Ep 523: The Hidden Retirement Risk: What Happens To Your Money When You Can No Longer Manage It?

Summary

HerMoney with Jean Chatzky – Episode 523

The Hidden Retirement Risk: What Happens To Your Money When You Can No Longer Manage It?
Release Date: April 15, 2026
Host: Jean Chatzky
Guests: Dr. Chris High (Wealth Care Planning, LIMRA Retirement Income Institute), Erin Gilmore Smith (Head of Estate Planning, Edelman Financial Engines)

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Overview of the Episode

In this insightful episode, Jean Chatzky explores a critical yet often overlooked risk facing retirees: what happens to your finances when you’re no longer cognitively able to manage them? Jean is joined by Dr. Chris High, author of a new LIMRA research paper on health-related retirement risks, and Erin Gilmore Smith, estate planning expert. Together, they dissect cognitive decline and its intersection with financial management and estate planning, offering essential steps to safeguard your future and protect your family.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cognitive Decline: The Overlooked Retirement Risk

• Changing Risk Landscape (04:04–06:45)

  • Most retirement risk discussions focus on market, inflation, and taxes.
  • Chris High: Advances in medical technology mean people live longer and face long retirements—"Retirement’s gotten a lot longer and a lot more complex and that has really shifted the nature of risk that most older adults...are facing." (05:18)
  • The growing gap between "lifespan" (years lived) and "health span" (years living independently and well).

• Managing Money is Among First Skills to Slip (08:41–10:26)

  • Diminished executive function impacts financial decision-making early.
  • "There have been numerous studies...four, six, or even eight years before a diagnosis of dementia, we already start seeing financial mistakes." – Chris High (10:03)
  • Financial advisors may spot cognitive decline before doctors.

2. Estate Planning Beyond Death: Incapacity & Decision-Making

• Modern Estate Planning (06:59–07:54)

  • Erin Gilmore Smith: Focus has shifted from “who gets what when I’m gone?” to ensuring someone responsible can step in during incapacity.
  • Durable power of attorney doesn’t automatically go to spouse or kids—conscious choices must be made.

• Aging Together: When Your Kids Are Seniors Too (07:54–08:41, 26:23–27:33)

  • Considering if your children will still be capable of managing your affairs when you’re older.
  • Regularly revisiting the choice of agents and having backup or successor agents.

3. Warning Signs & Monitoring

• Executive Function and Financial Mistakes (08:41–11:10)

  • Early markers of declining decision-making include errors with credit cards, applications, and general money management.
  • Monitoring for these signs typically should start in the 60s.

• The Importance of a Team Approach (13:38–15:09, 31:08–32:53)

  • Erin: Set up "trusted contacts" at financial institutions.
  • Regular family meetings to introduce trusted contacts to your financial professionals and prepare them ahead of time.
  • "Do everybody a favor and bring them in a little before you think you need to." (14:33)

4. Essential Documents and Practicalities

• Key Legal Documents (15:50–19:54, 33:20–33:34)

  • Durable Power of Attorney (for finances)
  • Healthcare Power of Attorney & HIPAA Authorizations (to ensure decision-makers can also access needed information)
  • Living Will, Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) Orders
  • "Go ahead and get yourself a last will and testament. Once you have those basics in place, you can build from there." – Erin (33:28)

• Practical Tips for Multi-State or Multi-Institution Planning (17:04–18:27)

  • Each financial institution or medical provider may require their own forms.
  • Erin: "Just sign it. Get it on file…Because it's really tough. When someone has to use those documents, they need to use them." (17:33)

5. Special Concerns for Women

• Women Are Hit Hardest (23:22–26:02)
  • Women outlive men and are at slightly higher risk for dementia.
  • Often, husbands manage investments, leaving widows disadvantaged. "The average widow outlives her husband by 12 years." – Chris (23:46)
  • Need for women to be involved in financial advisor meetings and planning.
  • Single, childless, or unsupported women need to build intentional support networks ahead of time.

6. Protected Income as “Cognitive Insurance”

• Autopilot Reduces Risk (27:33–29:54)
  • Setting up protected, reliable income streams (like annuities or pensions) minimizes bad decisions later.
  • Chris: "Anytime that you're going into your bank account, going into your investment account, there's an opportunity to...make a really bad decision." (29:25)
  • Example: An elderly man sold all mutual funds for a single stock on impulse.

7. Family Involvement and Education

• Gradually introduce adult children or trusted contacts to your financial team.
• Don’t wait for a crisis to have these conversations or to bring in those who might have to act.

8. First Steps if You Haven’t Planned

• Erin: Establish core documents: Durable POA, healthcare POA with HIPAA, and a will. (33:20)
• Chris: Start forming your "financial wellness team" including professionals, family, and trusted friends—"it's almost never too early to start that process." (33:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On cognitive decline and finances:

• "Sound financial decision making is one of the first skills to decline...four, six, or even eight years before a diagnosis of dementia, we already start seeing financial mistakes." – Dr. Chris High (10:03)

On designating decision-makers:

• "Durable power of attorney...doesn't automatically pass to a spouse, it doesn't automatically pass to kids." – Erin Gilmore Smith (07:11)

On team preparation:

• "Do everybody a favor and bring them in a little before you think you need to." – Erin Gilmore Smith (14:33)

On gender disparities:

• "My mother outlived my father for almost 25 years. And then it can be especially difficult...she was scrambling, calling, you know, lawyers, and this is a time when her dad's, like, in hospice care or close to it." – Dr. Chris High (18:57 / 23:47)

On “cognitive insurance”:

• "What protected income does is kind of reduces that cognitive load...I like to call it's almost like cognitive insurance." – Dr. Chris High (01:05, 29:53)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 03:48–04:30 – Introduction of the unique retirement risk (cognitive decline)
• 06:45–08:41 – Lifespan vs. health span and the reality for aging Americans
• 10:03–11:10 – Financial mistakes as early warning of cognitive issues
• 13:38–15:09 – Setting up trusted contacts and bringing in your team early
• 15:50–19:54 – Practical estate planning documents and tips
• 23:22–26:02 – Why women are at higher risk and need special planning
• 27:33–29:54 – Protected income as a safeguard against bad financial decisions
• 31:08–32:53 – When and how to bring family into financial planning
• 33:20–34:01 – First steps for listeners who haven’t started planning

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Final Thoughts

The episode is a wake-up call, especially for women and their families, to prioritize planning for the possibility—not just the possibility but the likelihood—of periods when decision-making becomes difficult. Jean and her guests advocate for upfront, proactive conversations, layered legal safeguards, and introducing trusted family or professionals early. The advice is straightforward and compassionate, empowering listeners to "get your ducks in a row" before crisis hits.

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For additional resources and a recap of actionable steps, listeners are encouraged to visit LimraConsumer.com or check out the episode show notes.

Transcript

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[C]

But unfortunately for many of us, as we get older, our executive functions starts to deteriorate. One of the first areas that shows up is in sound financial decision making. And there have been numerous studies now that suggest that, you know, four, six or even eight years before a diagnosis of dementia, we already start seeing financial mistakes. So what protected income does is kind of reduces that cognitive load. And what I like to call it's almost like cognitive insurance. Like it helps protect you from making bad decisions in the sense that you have fewer to make and you have fewer opportunities to go in and start messing around with things that you shouldn't be messing around with.

[A]

Hey everyone. Welcome to Her Money. I'm Jean Chatzky. You have done the hard work of planning for retirement. You've saved, you've invested, you've mapped out your Social Security strategy. But there's one risk that often gets overlooked and it has nothing to do with the markets. It's a risk that at some point, managing your money may simply become too difficult. A new research paper from Limra highlights a growing reality. Health risks are becoming a major factor in retirement security. And one of the most significant is cognitive decline. It's more common than many of us realize. Nearly 30% of adults over age 65 are experiencing some level of diminished cognitive capacity. And that can be everything from mild impairment to full blown dementia. And here's the part that should get your attention. Managing money is often one of the very first skills to decline. And yet many of us don't plan for that moment. Today on a special episode of Her Money Sponsored by Limra. We're talking about what happens when financial decision making starts to slip and what you can do right now to protect yourself. Joining us today is Dr. Chris High, founder and CEO of Wealth Care Planning and Wealth Care Solutions and Alimra Retirement Income Institute Fellow. He's the author of the research paper we're talking about today and is going to walk us through what we need to understand about cognitive decline and how it intersects with financial risk. We're also joined by Erin Gilmore Smith. She is head of estate planning for Edelman Financial Engines. Erin has spent nearly two decades helping families and individuals protect and transfer their wealth and she's going to walk us through how to safeguard our future selves. Everything from putting the right legal, legal documents in place to making sure that someone you can trust steps in when you need them the most. Chris, Erin, great to see you both. Welcome to the show.

[B]

Thank you. Great to be here.

[C]

Hi, Jean. Thanks for having me.

[A]

Absolutely. Chris, let me start with you. Your research, at least this particular piece of research shifts the conversation around retirement risk. Typically we focus on things like markets and inflation and taxes, but you argue that health related risks are becoming just as important. Why is that? And what has changed in the landscape that makes it so?

[C]

Well, as you know, retirement is changing very rapidly. You know, a generation or two ago, retirement was often short or didn't really exist. The way we think about it today, people work longer, live shorter lives and just face fewer decisions. And if you go back 50 years or so, you know, there weren't a lot of medical treatment options or they were much simpler and cheaper. You know, if you had a heart issue or arthritis, you took aspirin and you know, if you had diabetes, you took insulin, if you had cancer, maybe radiation therapy. So now we have these incredible therapies that could extend and improve life, but they're gotten really, really expensive. And so in many ways, the same advances that are keeping us alive longer are also increasing the financial burden and the risk. So in short, many of us today may be spending 20 or 30 years in retirement while managing rising healthcare costs, long term care needs, and a very much more complex financial system. Retirement's gotten a lot longer and a lot more complex and that has really shifted the nature of risk that most older adults in the US Are facing.

[A]

The paper talks about two different spans. It talks about life span, but it also talks about health span. What's the difference and why does the gap between them matter so much when it comes to money?

[C]

Yeah, it's a great question. So Lifespan, I think we all know it's how long you're going to live. Health span is how long you're going to live and still be relatively healthy. And for many of us, there's a gap. And for a variety of reasons, that gap is longer in the United States than it is in a lot of other developed countries. So our lifespan has been increasing. A lot of the reasons for that increase is we've gotten much better at preventing birth rate deaths, and we've gotten better at sort of managing chronic illnesses like diabetes, even cancer, heart issues. So we can keep people alive longer, but we probably have a little ways to go in keeping them both alive and really healthy. So what ends up happening for many people live, you know, three, five, ten years of their lives, they're still living, but they're often in poor health, and they often need a lot of help managing the activities of daily living.

[A]

I've experienced that with some of the older people in my own life, and it's very, very difficult to watch. Erin, these changes that Chris is describing, how have they shifted the landscape when it comes to your work?

[B]

For so many years, people thought about estate planning as, what happens when I'm gone? Who's going to be my executor? Who's going to kind of handle everything when I'm gone? Who gets what? Who are my beneficiaries? But as we're aging, those incapacitation documents become even more important. So something like a durable power of attorney, which is the document where you're naming someone to make financial decisions on your behalf, that doesn't automatically pass to a spouse, it doesn't automatically pass to kids. And so as we get older and as we think about who should that person be making those financial decisions? For me, that choice also becomes very important. If you're 50, you're 55, your kids are in their 20s. Maybe it makes sense that it's your kids. As we all get older, and if we're into our 90s and our kids are into their 70s, does that still make sense at that point?

[A]

Wow. That is a part of the curve that I don't think I even have processed until this point, that your kids actually might be too old to be your durable power of attorney, that is definitely something to chew on. And the reason for that, I'm sure, comes back to that issue of cognitive decline. Chris, your paper mentions and other research has mentioned that one of the first places we are likely to see cognitive decline is in managing our money. Why is that? And are there specific financial Behaviors or patterns that we should be watching out for.

[C]

Yes, there have been several studies now that suggest that sound financial decision making is one of the first skills to decline. One of the things that really shaped how I think about this comes from clinical research that I participated in at Mass General Hospital. I helped design and analyze a study that tried to better understand these relationships between cognitive impairment, aging, and financial decision making. And what we found is what seems to be a key driver of sound financial decision making is what psychiatrists and neurologists call executive function. And so executive function is the type of thing that helps you plan, stay organized, connect the dots. And when you think about it, that really describes financial decision making, especially retirement decision making, the ability to plan, to connect the dots. But unfortunately for many of us, as we get older, our executive functions is, starts to deteriorate. And so that means that our ability to do things like planning and connecting the dots declines, and our ability to control impulses also tends to go away. So again, one of the first areas that shows up is in sound financial decision making. And there have been numerous studies now that suggest that, you know, four, six, or even eight years before a diagnosis of dementia, we already start seeing financial mistakes, you know, mistakes in credit card applications or other types of financial mistakes that already start to affect our balance. It's really something that fortunately, we're taking a better look at. But basically what that means is that financial professionals are really on the front lines of all this. I mean, they may notice signs of cognitive decline before a client's doctor.

[A]

So interesting. It makes me wonder at what age we need to start looking at these things. And if there's, I mean, is it 50, is it 60? When do you start to see these things show up?

[C]

Usually they don't start to show up in the, in the 60s, although I've unfortunately had a friend and know of other friends who started almost earlier. But certainly by time someone's in their 60s and certainly by time their 70s, their evidence suggests that, you know, the decline really starts to pick up by time someone reaches their early to mid-70s. So certainly by the 60s, you should start being monitored more closely and be a little more vigilant about looking for these signs.

[A]

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[B]

No, personally, I don't think there is. And a lot of it also is within stages. With most financial institutions, you're able to set up something called a trusted contact. So if you were a financial advisor, it's just seeing some odd things happening and they're not able to get a hold of you. Can they call your spouse? Can they call your child? Can they call your pastor? To say, this seems odd to me. Is there something that we can do? I can't get a hold of the client or I'm getting a hold of the client and just they don't seem like themselves. You might want to check on them. And I think there's also something to be said for bringing in those trusted people into your Life that power of attorney before you need them, especially if you have a complex financial situation. Bring that person in before all of a sudden they have to have a crash course because something's happened to you. So whether this is something that you have, you know, a family meeting once a year with your power of attorney and say, all right, let's go over where all these accounts are. Let me introduce you to my financial planner. Let me introduce you to my accountant, to my attorney. So you know where these people are. Let me make sure that you know where my usernames and passwords are. So if you do need to access something, it's there, rather than someone having to do a crash course, which you know that's just going to lead to, very likely could possibly lead to errors, even aside from any cognition. So do everybody a favor and bring them in a little before you think you need to.

[A]

I always fall back on what I've heard is something called the 4070 rule about when to talk to people in your family about this. If you, as the child hit the age of 40 or your parents hit the age of 70 and you haven't had this conversation yet, it is beyond pastime, but maybe we should reduce those ages based on all of the information that we're getting today. Erin, you mentioned a durable power of attorney. You mentioned a trusted contact. What are the other important pieces of an estate plan that everybody needs to have in order to protect themselves in case they can no longer make decisions or.

[B]

One of the biggest ones to have is also a healthcare power of attorney. So we, you know, we're talking about durable powers of attorney and finances, and Chris is talking about cognitive declines. It can lead to financial mistakes. But if you also have a cognitive decline, you might reach the point where you need someone to make healthcare decisions for you and you want to be thinking about who is the best person to be doing that. Who in your life is really good with healthcare. They're going to answer the phone of the emergency room calls. They can do that organization. That is vitally important as well. It's also very important that in addition to the healthcare power of attorney, that you also have a HIPAA authorization. So a lot of folks don't realize that just because the state where you live says that you can sign a healthcare power of attorney naming someone to make healthcare decisions for you, federal law says that that person is not entitled to your healthcare information. Healthcare information includes knowing if you're in an emergency room or another healthcare facility. So you have to have that companion document as well. So it's not just a financial power of attorney, it's also the healthcare power of attorney piece.

[A]

If you live in several different states or if you work with different financial institutions, do you need specific forms that apply to those states, those institutions? Maybe this is just horror stories run amok, but I've heard people talking about how one form might not be accepted.

[B]

There's a legal answer and there's a practical answer.

[A]

Give me the practical answer.

[B]

Give me. The practical answer is fill out the form that your financial institution asks for. So if you call your financial planner and you say, oh, here's my power of attorney, I want to make sure it's on file. And if your financial institution sends you back their form, go ahead and sign it. Just sign it. Get it on file. If your bank does that, go ahead and get that on file. If you go to your doctor's office and you present them with your healthcare power of attorney, and they say, oh, we need our assigned, too. Just do it. Just get that done and get it done before you need it. Because it's really tough. When someone has to use those documents, they need to use them. If your child is doing this or your spouse, they need to use those documents. They don't want to go through the red tape of getting that institution's forms and trying to fight and say, no, the state law says I'm legally permitted to do this. Just get everything done ahead of time.

[A]

Yeah, no, it's such good and important advice. Chris, I'm wondering, in your work, what you've seen happen. What are the ramifications if people don't check the boxes that Erin is talking about?

[C]

Yeah, I think Aaron's suggestions were great. The other documents I might recommend, related documents, are something like a living will or a DNR that do not resuscitate. I mean, I was recently kind of helping a family. I know the kids, and the father was very ill. And first thing I asked, I said, do you have a healthcare proxy? I asked one of the kids, do you have a healthcare proxy? I don't know. Do you have a dnr? I don't know. Do you have a living will? I don't know. And she was scrambling, calling, you know, lawyers, and this is a time when her dad's, like, in hospice care or close to it. And I think you don't want to be doing all this stuff at the last minute during an emergency. It's the last thing you want to do. If you have a parent who's sick, you want to be by their bedside. You know, helping them out, not being on the phone all day talking to attorneys. So I would, I would just mention those two other documents as important because you don't know. I mean, there's a lot of ways now we can keep people living, but you know, many of us don't want to. And it can get really expensive. You can throw away tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in a very short period of time just to help someone stay alive another week or two. And a lot of families would prefer not to do that. But you need to have that written document stating that's what your intentions are.

[A]

Such good and important advice. We're going to take a very quick break. When we come back, we're going to dig into why and how this is a different and in some ways, I think more important story for women when planning for potential cognitive decline. We'll be back in just a sec. As someone who loves to cook, I've always been particular about where my protein comes from. I seek out the good stuff, the butcher counter, the farmer's market, because I believe quality ingredients make all the difference. But honestly, with all my travel lately, that takes time that I don't always have. That's where Omaha steaks has been a genuine revelation for me. My husband asked me to make him the steak diane that his mother used to make him. I did. It was delish and you could taste that. It's a real quality standard that shows up on the plate. What I love most is that I always have something exceptional to work with, whether it's a quick weeknight dinner or a weekend dinner party. Get flavorful high quality proteins delivered by visiting OmahaSteaks.com, +/35 off when you use promo code hermoney at checkout. That's omahasteaks.com code hermoney terms apply. See site for details. You know that feeling when you've tried everything, the diets, the early morning workouts, telling yourself this time will be different and the scale still won't budge. Or worse, you lose the weight and then watch it slowly creep back. It is so frustrating. And honestly, it's not a willpower problem for a lot of. Well, it's biology. Which is why I want to tell you about weight loss by hers. Hers now offers access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP1 medications. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers hermoney to get personalized affordable care that gets you. That's f O r h e r-s.com hermoney for hers.com hermoney Weight loss by hers is not available in all 50 states. WeGovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk. As to get started and learn more, including important safety information, WeGovy clinical study information and restrictions, visit forhers.com welcome back. I am talking with Dr. Chris High and Erin Gilmore Smith. We're talking about estate planning and how you need to and when you need to get all of your ducks in a row so that if trouble hits, you're not blindsided. You have all the pieces that you need in place so that the family can make the decisions that need to be made. Women make up a disproportionate share of those people impacted by dementia, Chris. They also are by far the greater victims of the financial fallout. We, of course, also tend to outlive our spouses. What is it that you think women should be thinking about in particular? And Chris, I'll throw this one to you first, but Erin, I'd love to hear what you say as well.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, as you know, women tend to live longer than men. It appears they're also slightly more susceptible to getting dementia. I mean, part of the reason that more women have dementia is because they live longer. Right. But there does seem to be some evidence that they're more susceptible than men are. And I saw some other statistics that the average widow outlives her husband by 12 years.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

My mother outlived my father for almost 25 years. And then it can be especially difficult. And fortunately it's changing, but certainly with my parents generation, my mother paid the bills, but my dad did all the financial management. He did all the investment. He was the chief financial officer. And so when he died, you know, mom's like, you know, where I don't know where the accounts are, I don't know where the money is. And it took us a long time to figure all that stuff out. So I think, you know, there is this additional burden that a lot of women face, and it's something that we really need to spend much more attention on in both financial professionals and educators on understanding that millions of women are going to be going through this process in the next few years, and we really need to do more to help them out.

[A]

Erin, as you talk to women in your practice, do you approach the puzzle any differently for women than you do for men?

[B]

I do. And Chris brought up a good point, which is a lot of women are writing the bills, but they're not really managing the accounts. They're not really meeting with the financial advisors. You absolutely need to do that you need to be at those meetings, you need to meet the advisors, you need to have an idea. But beyond that, men just always assume that the wives are going to take care of everything if they get sick, you know, because women live longer if, goodness forbid, the wife passes away before you do. Many men remarry. Women aren't necessarily doing that. They're not necessarily going to remarry. And it becomes, all right, if my spouse isn't there, who is it that should be making these financial decisions for me? And they're often defaulting to kids. Well, not everybody has children or not everyone has children who have the ability to do this either by desire or just by capacity. And then it becomes, do I need to be building that community around me? And if you need to be building that community, you can't do it when you need it. You gotta have a Runway ahead of you in order to do that. And so I think for women, because women are living longer, there is a more complicated situation there. You've got to plan a little bit more. You've really got to be thinking through those people.

[A]

You said something at the top of the show that clearly blew my mind a little bit when you pointed out that there may come a point, if you're 90 and your kids are 70, where your kids should potentially no longer be making the healthcare decisions on your behalf. How do you know if you've hit that point? And how do you have that conversation with your child?

[B]

So what I always like to do is when you're looking at a power of attorney, we always say, have a first choice, have a backup. You can have as many backups in there as you'd like to. So some people will name their child, and then behind their child, their name, a grandchild. And, you know, sometimes that works really well. And child can say, all right, I'm feeling that I'm a little overwhelmed here between my own life and mom. And so, child, can you step in and take over? You know, if you. If you're in. In your 90s and you're still pretty much together, but you just think that maybe your child's not in the best position, you can always change your power of attorney and name your grandchild to do that. Those are always awkward family conversations, but, you know, you kind of need to do what's. What's best for you and your kids, but they're not easy conversations to have, but they're necessary to have. And so you also have to do a little bit of advanced planning and just a little bit of of thinking ahead. And it also depends on the family. You know, I'm sure, as Chris can say, there's a lot of really sharp 78 year olds out there and there are some folks who are 61 who aren't doing so hot for lots of different reasons. So there's not one right answer other than you need to think it through.

[A]

Chris, in your, in your research paper you talk about protected income as a way to mitigate health related costs and uncertainty. Can you explain the logic behind that? How does having a reliable income stream safeguard somebody who might impact some form of cognitive decline?

[C]

Yeah, well, as we're talking about this, you know, I think sort of common theme is the importance of making good decisions and how increasingly that that importance is growing now because we're living longer and things are getting more complex. So once you start losing that ability to make good decisions, you know, a lot of bad stuff can happen. And I've seen it. So one nice thing about having protected income is you don't have to. It reduces the number of decisions you have to make. You can put certain things on autopilot, and that's always a suggestion that I make to older adults and their families is put as many things on sort of safe autopilot. I want to emphasize safe autopilot as possible, like paying the bills. But I had this horrible experience with a relative. It was a man in his, I guess he was in his early 80s at the time. He literally, Harvard Business School graduate, was the first person to tell me about index funds and John Bogle. And it was getting towards the end of his life. He didn't have dementia, but he had a very serious heart condition and he was extremely anxious about it. That's another whole subject is you don't have to have cognitive decline to be making bad decisions. This example is, was getting very emotional and at one point, one of his daughters went in to check his accounts and found that he'd sold all these Vanguard index funds and bought Netflix one stock. I think it was like over a million dollars. Unfortunately, Netflix went up.

[A]

Netflix has done incredibly well.

[C]

But basically anytime that you're going into your bank account, going into your investment account, there's an opportunity to do something really bad and make a really bad decision. So what protected income does is kind of reduces that cognitive load. And what I like to call, it's almost like cognitive insurance. Like it helps protect you from making bad decisions in the sense that you have fewer to make and you have fewer opportunities to go in and start messing around with things that you shouldn't be messing around with.

[A]

I think that's a great point, and I've actually seen it work the other way. A friend of mine had parents who were both getting older. His father was very unwell and was worried about what was gonna happen to his mother when he passed away because her default was to shop impulsively. And so he actually put a lot of the family money into protected income just to protect her so that there would just be a consistent paycheck and she wouldn't be able to dig herself into a jam, which turned out to be a really good decision because spent through the assets that were not protected in a very short period of time. So I think you have to, in some ways, know your audience. It makes me wonder, Erin, when do you believe that families should start making the meetings with the financial advisor more of a family affair? When do you start incorporating, if you're comfortable, the next generation into those meetings so that there are more eyes on the money?

[B]

That's a great question. And the answer is it doesn't have to be all at once. So you're in your early 60s. Make sure your kids know who your financial advisor is. Make sure they've had the introduction. That way, in case you're hit by a bus, your children know who to call. And then at some point when also your children are in a position where they're understanding this too. So if you're wanting to bring your children to meetings and they need to brush up on their own skills, that can be a good opportunity to have some limited interactions. Let your financial planner educate your kids a little bit and then start to have those meetings when it's, again, just for education. Like kids, we're not asking for your okay. We just want you to kind of know what's going on. And the nice thing with having a financial advisor is, to Chris's point, your financial advisor. If you call up your advisor and you say, I want to put everything in Netflix, he or she is probably going to take a pause and want to have some deeper conversations. So if you're a DIYer, maybe at some point you don't need to be a DIYer anymore. You know, you did great with building that wealth on your own and now maybe protecting that wealth and is some layers of protection, whether it's bringing the kids in, it's bringing in a financial advisor. But yeah, the kids don't need to be in every single meeting with your advisor, especially if you're feeling comfortable with things. But build the base, but build that foundation because the first meeting that your kids have with your advisor, you don't want it to be cause something really bad happened. Mom just got the dementia diagnosis. You need to have it before because that's such a stressful time. And then when you add money into it, it also becomes a stressful moment. And then also if the kids didn't know how much money he had before, that doesn't help.

[A]

Right? Right. Absolutely. A good offense in this case, I think makes great sense. We're going to wrap things up here. But I want to ask you both one more question. If somebody's listening to this and they're thinking, oh man, I have not done nearly enough, or maybe I haven't done any planning in this regard, what's their first step from this point? And Erin, let me start with you.

[B]

From an estate planning perspective, you need the basics. You need to have a durable power of attorney, need to have a healthcare power of attorney with a hipaa. And go ahead and get yourself a last will and testament. Once you have those basics in place, you can build from there.

[C]

And Chris, yeah, I would say relatedly, I really like to stress the importance of starting to put that team together. I like to call it your financial wellness team. So start figuring out, you know, and this can be both professionals, family members, trusted friends, but start putting together the team that you can start relying on to make decisions and maybe even start delegating those decisions. And Taryn's point, it's almost never too early to start that process.

[A]

Chris, Erin, thank you so much for being here. I've definitely learned some things.

[B]

Thank you, Gene.

[C]

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

[A]

If you are looking for more tips and tools to prepare for retirement and protect your nest egg, you can visit Limra's [e-mail] and be sure to check out our show notes. We are sharing a special resource from Limra that recaps the steps that you can take to safeguard your retirement from cognitive decline. And before we go, if you love today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means the world to me, but it also helps other women find the show. And if you're ready to grow your investing skills and make smarter decisions with your money, come join Investing Fix, our twice monthly Women Only investing club. Expert stock pickers bring ideas to the table and together we help build a portfolio. Since launching four years ago, we've built a strong track record and more importantly, a community of women who are learning and winning together. Tap the link in the show notes to check out Investing Fix today. Your first two classes are always free. Her money is produced by Hayley Pascalides and our music is provided by Video Helper. Thanks for listening and we'll talk soon.