The Lessons Learned from Caregiving

Broadcast Retirement Network's Jeffrey Snyder discusses the financial and emotional lessons learned from being a caregiver with Zoning & Planning Consultant Shane Grimm.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Shane, it's so great to see you. Thanks for joining us, my friend.

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

Thanks for having me, Jeff.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Always great to talk to you. And I think you have a very unique perspective because you're currently a caregiver to your mother. You were also a caregiver to your father, but you also run your own consulting business.

How do you balance the challenges of being a caregiver with the demands of running your own business?

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

Well, unfortunately, I had to leave my last job to be able to handle all of that and all the legal affairs of my parents. But having my own business allows me the time to work on the legal and personal affairs of my parents.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, and I mean, I would imagine emotionally, it's not only taking your time and you want, but also there has to be an emotional element to being a caregiver to both of your parents and now your mother.

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

Yes, it's very draining. It was a very challenging year last year, but I learned a lot from the experience, a lot of life experiences.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, so would you mind sharing with the audience some of the, you don't have to get too personal if you don't want to, but like, what are some of the things you took? You said you had to leave your previous job. You had a pretty prominent job in government and handle the affairs.

But what are some of the lessons maybe you took from stepping away and being with your parents?

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

I think one of the biggest lessons is as a society or a culture, we're not willing to talk about death and what death means and what that means emotionally and financially. It's unfortunate that we have to wrap finances up into death, but it is reality. So I learned a lot about what happens when people pass and the amount of work is necessary to deal with their affairs.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And I would imagine some of those things were like establishing an estate plan, making sure that the will espouse their wishes and other important financial matters, maybe even like a personal directive.

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

Correct. I think the most challenging thing though was trying to untangle a lot of the things that my parents had not really worked to consolidate like bank accounts and different investments and things like that. And that is one thing that I learned is that as adults or as parents, they really should be talking to their children or the person that will be handling their affairs.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, and were you able to have those conversations? So you said you kind of came into it, you had to make some organization out of the different bank accounts, the investment accounts, but were you able to have conversations with your mom and your dad in advance of kind of stepping into this role of caregiver?

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

Unfortunately, no. My father passed fairly quickly and it was just very awkward due to his condition to be able to have those conversations. And then my mother with dementia for about the last 10 years was not really able to handle those conversations or really be able to discuss those things.

So that made it particularly challenging, but having great legal counsel helped me to be able to untangle those things.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And you mentioned legal counsel, and again, I don't wanna get too personal, but how did you know to find the attorney? I would imagine you needed some power of attorney over, for example, your mother, because if she is suffering from dementia and having some cognitive issues, you would need to take control of, or at least have access to her accounts. How did you find, what was the first step in finding that attorney?

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

Well, I'm very lucky from my previous career in government, I worked with a lot of attorneys and an attorney that I used previously had my parents' will, and so we utilized him. And he also helped me because I was unable to get a power of attorney for my mother because she was not of sound mind to be able to sign a power of attorney. I had to go through the guardianship process through the courts.

Unfortunately, that is a very long and time-consuming process to get through, but I did eventually get through that and I have a guardianship power over my mother's affairs.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And you're one of three children, did you have to have conversations with your siblings to kind of, you talked about communication with your parents, but did you have to have some level of communication with your siblings?

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

Yes, and we've had those conversations and my brother was initially planning to be PR, but my brother is running a successful automotive business and he's not used to working with attorneys. So I willingly said that I would help with that since I deal with a lot of attorneys. And so they had to turn that power over to me through the courts.

And so I've been doing my father's estate work as well as my mother's guardianship.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Now, you mentioned the attorney, what about a financial advisor? So the attorney helps you with all the legal aspects of establishing the guardianship, maybe with the will and other aspects of that, but there's a financial element. Did you find a financial advisor to assist you with managing all these multiple bank accounts and investments that you were talking about earlier?

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

I did. One of the things that I found out is the courts are okay with you investing very, very conservatively because they understand the cost of a person with dementia or in care. So I found a financial planner through my attorney and we did make investments conservatively that have done fairly well to offset the costs of the care for my mother.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, and we've had a good conversation this morning, Shane. I mean, there's so much more to uncover here, but I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind taking maybe one minute and just summarizing some of the key takeaways from the conversation as you see it and have heard it this morning.

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

The key takeaways are, have those conversations with your parents early and often and make sure, especially if you're in the role of a power of attorney or PR for an estate, that you know where all of their documents are from social security cards to marriage certificates to driver's licenses and where all of their accounts are, their properties that they may own because it is imperative that you have those things or you'll be spending a lot of time and money on attorneys to try to untangle different elements of administering an estate or a guardianship.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, sounds like you need to get ahead of it before it actually happens and that's something you can, if you're watching this show now, you can do right now. Shane, always great to see you. Thanks for joining me and we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon, my friend.

Shane Grimm, Zoning and Planning Consultant & Caregiver

Thanks for having me, Jeff.