1857: Ask Farnoosh: Affording My Parents' Care with Georgia Lee Hussey

Summary

So Money with Farnoosh Torabi

Episode: 1857: Ask Farnoosh: Affording My Parents' Care with Georgia Lee Hussey
Release Date: July 25, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 1857 of So Money with Farnoosh Torabi, host Farnoosh Torabi engages in a heartfelt and informative discussion with Georgia Lee Hussey, founder of Modernist Financial. The episode delves into the pressing issue of affording elder care, a challenge that resonates with many multi-generational families today. Georgia brings her expertise to shed light on the financial strains of supporting aging parents, especially in the absence of sufficient retirement savings.

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The Growing Challenge of Elder Care

Farnoosh Khorasani introduces the topic by referencing a recent New York Times article that highlights the struggles of multi-generational families in managing the escalating costs of elder care. She notes, "What's striking is this, even Georgia's wealthier clients are struggling with this, which tells you, I think, just how far financially intense elder care has become" ([02:47]).

Georgia Lee Hussey expands on this, explaining that many of her clients, who are affluent with investable assets ranging from $3 to $10 million, still face challenges in funding long-term care for their parents. She emphasizes the complexity by stating, "These ideas of the American dream paired with increasing longevity, sandwich generation, having children later in life, and the political landscape make this question incredibly important and hard to talk about" ([13:54]).

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Understanding the Financial Strain

The conversation delves into why many are unprepared for the financial demands of elder care:

• Retirement Savings Shortfalls: Many aging parents did not save adequately for retirement, relying heavily on Social Security and insufficient retirement accounts.

• Rising Healthcare Costs: The cost of long-term care is exorbitant, often ranging from $6,000 to $25,000 per month after taxes, which is unattainable for most without significant assets.

Georgia highlights the emotional and financial toll by sharing, "Having somebody around 24/7 to take care of basic needs is just expensive" ([14:33]).

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Solutions and Strategies

1. Estate Planning and Medicaid Qualification

Georgia emphasizes the importance of professional estate planning to qualify for Medicaid. She advises hiring a lawyer to navigate the complex requirements of spend-down strategies, ensuring parents can access necessary care without depleting their assets entirely.

“You need to hire a lawyer to prepare your parent’s estate plan to be able to qualify for Medicaid when they run out of money.” ([23:13])

2. Reverse Mortgages

The discussion covers the pros and cons of reverse mortgages as a potential solution:

• Pros: Provides a line of credit based on home equity, which can be a lifeline for those without sufficient liquid assets.

• Cons: Interest can erode home equity over time, potentially forcing a sale of the property and leaving little to no inheritance for heirs.

Georgia cautions, "Reverse mortgages can get upside down very quickly if you're holding one for a long period of time." ([30:18])

3. Long-Term Care Insurance

Long-term care insurance is explored, with Georgia noting its diminishing viability in the current market due to high costs and reduced offerings:

"The long-term care insurance market has gotten very small... If you do not have enough income and you need to spend your house, a reverse mortgage might be used." ([32:53])

4. Giving Parents Financial Autonomy

Georgia suggests gifting financial planning services to parents to empower them with knowledge and autonomy over their finances:

“Give the gift of financial planning to that parent to hire a fee-only retainer-based financial planner... help your parent have autonomy and agency.” ([28:11])

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Emotional and Social Considerations

The episode also touches on the emotional impact of caregiving and the shift towards more interconnected living arrangements:

• Emotional Strain: Caring for an aging parent can lead to significant emotional stress, including feelings of loneliness and the burden of caregiving responsibilities.

• Intergenerational Living: While financially challenging, multi-generational households can offer emotional support and shared resources.

Georgia reflects, "They can't kick you out. But then you have a surviving spouse... it's very hard emotionally." ([31:52])

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Current Financial Landscape and Future Outlook

Farnoosh and Georgia discuss the broader financial environment, including recent tax changes and their implications:

• Tax Breaks and Inequality: A recent tax bill provides breaks primarily benefiting the wealthy, exacerbating challenges for the working poor.

• Stock Market Insights: Georgia remains optimistic about the stock market's trajectory, advocating for diversified investments like the Russell 3000 index to mitigate risks.

Georgia advises, "Don't guess and just buy the whole market. International, emerging... The Russell 3000 is well-diversified. Just buy it all." ([38:17])

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Key Takeaways and Recommendations

1. Proactive Financial Planning: Engage financial planners early to create comprehensive strategies for elder care.

2. Legal Assistance: Invest in professional legal services to navigate Medicaid and estate planning effectively.

3. Evaluate Housing Options: Consider the implications of reverse mortgages and the long-term sustainability of home equity.

4. Long-Term Care Insurance Caution: Assess the viability of long-term care insurance given current market trends.

5. Invest Wisely: Diversify investments to ensure financial stability amidst market fluctuations.

6. Support Systems: Foster open communication within families to address financial and emotional challenges collectively.

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Conclusion

Episode 1857 provides a profound exploration of the financial and emotional complexities surrounding elder care. Georgia Lee Hussey offers actionable insights and compassionate guidance, emphasizing the need for strategic planning and professional support. Farnoosh Torabi underscores the importance of addressing these issues head-on, advocating for solutions that balance financial prudence with familial obligations. This episode serves as a valuable resource for listeners navigating the intricate landscape of supporting aging parents in today's economic climate.

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Notable Quotes:

• "If you’re on the side that wants to make sure that people with less are taken care of... think about where you’re going to put that money and donate it." – Georgia Lee Hussey ([34:19])

• "We don’t know a lot of times we're just guessing what the situation is and we're not getting all the information we need." – Georgia Lee Hussey ([28:50])

• "I love the Russell 3000. It's really, it's a well diversified. It's all of it. Just buy it all." – Georgia Lee Hussey ([37:38])

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For more insights and resources, visit Farnooshbts.com and SoMoneyLinks.com.

Transcript

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Sew Money Episode 1857 Ask Farnoosh. You're listening to so Money with award winning money guru Farnoosh Kharabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose some financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh herself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Sorry, you're in the wrong place.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to so Money. Welcome to AskFarnouche Friday everybody, the weekly episode where I tackle your biggest money questions and in some cases bring in some of the best minds in the biz to help. We've got later in the show, Georgia Lee Hussey, founder of Modernist Financial, to share a growing and deeply personal challenge for many families. And I know many of us in the audience are dealing with this how to afford taking care of aging parents. Georgia was recently featured in a New York Times article that spotlighted several multi generational families struggling to support their boomer parents, many of whom did not save enough for retirement and now face major healthcare and housing costs. And what's striking is this, even Georgia's wealthier clients are struggling with this, which tells you, I think, just how far financially intense elder care has become. In our conversation, she'll talk about some solutions, some really great ideas actually, plus her thoughts on where the stock market may be headed next. But first, a couple quick updates and some headlines that stopped me in my tracks this week. First up, my fall mentorship program is now accepting applications. I announced this this week and we're already enrolling a few people. This is the one program I offer that pulls back the curtain on how I've built my business, which is a multi revenue business. It's a personal brand focused business and we get into things like books, speaking, media, podcasts, brand deals, and much, much more. 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Bookmark it so moneylinks.com all right, a couple headlines I want to share with us and why I think they're important. So first up from the Wall Street Journal this week, banks are sounding the alarm on Buy now, pay later plans. That's right. Banks and I agree on something. I've been sounding the alarm on BNPLs forever and here's why. So banks are recognizing that if you are relying on BNPL plans to support your life, you know, and initially these came out as sort of like a cutesy way to pay for a big screen TV. Kind of like how we might take out a 0% interest rate card from the furniture store to pay for the furniture, from the electronic store to pay for the electronics. It was like a modern version of that. And now people are using BNPLs to pay for groceries. And I'm not faulting these folks because the cost of living is out of hand, but it does suggest some things about your financial status, right? 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But lenders are still not sold on this. If the economy gets worse, we're going to see more reliance on BNPL usage. And I don't know who's going to reckon with this first. Is it going to be the banks? Is it going to be the consumer? But you know, I'll be watching with popcorn. Next up from Yahoo. Finance. Working longer, my friends will not save our retirements. What? Okay, what's going on in this story? So that's again from Yahoo. Finance, where some experts are pushing back on this idea that I have shared many times that simply delaying retirement will solve for savings gaps. Now, I never said it's going to solve for all your financial gaps, but sometimes you do have to work longer to pay the bills, right? Like people want to retire at 65. First of all, we're living longer, so maybe we don't even want to retire at 65. We have the health and the capacity to do that. And a lot of us took on mortgages in our 40s, so we still have those costs. We still have maybe student loans, believe it or not. Like we can't just stop working. Especially we haven't done enough of a job for saving for retirement and et cetera. So it's not a guaranteed fix. This article is going on to say, especially for those facing health issues, job instability or caregiving responsibilities and in later life, which you're going to get into later in this episode. So I think what it's saying is that this advice in the context of our modern world, you know, now we are reckoning with rising cost of healthcare and job instability. A lot of folks are talking about this white collar recession. And so when you are looking at your retirement plan and you're feeling a shortfall, you're seeing a shortfall. Don't just assume that I'll just work an extra year or two, start saving more as well. You might need to do both. Now before we shift gears, a big thank you to our reviewer of the week, a new review for so Money. And I want to thank this person, Bub Bub 91 left a review earlier this month saying I feel so seen. I feel like Farnish gets me with her perspective of current events and emphasis on the importance of financial literacy, especially for women. Well, thank you so much bubub91. I would love to extend a free 15 minute phone call to you where you ask me anything that's on your money mind or your work mind. And you can schedule this at your convenience. Just get in touch with me first so I can send you that calendar Link. It's FarnooShomoney Podcast.com all right, now let's transition to our featured conversation with Georgia Lee Hussey where we're going to talk about how families at every income level are navigating the rising costs of elder care as well as the systems that are failing many boomers and how to plan ahead. She also gives us a big picture take on the current state of the stock market and how to make the most of it it. Let's listen in. So excited to bring back our friend of the show, CFP extraordinaire, creator, founder of Modernist Financial out in Portland, our friend Georgia Li Hussey. Welcome back Georgia.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Oh, it's a delight to be here, Farnoosh. I feel like this is the perfect mid summer opportunity to talk with you.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Yeah, not to say that there isn't a whole lot going on in the financial world, in the political world, which intersects with the financial world. I actually want to start with a piece that you were featured in the New York Times. This story actually started in the pandemic concerning youngish people in their 30s, 40s who are in the midst of taking care of aging parents. During COVID We know this was a huge they called it the reverse boomerang where parents were coming to live with their adult children, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes during COVID It was like, why not? But this is a reality that many of your clients are grappling with this stress of financially preparing and managing and working through and working around a parent who has financial needs, usually stemming from their health needs or unemployment. So first, tell us about what you're seeing on the front. This is I was reading you're in this article as a an expert voice. The article also features multiple households that are getting creative with these arrangements. But what are you seeing right now relative to maybe just even five years ago.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Yeah, it's such an interesting moment to be revisiting this, especially in light of the policy changes that are coming from the current administration. So I will say our clients are very wealthy. They're easily in the top 2 to 1% of wealth households and almost all of them have a parent that they are financially planning for who has not saved enough to be able to support themselves in retirement and or old age. Sometimes it's both. Sometimes there's like a pension that's helping support supplement Social Security. But almost all of them we're planning for long term care costs. And this is also unusual because we're a firm where our clients are generally younger, 35 to 55, which is unusual in wealth management. They have are a high net worth. So they're like three to $10 million of assets, not including income or real estate. So investable assets and they all have to plan for this. This is not something they can assume they can afford to do. Similarly, they can't assume they can afford to send their kid to Columbia and just pay for that. I don't. You have to have a lot more money than that to be able to make those kinds of assumptions. It's an interesting moment. These ideas of the American dream paired increasing longevity, paired with sandwich generation, paired with people having children later in life, not to mention the whole political world is all coming together to, to make this question incredibly important and hard to talk about.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Yeah, let's focus on the financial piece of it as it pertains to the aging population. Why are so many behind the eight ball when it comes to supporting themselves? Some things are obvious. Obviously you want to retire at some point. You can't work forever. And so then you're relying dependent on things like perhaps Social Security, your own retirement savings, which many people didn't do or have a late start at saving for. But also the cost of living, the cost of health care. They have headwinds that are not in their control and there was no way they could have really prepared for the magnanimity of these costs.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Yeah, I think that's really important to again separate the difference between long term care costs and retirement costs. Almost no one can afford to pay cash for long term care. When I see clients having to do this for parents, let's say six to $25,000 a month after tax, oh my God. So I couldn't afford that right now. And that's just important for us to understand that the cost of having somebody around 24, 7 to make sure you take your meds and you use the restroom and you shower and you're not hurting yourself and you have somebody stimulating you and you're not feeling the really intense emotional impacts of deep loneliness and being sequestered from the rest of the world, it's just expensive. And in the same way that having a stay at home parent, if we actually made it something you had to pay for out of pocket, would be very expensive. That I just want to say that's just. No, most people don't understand how expensive it is unless they have had their own experience. And we end up with similar issues that we've talked about in the past that, okay, if you're not going to have somebody come in home, then somebody has to give up their job. Somebody has to devote themselves 247 to a job they are not trained for. Because caring for an infant you're not trained for, but you can figure it out. But learning how to lift somebody's weight and bathe and things like that for an adult is, and an elder is just not something we're prepared to do. And yeah, I just, I want to take that as a separate topic. Nobody's prepared for that really, unless they're high, incredibly wealthy and they just don't have to worry about it. And they can spend an extra $25,000 a month and not think about it. Not very many people can do that. So then we think about the retirement side and I really think the boomers really, who we're talking about right now, they're just in a really weird generation. They, if they were working in the late 70s, which they likely were, they, they're the people who experienced the loss of the pension and the start of the 401k. So they're the first generation to be like, oh wait, I have to fund my own retirement. And I'm going to guess you were a pretty sophisticated person to get that message and implement that message. Yeah, Then we also lose like the ability to have ongoing work. You can't really join a company and stay for 35 years or 40 years like their parents did who also got a pension. So they never saw their parents save for retirement, really. And they never really saw their parents have to deal with four career changes in their life, not to mention the cost of living, to your point, and cost of college and cost of housing. Now they also have a lot of wonderful tailwinds like rising real estate. So most of these parents, we're helping the client figure out when they have to sell their house to create cash to fund their retirement and long term care. Most people, most of our clients, their home is their long term care policy. That's also like very hard for people to deal with emotionally. If they have to move out of their house to be able to pay for long term care, then we're talking about families actually being able to talk about these things, which is often the biggest impediment I find. So there's just a lot happening. So I don't want to be like you boomers, didn't plan for your retirement. There's a little bit of that. Honestly, there's a little bit like, oh, there's so many resources in America. My parents had everything. I got to see the effects of the GI Bill and redlining and all this stuff. I'm talking about white families really now. And it was, oh, by the 90s, we're like, oh, maybe this is not as good as we thought it was. Ooh, the odds. Ooh, I'm A, too late and B, this feels scary. I don't know. I think it's really a confluence of so many issues.

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[Farnoosh Khorasani]

My gosh, it's so complex and I encourage everybody. I will link the New York Times piece in our show notes. I've read the whole thing. I want to go back and read the original piece now. But it was heartbreaking really and also so sweet. You know, these profiles of these families, multi generational who were just, just doing what they could, prioritizing family first at any cost. Whether it meant hiring a lawyer to, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars to hire a lawyer to navigate Medicaid for their aging mother. And then they, you know, luckily were able to qualify and that saved a lot of money. That was an interesting solution. I was like, okay, paid money to save money.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Yeah, that's my primary homework item for clients is like you need to hire a lawyer to prepare your client, your parents estate plan to be able to qualify for Medicaid when they run out of money. That is. And it is the hardest thing to get people to do. You think getting people to do their estate planning is hard? That's like a 7 to 10 year project with many people because they hate talking about their mortality. They really hate talking and thinking about their parents need to be parented.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Why do you need a lawyer?

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Because it's technical. Being able to qualify for Medicaid, you really have to spend down your parents, all of their assets. And if, because they can't qualify, if they have any money at all. So what A lot.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Including Social Security.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

We have Social, they usually have Social Security and they take a bigger piece of it for basically, let's say you make a thousand dollars a month in Social Security. In some states that would be too much to qualify on Medicaid. Let me just repeat that. $12,000 a year of income is too much money to qualify for Medicaid in some places and probably even harder now after the most recent policy changes. So if they, let's say, have a hundred thousand dollars of assets, they're 75, they make a thousand dollars a month, they can make their life work when they qualify for Medicaid. Then Medicaid basically takes a bit, takes all of that to supplement the cost of long term care and then they get a little bit for spending money. And that's the situation most people have been put in now. Maybe you don't need long term care. Not everybody's going to. So there's a lot of questions I think also wrapped in here about how we die how we live in elders years. I think what's inspiring to me about these stories in these articles is the unwinding of some of the really toxic parts of the American dream. Like we need to live in separate little boxes, separate from each other. When many communities know that intergenerational living is a healthier, more satisfying. Sure has some drama attached to it but it's. It doesn't make any sense for all these people to be living and have separate cars and separate houses and separate resources when we can. There's just something. There's something interesting to me about this being called back into more intentional interconnectedness in our resources.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Yeah, the. There was a family in the New York Times piece. It was a couple and they had. One of the partners had a. An aging mom who's now also has cancer in the. During the pandemic she lived with her son and his partner in a very small apartment in New York City. They made it work. But eventually the mom was like I can't. This is breaking my heart to see my son and his partner suffering like this now she did move out. They both moved out actually they both got different apartments close to one another. The son pays for it. And this quote she gave at the end, it was just like this is where my heart broke a little bit and also warmed. A warm breaking. She said I can't repay him for what he's doing for me. She said but I love him and I appreciate him and I'm proud of him and I'm grateful to him. So I tell him that every chance I can get. I know sweet. And that is worth its weight in gold if it really is. And so my heart goes out to all of these people in this situation and I want to walk through some of the creative steps and or non creative, but maybe things you hadn't thought of. As you are approaching this, someone listening might be approaching this is your future or you're in it and you're like what do we do? This is insane. These costs one that we covered is getting legal advice. There's also the reality of that maybe you have to shift. Shift your retirement plans, your financial plans. How would things like rebalancing your portfolio or delaying your retirement withdrawals support this sort of scenario in the future where you're now taking care of another person.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

It's very expensive.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Yeah, totally. So I think that I would back up just a little bit and start by. One of the recommendations we often make to clients in this situation is when they are onboarding with us we'll say great, you're putting your financial plan together. This is, you have so much more awareness. Awareness of what life costs and how much money you need to have, et cetera. You've told me you're concerned about one of your parents or one of your four parents or six parents. If you're a child of divorce which is fairly common in our, in this generation. I think you should give the gift of financial planning to that parent to hire. You give the gift of a year of financial planning with a fee only retainer based financial planner and you basically help your parent. You give your parent the autonomy and the agency and the resources to figure out what they need. Because I think what's really important here is that we don't infantilize our parents and our elders. I can imagine me as a 95 year old lady not being happy if somebody's telling me what to do. Yeah. And, or hearing that they're suffering in a way that I didn't realize. So I've had several clients do that and that's been really helpful because then the parent understands their situation better and they can say here's what's going to happen. I'm going to spend this down, I'm going to sell the house, I'm going to move here and then I'm going to have to sell again when I need to move into a retirement community or not depending on where they're at. So I think that's the first one. Get a financial plan for your parent.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Figure out that's brilliant by the way because yeah we are trying to put on the financial planner hat it's impossible.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

And your parents aren't going to tell you. So one of the stories I think is quite beautiful is child who had been told to send home money to their parents from an early age. Very common in non white families. And they went back to their home country of origin with their parents and found out through conversation that actually their parents were fine. And they've been worried about their parents the whole time. But their parents were just teaching them a lesson about how to save money.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

So if they had been benefiting from.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

It, been benefiting from it. And I'm just like they, I'm, I bet you're gonna get this huge inheritance.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

This is for you, not for me. Okay.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

And also you're terrified, scared like whatever that. So this child, this adult child is like now I actually understand through these overheard conversations that my parents gonna be okay and I don't need to worry about that as Much. And I think the reality is that your parents are not gonna tell you. If they're feeling insecure, they're more likely to tell somebody else where they have confidentiality and like working with an estate lawyer, like they're going to talk to their lawyer and their planner, not their child. And then we give them agency and knowledge. Be like, I need to pay for this for you because I can't have you not have a power of attorney or a plan. And so let's get you some support and help because that will help me. So that frame I think helps. But yeah, we don't know like a lot of times we're just guessing what the situation is and we're not getting all the information we need.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

You mentioned earlier that many of these boomers, their largest asset is their equity in their homes. I know friends who with their parents have agreed to get their parents to take out a reverse mortgage on the home, which is essentially a line of credit. The issue is of course if you don't pay it back, then in your passing it becomes property of the bank. And that's not an asset you can leave onto your heir. What are the other pros and what am I missing about the reverse mortgage? Because it sounds like it could be a really sweet deal for parents that are really in a financial bind and have no other assets.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

It can be. It's complicated. I don't hate a reverse mortgage, but I have a lot of pause when I think about one. Because what happens if you spend down most of the equity, the interest eats up some more of the equity and then you still need to sell and move into a community. It's the two steps before needing care. It's really to me if you do not have enough income and you need to spend your house. So I think that's how I see reverse mortgages used in an okay manner. They can be hard though for if you have a surviving spouse because then where do they live? And they can't kick you out. But then you. It can really get upside down very quickly if you're holding a reverse mortgage for a long period of time. So they're not bad, but they. There are, I hate to say this now federal government based counselors who will help you understand your options with a reverse mortgage. Because they have been incredibly predatory in the, in the past. But it's not because the structure that itself is bad, but because the people who were the financial industry was taking advantage of elders basically as they like to do. I think it's important furnish to Realize that I don't have a lot of clients who don't have to sell their house at some point to downsize to fund their retirement. Even very few, even very wealthy people because they tend to have very expensive real estate and just be like, okay, you have half and half liquid assets and illiquid assets. As you near retirement, we're gonna have to sell down that illiquid asset, make it liquid so you can live off that equity. So it's a rare occurrence that somebody doesn't have to sell their real estate.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Yeah. Because also real estate is not just the mortgage. Maybe you've paid it off by then, but then you're still paying the taxes and the property insurance and the maintenance. That is not for someone who's unemployed at that point to be dealing with.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

And usually you need the equity inside the house to pay those costs. If for some people, I'm talking about parents. So you know, I've had clients who are like, oh, my parent lives in, I don't know, outside LA in a beautiful place. But they have no real assets, they only have the house. So it's. But their kid doesn't want to tell them they have to move. Let their financial planner tell them.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Yeah, I love that. Stick it on the financial planner.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Yeah, totally. I will not be your parents financial planner.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

What about long term care insurance? You mentioned that. Not everybody will need it, but I had a separate conversation about this with a financial journalist. It hasn't aired yet. She was, she wasn't 100% sold on LTI for every. It's very, it can be very expensive.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Yeah. So long term care, we run long term care analyses with our insurance brokers regularly and it almost never makes sense. And that's in large part because the long term care insurance market has gotten very small. If you think about the insurance world they're dealing with climate crisis, longevity, a 6 and a half percent inflation rate on long term care costs and a federal government that just withdrew a huge portion of the federal subsidies for these expenses. And so the insurance market has been getting out for a long time and I expect them to really exodus hard. So that's one thing. What I do love is a parent who bought their long term care policy in the 80s or 90s. Those things are fricking amazing.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

My God. Yeah.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Sexiest, most golden wonderful thing. I'm like, oh, they have a what? Thank God almighty.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Let's talk about where you're guiding your clients as we head into the fall. We want to be long term thinkers, but then by the fall by early 2026, this massive bill that was just signed into law that you've referenced is going to start really sinking into. It's going to trickle down. I guess it doesn't really impact your.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Clients as much or they're going to be. They're going to have a ton of extra money.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Yeah, your clients, you're going to have a great year, probably. But what is your advice for everybody else?

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Well, so I've been thinking about it in three groups of people. The working poor, the middle class, and the wealthy. And the most people who think they're middle class are actually wealthy within American data. So just wrap your head around that. So I would say everybody will get a little bit of a tax break. And it's also important to acknowledge that many of them are set to sunset right after the midterms. So there's a lot of political engineering in this bill. And. And it's important to understand that they will. People will get a tax break and the working poor are screwed. Their kids are going to go hungry. They're not going to have health care. There are more people are going to be living on the street. Homes are not going to be as efficient. It's just, I know it's incredibly regressive. This tax bill and the tax cuts are hiding all of the defunding that's happening. So, yeah, that sucks for the working poor and I think for those of us who are going to make a lot of money on this change, the question to me is whether we take the time to ask our CPAs to explain to us how much money we're saving and then really acknowledge that we don't need it and then figure out what we're going to do with it. Because there's plenty of things that need our money that have been defunded and actively defunded. So I am recommending that all I'm asking now, all of our clients, CPAs to look at their 24 return and run it like it's a 20, 26 return and tell me how much they're saving. I tell the client how much they're saving. So then the client knows exactly how much they have that this administration has stolen from the social safety net to make them richer. Because my clients are all politically progressive. They're horrified by what's happening, but they also have complex tax situations. We all really do now, because the last Republican administration's tax bill also made just like tax is way more complicated. So it's really hard to understand how much. I would just recommend we understand the real number. A CPA can run that report for you and just say, I want my 24 return run as a 26. How much am I going to save? And if you are on the side that wants to make sure that people with less are taken care of and which is how I define progressive, then think about where you're going to put that money and donate it. So I think that's the first thing I would consider. My guess is the stock market's going to keep bumping because this is like a sugar hit, a huge sugar hit for the economy. But it's really short term and it's again very interesting to see what happens in five years. The US Market needs to correct. It did a correction earlier this year. That's the last time we talked. Farnooch. I felt like the sky was falling last time we talked and now I'm just like, like, Jesus, the market is just bumping. Especially international, not US. US is only up about 6%. International's up 20.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

There's a school of thought that some people like. I'm unwinding. I'm divesting all my assets from the US Economy. US Stock market, I'm gonna go full on international. And I'm like, first of all, how do you do that? But also your American stocks have a lot of international exposure.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

What are you.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

It's really weird that I'm hearing this from like, like pretty smart people. And I'm just like, can I ask a follow up question to that?

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

I think it reminds me of post 2008. I remember walking by one of my neighbor's doors and they had their Wall Street Journal out and the headline was US has a has a 0% return for 10 years. Leave the US market. Our investors are leaving the US market. I was like. And then we had the longest bull market in history. There is no data to support you guessing where returns are going to come from. None of. Don't guess and just buy the whole market. International, emerging US don't make you like the Russell.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

You love the Russell.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

I love the Russell 3000. It's really, it's a well diverse. It's all of it. Just buy it all.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

Georgia Lee Hussey, thank you so much. I hope we have it doesn't take us another six months to reconnect. Let's talk again in the fall.

[Georgia Lee Hussey]

Yeah, I would love that. I would love that. And I would just want to put out a little call. Modernist is hiring for another CFP to join the firm and join the ownership of the firm. So if you are know a rad CFP who's progressive and a super nerd, please send them to us.

[Farnoosh Khorasani]

We will we and we'll just put your info in our show notes and it would be such a dream to work with you. I wish I had the qualifications, but I'm hoping someone listening will and will connect with you soon. And that's our show everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'll see you back here next week with fresh episodes of so Money. And as a reminder, Farnooshbts.com if you'd like to learn more about my mentorship program and access the application and Sewmoneylinks.com a curated page of financial resources. I'll see you back here on Monday. And I hope your weekend is so money.

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