baby-boomer clients? Here are helpful financial resources for those taking care
of elderly parents, special-needs kids, and other family members.
Being a caregiver is a role that will fall to more and more of your
baby-boomer clients, a generation that is benefiting from having its parents
around longer because of advances in health care. As we have just celebrated
Father’s Day, it seems like an appropriate time to discuss some of the important
issues that caregiving children need to keep in mind.
A new survey by the Treasury Department finds that one in four Americans
define themselves as caregivers, with nearly eight in 10 providing two or more
hours a week of help to a parent, friend, or loved one.
In addition to providing care, many of those family members are also handling
their relatives’ finances. That task includes everything from making deposits at
the bank to paying bills and managing investments.
So the Treasury figures this is a good time to remind people of the benefits
of direct deposits for Social Security checks and Supplemental Security Income
(SSI) benefits. It seems a point almost too obvious to make. Yet last year more
than 480,000 Social Security checks were reported lost or stolen and had to be
reissued. And $64 million in Treasury checks were fraudulently endorsed! The
best way to limit seniors’ exposure to financial fraud is to sign up for direct
deposit of benefit checks by calling 800-333-1795 or going to the Go Direct website.
If a senior doesn’t have a bank account, the Treasury can credit his or her
benefits onto a prepaid MasterCard debit card, allowing the senior to make
purchases or withdraw cash from an ATM up to the amount of the federal benefits
that have been deposited on the card. The cards have the MasterCard
zero-liability guarantee for unauthorized purchases if they’re lost or stolen.
To learn more, go to Direct Express or
call 877-212-9991.
These simple but effective tools will safeguard seniors’ benefits from fraud
and inattention—and make caregiving a lot less stressful for all concerned.
Caregiving is multigenerational
While it seems obvious that one day most of your clients will be called on to
care for an elderly relative, let’s reverse the situation. What happens if you
have clients who are the parents of a special-needs child for whom they’ll need
to provide lifelong care?
The best guide I know of is Mary Anne Ehlert’s new book, The Gift I Was
Given. Ehlert is a nationally respected financial planner who has developed
a program to assist families with disabled children. The book tells the story of
how she and her family dealt with the challenges of her sister Marcia, who was
born with cerebral palsy. It is also the story of the anguish her parents felt
as they grew older and realized the difficulty of planning for their daughter’s
care after they were gone.
I won’t spoil the story, except to say that Marcia is the gift mentioned in
the title, as I learned when I interviewed Ehlert several years ago. Ehlert
continues to more than repay that gift by creating financial plans and teaching
her system to other planners. She has created strategies specifically designed
for the millions of parents dealing with children who will likely live long
lives with conditions like autism or physical handicaps.
This book contains checklists that help you assess needs and plan for
transitions. It guides you through setting up trusts that will not preclude the
family member from receiving government benefits and tells you how to deal with
insurance, income taxes, and investments designed to help the family member into
the future.
Ehlert’s financial planning website is Protected Tomorrows. There you can learn
more about her programs and order her book. It’s a wonderful gift for a
caregiver.
Fatherly advice
Investment guru Jim Rogers (author of Investment Biker: Around the World
With Jim Rogers, Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip and
A Bull in China) has written a small volume of pithy advice. In fact,
the title is almost longer than the book: A Gift to My Children: A Father’s
Lessons for Life and Investing.
In the book, Rogers blends advice to his two young daughters with investment
maxims. It’s a wonderful explanation of the lessons Rogers wants to pass on to
his family—and to your family.
Rogers explains why he and his wife are raising their daughters in
Singapore—and ensuring that they learn Mandarin! He uses his tales of traveling
around the world by motorcycle and car to illustrate his investment advice. His
simple but important instructions range from “Beware of all politicians,
everywhere!” to “Remember who you are, and stay with it.”
This book is so unusual and so skillfully blends personal morality and
investment wisdom that it’s a great demonstration of respect and love from one
generation to another. And that’s the Savage Truth.
appears as a commentator on national television on issues related to investing
and the financial markets.
