragmatic,

how do you start that conversation in
a family that maybe doesn't talk about

such things for all sorts of reasons?

What's your best advice to our listeners
to have that conversation after

something happens to the first spouse?

Beth Pinsker: My best advice to people
is to ask your parents for their advice

because I found that the one universal
thing about the older generation is that

they like for people to ask their opinion
on things or to ask for their help.

And you get a lot further with older
people if you ask them for their help.

For instance when I was going, when
my father died slightly before that,

I had gotten my own estate plan done.

And I named my mother as the executor,
the trustee, all of those things for me.

So I had to go to her and say,
Hey I'm filling out all these

papers, I just got divorced.

And I don't wanna name my ex-husband as
the trustee on any of these documents.

I wanna name you.

What do you think about that?

Can you take care of that for me?

And you know what's been
your experience with this?

Have you ever done this for anybody else?

And, we had that conversation because
I made it about her helping me.

And so when it came time when my father
died, shortly after that, I was like,

okay, you know how you did that for me?

I wanna be able to do that for you.

You have all these documents you're
gonna have to fill out, just like

me as a divorce person, suddenly
single in the legal universe, you are

suddenly single in the legal universe.

You have to do the same thing
that I just did, so you know,

what are you gonna do about it?

And it made that conversation go better
because I asked her first to help

me before I offered my help to her.

Candace Dellacona: I love that
because I think what you did was

symbolize your action symbolized
that you appreciated her.

Respected her input and you weren't
trying to take control away.

And I think that oftentimes the
conversations with aging loved ones can

go awry because the conversation can
sort of devolve, if you will, into sort

of an accusatory situations saying that
you don't have the ability to do this

anymore, and I need to take that from you.

So, I love that, Beth, that you
reframed it and a and sought

that advice from your mom.

So even for those out there who
necessarily might not appoint their parent

as their agent under a healthcare proxy
or a power of attorney, seeking their

advice on appointing someone, I think
is a really beautiful way to, to do it.

And once you have those documents
in place, Beth, you've had the

first conversation with mom or
dad or your aging loved one.

You have that requisite authority.

What should the adult children do next?

How do they get into the nitty gritty
of the finances without having a parent

feel like you're interfering or prying,
especially when it comes to money.

Beth Pinsker: It can be difficult.

It think about it in terms of
the conversation you have to have

when a parent should no longer be
driving, taking away the car keys.

I like to, if you can
baby step it a little bit.

The analogy I like to use is that
all of this financial documentation

the power of attorney for financial
stuff and also the healthcare proxy

are like having a spare key to the
car or a spare key to the house.

Like you would never you would never
expect your neighbor who has your

spare key for emergencies to come
over and let themselves in at three

o'clock in the morning to make a
cup of coffee uninvited, right?

That key is there in
case you get locked out.

And so the really, the financial
powers that you give somebody

for emergency purposes should
really just be for emergencies.

They shouldn't be you shouldn't
necessarily need a family member

right away to come in and take over.

'Cause then like you're obviously
getting to it too late, right?

Like you should have those documents in
place at for emergency purposes, from the

time a person is 18 years old, like, I
have a power of attorney for my son who's

19 and we did it as soon as he turned 18.

Like this is just something an
adult human being needs to have

on hand in case of emergencies.

And so if you normalize it so that it's
just there in case you need it, then

you've already taken one little baby step.

Then when an emergency happens
usually there's some sort of

mistake that's happened, right?

In, in my book I have various examples.

In one family, the mom forgot
to take her required minimum

distribution one year 'cause she's
having some cognitive problems.

And so her son, and, it's a big mess
if you forget to take your required,

Candace Dellacona: Yeah, sure is.

Beth Pinsker: You, there are penalties.

You have to fill out paperwork and you
wanna make sure it doesn't happen again.

So her son was able to step in and say,
Hey mom, do you want some help with this?

I can help you.

I'm good at this stuff.

Other families, it's taxes.

In other families, it's a scam situation.

You realize that the adult family member
is somehow giving away money or getting

money scam from them, and they need to
have limited, more limited access to their

phone or to their, account disbursements.

Like you, you need to step in
and say, Hey, you just lost,

almost lost, hopefully $10,000.

Let's try to see what we can do to
make sure that doesn't happen again.

And sometimes taking away a phone
is like taking away the car keys.

If a parent is getting in trouble
because they have access to their

phone and they're answering scam phone
calls, or they're making transactions

on their phone, they're clicking on
links that they shouldn't, you know.

It's, it might be time to talk
about taking away the phone.

Candace Dellacona: So let's
talk about that a little bit.

'cause I did recently have a cybersecurity
expert on one of the past episodes.

And when these scams, that sort
of seep into our aging loved

one's lives are so sophisticated.

What is your best advice to those
sandwich generation members out there

that are looking to shield their
parents from falling victim to things

like that without taking away their
car keys slash phones o r freedom.

Do you have any advice?

Beth Pinsker: Yeah, no, I recently
had to talk a family member out

of a scam as it was happening.

Like he was on his phone with the scammers
and I called on his wife's phone and I'm

like, put them on hold and talk to me.

And I, he was literally convinced
he was dressed and ready to go

to the bank and take out cash.

The best way to forestall that is
to be a trusted contact on, certain

accounts like a brokerage account, life
insurance, that sort of account where

somebody at the institution can call
you if there are, the known red flags.

If my relative had gone over to the bank
and tried to withdraw $40,000 in cash,

some teller over at the bank should be
trained enough to say, why is this ill

80-year-old man trying to take out a
large amount of cash something is wrong.

And they if they see a trusted contact
on the account, they will call that

trusted contact and say, your loved
one is here, doesn't look well, and

they're trying to take out money in cash.

The brokerages in particular are trained
to listen to people's voices on phone

calls and say, if they're asking for
money in untraceable denominations of some

kind gift cards, money wire transfers,
stuff that can't be pulled back in

cases of fraud, they're supposed to call
the trusted contact if there is one.

Candace Dellacona: And so
you can add a trusted contact

to any account, right beth?

Beth Pinsker: Really any account.

On a bank account, if you are the
power of attorney on record with the

bank account, it acts in the same way.

But you can also then look in on
the bank account where the daily

transactions are taking place.

And, you can have the bank app
on your phone and you can check

what that parent is up to.

It's a little bit like spying.

It feels like it, but think about it
from the reverse, sandwich generation,

reverse parenting perspective.

Like I would never hand my 19-year-old
a credit card without teaching

him how to use it first, right?

And so the way you start out as
a parent doing that is you have

them as an authorized user on
your credit card, and then you

see what purchases they're making.

Then they get their own credit card
where you might be a joint signer on

the credit card and you, you look over
their bills with them and you make

sure that they're spending responsibly.

Same thing in reverse.

When somebody's 80 and they're
experiencing a little bit of cognitive

decline, because everybody is at
80, you wanna keep an eye on things.

Like you don't have to interfere
if nothing is going wrong, but

you can sort of spot check.

With my own mom, when I went to look
at her bills and her statements and

stuff like that, I saw that she was
giving away a lot of money to political

causes of her political denomination.

And she was on every mailing list and she
literally, whoever asked her for money,

she just gave them money and it wasn't
a great amount of money to each person.

It's not like she was giving
away thousands and tens of

thousands of dollars at a time.

Whoever asked her got $25, $50 and it
just added up to a bigger number than

I'm sure she was calculating in her head.

And the solicitations were just endless.

She had obviously triggered some mechanism
in the system that just constantly

asked her for money and she gave it.

And I thought, there's something
going wrong here, and I have to help

her moderate her impulse control.

Candace Dellacona: Yeah.

Yeah.

Beth Pinsker: In some way.

Candace Dellacona: And so, seeing
a change in spending, for example,

is definitely something that people
should look out for in terms of a red

flag, delaying on things like your
required minimum distributions that

could have pretty significant financial
consequences if you don't comply.

What are the other red flags, Beth as
a sandwich generation member from a

financial perspective that we should
look out for with our aging parents?

Beth Pinsker: Past due bills or just
the inability to manage incoming

and outgoing correspondence.

My mom had been showing warning
signs before her surgery that

we didn't know anything about.

And the biggest one was that she was
in the middle of a long-term care

long-term care insurance claim, right?

So she had a the home health aide that
was paid for through the long-term care

insurance, but she had to file receipts.

For that.

And the receipt filing process was like
the most tedious and onerous thing I've

ever encountered in my entire life.

And I don't blame her for not being
able to keep up on it, but she wasn't

telling us that she wasn't doing it.

And so with the long-term care claim,
in her particular circumstance,

if you lapsed the paperwork for
90 days, you went out of claim.

So when you go out of claim,
the consequence is that you

then owe them a premium.

Because when you're in claim, when you're
getting money from them, they don't

expect you to pay them the premiums.

And these premiums are
pretty steep, right?

One of the benefits of being in
the middle of a claim is that

you don't owe them any money.

They owe you money, but she had
stopped filling out the paperwork.

So suddenly when I got to her desk
after her surgery there was a past

due notice from the long-term care
and it was for almost $7,000, um,

that needed to be sent immediately.

They were very upset with this process
and, there was a trusted contact

and they had reached out to us.

It all happened simultaneously,
so at some point we would've

been notified like that week.

But we found out about
it that week anyway.

And so the average amount that a
caregiver spends out of pocket per

year according to AARP is about $7,200.

So in the first three weeks of
taking care of my mom, I had

to send down a check for 6,800.

And then, if you consider my
flight down there that was

my second flight down there.

So two flights, Ubers

Candace Dellacona: Meals.

Yeah.

Beth Pinsker: all of it.

I was over the yearly average in
a month of out-of-pocket spending.

Now, I was gonna get that
money back eventually.

But I had to write a check and like I
don't keep that much money around in

my checking account on a normal basis.

And I have my own expenses and my own
inflows and outflows, and it was hard

for me to put my hands on an extra,
seven grand on a moment's notice.

But I had to FedEx a check the next day.

And of course the money came back to me
like four months later, and it wasn't

FedEx to me, it was regular mail.

Candace Dellacona: course not.

Of course not.

Beth Pinsker: But you know, this
is what a caregiver has to do.

And like sandwich generation, like
I've got kids, I've got household

expenses, I've got my own life.

And, it's hard to juggle
that sort of thing going on.

And, that's to me what like the sandwich
generation pressures came mostly

financially from that sort of thing
where I had to put my time and my own

money on the table when that money
and time was needed elsewhere as well.

Both for my job and my life and my kids.

Candace Dellacona: And you bring
up an important point, Beth,

in that we can't do it all.

And there is sort of a day of
reckoning where you feel it,

or many days of reckoning.

And so you talk about your
brother not necessarily being

the doer in this situation.

How do you recommend a sibling like you
when you're the doer, how do you go to

your sibling and ask for help in a way
that they actually wanna provide it.

What's your best advice for
getting that extra assistance from

a sibling or someone else in the
family to help you carry the load?

Beth Pinsker: Yeah it really requires
communication and I know that some

families are not good about that.

My brother's very private and doesn't
like to be brought into things.

So I left him out of the
story mostly on purpose.

But we worked out a schedule
that worked for both of us.

I had a remote friendly job and he
doesn't but we worked out a schedule

so that he could go to visit my mom
at the times when he was available

and I could go when when he.

We just worked out a leapfrog schedule,
so we were never there at the same time.

'cause that would've created redundancies.

But he was there, as much as I was there.

And we were able to communicate
well enough with each

other to make that happen.

And the thing about a lot of siblings is,
from a lot of people, there's one sibling

in proximity and one sibling who has,
moved away and the sibling in proximity

gets stuck with a lot of the daily
tasks, and sometimes there's a sibling

that has money, and a sibling that's
nearby, and they're not the same person.

And then, so the sibling who
has money feels like the family,

ATM, like everybody's always
getting money from that person.

And, whenever there's an emergency,
they turn to that person and

that person then feels a little
alienated that, that they're only

good for whatever, they can pay for.

And it's difficult.

The only way through any of
these things is communication.

And the knowledge.

One of the things I was trying
to do with my book is tell people

when they had an obligation and
didn't have an obligation, right?

So there's no obligation, legally or
financially to support your aging parents.

You are not on the hook for any of this.

You're not on the hook for
their credit card debts.

You're not on the hook for
paying for their medical care.

You are not, required to pay
for a fancy nursing home.

You can outsource a lot of
the hands-on physical care.

The thing is that when it comes to
having that trusted person, that

trusted contact, the name you're
gonna put on all those documents,

it's hard to get outta that one.

Candace Dellacona: Yeah.

Beth Pinsker: I don't know, like
how many times have you seen it

in your practice that they put
some random third party stranger?

It's rare,

Candace Dellacona: It is rare.

It is rare.

I think you bring up an important
point, particularly with the

siblings and the communication part.

I think in every family we play a
role, fortunately or unfortunately,

and whether that role is of financial
support and that's what you're

known for or you're the doer.

I think it's really hard to
break out of those roles.

What I found in my practice,
particularly asking for help with

siblings is be specific in the request.

And share the fact that
you can't do it all.

You're also raising kids.

In your case, you were, a
full-time writer and a parent.

A single parent, and so you had
to have your brother pitch in, and

I'm thrilled to hear that he did.

I think in some families it's
incredibly difficult to cross

that bridge particularly if
siblings have been reluctant.

And that's why really asking specifically
for the things that you need and maybe

finding the skill that they're good at.

And that could be, doing long distance
bookkeeping and being the person in

charge of making sure bills are paid.

So thinking outside the box.

And before I let you go, Beth, one of
the things that I liked so much about

your book that I think is a really
important distinction that is lost on a

lot of people, even well-meaning people.

You called your book My Mother's Money.

And I think that for those of us
in this space, one of the hardest

things to get through to many
family members is that it's not your

money, it's your mother's money.

And so what is your best advice for
those of us who perhaps would not have

made the same choices that our parents
did from a financial perspective and

finding a way to respect their choices
while still caring for them in the best

possible way and respecting their agency.

Beth Pinsker: Yeah, it's really hard.

It's a really weird feeling and having
gone through it, I, I don't have all

the answers to the emotional part of it
because I'm still sorting through all

of that now that you know what, whatever
was left of my mom's money became my

money, and that still feels weird to me.

Because, especially 'cause my
mom was relatively, young for

an old person when she died.

And I would rather have had her
around to spend that money herself

than have it for me or to send
my kids to college or whatever.

But for my mom had been careful about
her finances for her whole life.

And so when I took over managing her daily
ins and outs, I wanted to respect that.

It was important to me to take
care of things the way that, that

she took care of things herself.

But I broke the rules a lot.

My mom didn't believe in online
banking, like many older people.

And there was just no way I could
function without online banking.

So I just did it and hoped
that she wasn't mad at me.

But there were things that I spent
money on that I know that she

would not have spent money on.

And then she was worried about spending
money on, and she was worried about

the money running out constantly.

And I think a lot of people have that
fear and that fear goes both ways.

Because I understood the mechanics
of the money, I knew how long

the money would last because I
was able to run those numbers.

And I think part of there's a
whole section of my book about

how to figure that part out.

And I think that if people had a more
realistic understanding of the financial

picture that they would make better
choices that would make everybody happier.

There would be less emergency selling
of houses and moving to lesser

facilities or getting less help.

I think there would be better care
for people if people were felt

free to spend the money and weren't
afraid that it was gonna run out.

'Cause in these circumstances
when somebody is sick, you have to

make the money last for less time.

And I think that's a reality
that some people don't wanna face

when they're going through it.

But, I knew my mom's money was
gonna last long enough for her

because she was really sick.

And the reality was is that, I
wasn't planning for 20 years.

I was planning for six months.

And so I knew that we could have
whatever she needed, even though she

was saying like, we can't afford all
these caregivers, we can't afford

for me to stay in this facility.

And I was like, no, we can.

What are you saving the money for?

That's what this money is for.

And I think if people understood.

The greater financial picture and
were able to run the numbers and got

some help with that when they needed
it, that the caregiving would be

better and everybody's needs would
be better suited because people

wouldn't be so afraid of running out.

Candace Dellacona: And that's why everyone
should buy Beth's book because she has

really provided all of us with the guide
that we need to figure out how to best

advocate for our parents from a financial
perspective, which leads to all of it,

the best care and how to make sure that
as we age our loved ones are cared for.

I think the other thing, Beth,
that you've done really well is you

have two kids and you've done an
incredible job of modeling for them

how best to advocate and to take care.

So bravo to you on that.

And really your book is truly the
resource that so many of us need.

We will have in our show notes how
to get it, but it's available at your

local bookstore on Amazon and any
online platform where you buy your book.

So thank you so much,
Beth, for joining us today.

Beth Pinsker: Thank you.

It was great to be here.

Candace Dellacona: Thanks.