#222 – Caring For Caretakers with Elizabeth Miller

Wes Moss [00:01:34]:
And I think that’s probably how I found you. I was thinking, is there any sort of who can support and help these caregivers? Because there’s so many caregivers. There’s something like one in five americans.

Elizabeth Miller [00:01:45]:
Are caregivers, 53 million just in the US alone. And I honestly think that statistic is not correct. There’s got to be way more than that’s data for pre pandemic as well as the best data that we have. So certainly things have changed since then. I totally get what you’re saying. I’ve lived it. And that’s essentially why I started doing what I’m doing. I started happy, healthy caregiver as an LLC back in 2015 because I was tired of people shoulding S h o U l D, shoulding all over me.

Elizabeth Miller [00:02:17]:
Shoulding, yeah, you should be doing this, and you should be doing that. And I’m thinking, I am losing it. I’m losing. I mean, I’m drowning. Working family caregivers squeezed in the sandwich generation. So caring for older adults and middle school kids was at the time, in 2014. I’ve got two parents with multiple comorbidities. They call it things that are killing them.

Elizabeth Miller [00:02:40]:
And then my husband, at the same time, is caring for his mom and the primary caregiver. So we’ve got double sandwich, double decker sandwich happening here. And I’m a pretty savvy person who can figure things out. And I think your client probably the same way. There’s just a lot out there and people shooting on us about the things that we can do to take better care of our care recipients, but nobody really seeing us as family caregivers, not even really knowing that that’s what I was and who’s looking out for us. And that’s what made me kind of hang out my shingle.

Wes Moss [00:03:13]:
You know, middle school kids are hard enough, let alone also taking care of mom and dad. Well, if you’re in this situation and if you’re. And I guess I would say this to our listeners here on the retire sooner podcast, if you’re not in this situation now, the likelihood that you’re gonna be right, you’re gonna. At some point, somebody is gonna have to take care of your parents, whether they are financially independent or not. Somebody is going to need to be the person that takes care of them in their later phases of life. And I guess my question then, to you, when you’re going through this process and people are saying, you should do this and you should do that, give me an example of that. Are they telling you what, who you should call to help take care of your parents?

Elizabeth Miller [00:03:58]:
No. I wish. I wish I was getting resources. It was more like, in the healthcare system, it was, you know, your mom’s diabetic. You shouldn’t be giving her ice cream. You, you know, you should be coming in more frequently, or she also needs to go see XYZ person and just kind of adding and all of that. And meanwhile, I’m, like, pushing in the wheelchair and taking the copious notes and asking the questions, and it’s just like, you are invisible. It’s the invisible labor, I think, that we’re doing as family caregivers.

Elizabeth Miller [00:04:30]:
And people are starting to get it, which is exciting, like, and I love it when I can get people who are. Who are expecting the situation to happen and helping them be more proactive about it. I just gave a talk this week, actually, to an Atlanta company to help them proactively prepare for a caregiving crisis, because there are things that we can do when we see it coming and that are going to save us anxiety and stress and health, things potentially, in the future that are gonna happen to us if we burn out as caregivers, because we’re trying to juggle so many different things, and I still needed to work. Like, you are the financial guy. Like, you know, all the reasons why I gotta keep working. Like, I got a family I’ve gotta pay for with what we need now and then down the road for retirement and the benefits and so forth that we need.

Wes Moss [00:05:19]:
And college for your kids college.

Elizabeth Miller [00:05:21]:
Like, that was impending. Like, we could certainly see all of that. And it takes, you know, these days, it takes two incomes almost to live the same way that we were accustomed.

Wes Moss [00:05:31]:
To on one income 30 years ago.

Elizabeth Miller [00:05:34]:
Yeah, one income. It was like, yeah, now it’s so much harder than that. So there’s. It’s. It’s a really. It was the most difficult season of my life, being a working caregiver and trying to juggle all these things.

Wes Moss [00:05:45]:
Elizabeth, tell us how, again, not only did you go through this with your parents, and you help people, others that are going through this, what is the normal trajectory of being a caregiver and the workload? Is it pretty gradual, or is it oftentimes kind of an event, and it’s now all at once? What usually happens?

Elizabeth Miller [00:06:08]:
Sometimes it is a thing, like a fall or a certain crisis situation can happen. For me, it was a mudslide that I could see it coming. I could totally see that. And even we were having some conversations about it. But my parents didn’t want to move close to family, and there was, you know, you’re dealing with sometimes grown adults who have their own opinions, so it can vary. Now, I’m in a caregiving situation that maybe I should have seen coming, which is that my parents are now deceased, and I’ve got a brother who was born with an intellectual and developmental disability. So now it’s our siblings that are learning to share the care to help our brother. And luckily, I’m grateful for their financial acumen, my dad, in particular, that set up a special needs trust for him.

Elizabeth Miller [00:06:54]:
So I’m grateful that I wasn’t in this financially stressful, heavy situation with my parents and my brother. That is not the case because Medicare and so forth doesn’t pay for financial care. And it’s a lot. It’s expensive.

Wes Moss [00:07:09]:
Well, tell us a little bit about the story of your parents and how that got really difficult for you and what was taking up the most amount of time and what was the most amount of pressure for you with your parents?

Elizabeth Miller [00:07:23]:
Oh, it’s like a therapy session. I love it.

Wes Moss [00:07:26]:
Tell me about your past.

Elizabeth Miller [00:07:28]:
So my folks lived in Florida. They were living their dream. They lived in Amelia Island, Florida, on the ocean but they hadn’t slipped a toe in a sand probably in the last ten years or more of their life because of their health issues. So my folks had heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, depression. My dad had psoriasis, which is an autoimmune disease. My mom had COPD. So I effectually called them a cocktail of different things. And these are many things that were brought on by their lifestyle choices that they had made throughout many, many years.

Elizabeth Miller [00:08:02]:
And so we were in a long distance care situation initially. I live in Atlanta, so my brothers.

Wes Moss [00:08:08]:
They’Re down in Florida, which is the.

Elizabeth Miller [00:08:10]:
Drive to get 6 hours. I mean, I could do it in my sleep. I’ve done it so many times. Well, you don’t want me to do it in my sleep. You know, it’s a lot of thinking and a lot of thinking of what it went into. This business happened in that stuff, because it was a time to process the heaviness of everything that was going on. So I have family, siblings up in the northeast, so the sisters that we’re helping out, and then I have a couple brothers here in Atlanta, and then my brother that had this special needs was living with my folks.

Wes Moss [00:08:40]:
But it’s so hard to do that long distance. It’s hard enough to do it when you’re within 15 minutes, but really long distance makes it super tough. And were your parents, did they resist help? Hey, we don’t need anybody for a while until they really, really needed somebody.

Elizabeth Miller [00:08:57]:
I didn’t have that situation, but that’s one that my clients often go through where people want to be fiercely independent. My parents were kind of okay with, like, everybody, with everybody helping them. And they were writing some checks to have people help them for a while, and they could do that. And I think that kind of almost contributed to their health decline, because they were yard work and housework and all the things that kind of maybe make it a retired person kind of get up and get out and about and be active. They were getting more help with that initially from professionals. And then when it was the kids, it was like they expected us to come. It wasn’t like if it was like, you’re coming, somebody. So dad passed away suddenly.

Elizabeth Miller [00:09:40]:
He got sepsis, which is a blood. A blood disease. And quickly it started kind of attacking his organs the last, you know, within a month’s time. He spent his last week on hospice and then passed away. And then it’s kind of like, oh, crap, you know, here we are, like, worst case scenario, we’ve got my mom and my brother, and at this point.

Wes Moss [00:09:59]:
Are they still in Florida and you’re still in Atlanta?

Elizabeth Miller [00:10:02]:
Oh, yeah.

Wes Moss [00:10:02]:
Lots of conversations and back and forth.

Elizabeth Miller [00:10:05]:
Back and forth and tag teaming with my family, you know, so that we, somebody was there, particularly in that last month when my dad passed, but my mom had just been hospitalized prior, so was no longer back to her original strength point. And so it was a hard situation and I don’t even know how we survived, really, frankly. It’s like adrenaline takes over short term. Like, we’ve got to plan this memorial and all the grief processes for my dad, communicate with everybody, and then we’re trying to figure out their financial situation. And that was much worse than we thought it was.

Wes Moss [00:10:39]:
So there wasn’t a lot of prepost. Sit you down two years prior and say, hey, here’s our finances, here’s how we’re paying for everything. That was not part of it.

Elizabeth Miller [00:10:50]:
It wasn’t a very formal way like that. It was, here’s the phone number of my lawyer. Like, they definitely gave us that. Like, here, if something happens, let’s call this person, okay. And so we had that, but my parents saved everything, like all the important documents. So part of the hard thing when we got into the, the meat of it all was, what’s the right version of something? Or is this insurance still good or.

Wes Moss [00:11:14]:
So confusing for you?

Elizabeth Miller [00:11:15]:
It was confusing. It definitely. Like, I now have learned as a 53 year old woman who’s got adult kids now, my husband and I have been through this, and so we have tried to make it easier for our kids.

Wes Moss [00:11:28]:
And what was the health condition of your mom right after your dad passed?

Elizabeth Miller [00:11:31]:
Bad.

Wes Moss [00:11:31]:
She was already. She was really bad.

Elizabeth Miller [00:11:33]:
Yeah. She thought she was going to die that April. He passed in August. And meanwhile, back at home, my mother in law is at lung, you know, stage four lung cancer, and she passed that December. So we lost two parents, my husband and I, that in this, in the same calendar year when, you know, kids losing two grandparents, so. But you kind of can’t even process the emotion part of it because there’s just so much work. Yes. There’s just, its grief is exhausting.

Elizabeth Miller [00:12:01]:
It’s so exhausting. So while my dad’s passing away, like, back at home, my brother, my husband, like, we’re all looking at living arrangements for. First we thought the couple, like, we finally got to my parents at the point where, like, okay, you can’t do this here anymore. It was a crisis. And so we were looking for a place for both of them. And then quickly as my dad was, you know, at end of his life. Like, now we’re looking for a place for mom. So all these things are kind of happening.

Elizabeth Miller [00:12:29]:
I’ve got sisters up in the northeast that are researching different things and trying to get the bills to get emailed to them and so forth on the account. So a lot of different things were happening.

Wes Moss [00:12:42]:
There’s so many moving parts. Right. When you essentially, your parents become now dependent on you. And it probably is even more complicated when you have multiple siblings helping. It’s a good thing. It sounds like, obviously, when you have help, but it’s also a little even more complicated.

Elizabeth Miller [00:12:59]:
Oh, yeah.

Wes Moss [00:13:00]:
So did your mom then come back? You found a place for her to live in Atlanta?

Elizabeth Miller [00:13:06]:
We did. We found a place in Atlanta, like, equidistance between my brother and I. And it was hard. She’d never lived on her own, you know, for so many years. She married at the age of 19.

Wes Moss [00:13:18]:
And with your dad for 50, 60.

Elizabeth Miller [00:13:21]:
Years, never really had to advocate for herself. So now I’m kind of in a different role as that adult child of, like, I’ve got to figure out how to work again. Right? Like, get back into my work life and, oh, yeah, my kids. So all of that kind of stuff is, like, jumbled in your brain. And it’s expensive, too, by the way. Let’s add that. Like, I mean, Medicare doesn’t pay for, you know, so you’re either private pay or you’re on Medicaid, and you have some choices there, what’s available, which are.

Wes Moss [00:13:48]:
Obviously not the best choices.

Elizabeth Miller [00:13:49]:
Not the best choices, no. So luckily, we had money there for a while, but it was a lot. I mean, at the time, this was years ago. We’re talking like $9,000 a month of shelling out. I kept saying, it’s like we’re buying a nice used car every month.

Wes Moss [00:14:06]:
Every single month.

Elizabeth Miller [00:14:07]:
Every single month. Like, new Honda Civic. Let’s go. So crazy. And so that worked for a while, mom. Actually, we moved her again because we learned a lot about assisted living and what to look for and what not to look for. So my girlfriend said that I was getting my masters in caregiving, and that’s certainly what was happening. And you’re just learning, and hopefully now I can help other people behind me.

Elizabeth Miller [00:14:33]:
But we moved her to two assisted livings, and then my older sister had a life change where she got divorced. Her kids were grown. She said, elizabeth, it looks like you’ve had enough of what’s going on down here. I’m going to take mom. She’s gonna live with me full time. This is gonna make their money last longer and all of that. And so then we went through that transition of moving my mom first to Pennsylvania until my sister sold her home. And then they moved to what was my parents second home up in Michigan.

Elizabeth Miller [00:15:00]:
They had a beautiful lake house up there.

Wes Moss [00:15:02]:
Where in Pennsylvania and where in Michigan?

Elizabeth Miller [00:15:04]:
So outside of Philly is where they moved in the suburbs of Philly and then Michigan. A small tabard lake. It’s like three, 4 hours north of Detroit. Its closest city or airport is in Alpena, Michigan. So like kind of inland.

Wes Moss [00:15:18]:
Alpina? I don’t know if I know Alpina.

Elizabeth Miller [00:15:20]:
It’s an inland lake. The closest great lake is Huron.

Wes Moss [00:15:24]:
Oh yeah. A little closer to Traverse city, I guess.

Elizabeth Miller [00:15:27]:
Yeah, well, opposite side of Traverse city.

Wes Moss [00:15:30]:
Oh, the opposite side. Okay, so you’re on the eastern side. Okay.

Elizabeth Miller [00:15:34]:
Yeah, eastern side.

Wes Moss [00:15:34]:
By the way, I’m from right outside of Philly and I also go to Michigan. My wife’s from Michigan. I’m in northern Michigan all the time, so. Oh, so I’m familiar with these, the geographies you’re talking about here. And they’re not necess. The one thing about Michigan too is that Pennsylvania is easy because you fly to Philly, but northern Michigan is not that easy to get to.

Elizabeth Miller [00:15:54]:
No, it’s not easy.

Wes Moss [00:15:55]:
So you fly to Detroit and then you fly to Alpena.

Elizabeth Miller [00:15:58]:
It’s like a six, eight hour type of thing to kind of make all of that together. Yeah, it eats up a day and. Yeah, but beautiful. Worth it.

Wes Moss [00:16:06]:
Okay, so you went through all of this and then the. And then, so what happened when she moved? So then she lived there the rest of her life with your sister?

Elizabeth Miller [00:16:16]:
She lived there? Yep, she lived with my sister. She was on hospice the last two years of her life. She was bedridden, my mom. And we kind of got into this thing with my brother after my mom really was not that parenting figure for my brother that, you know, we have our own slew of issues with him and different things that we deal with. And so what’s working and started working then was like my brother lived half the year up in Michigan during the summer months when it was, he’s high functioning, he drives and so forth. But the winter really created a lot of stress for all of us. So then he lives in Atlanta with my brother, who’s a bachelor for the other, the winter months.

Wes Moss [00:16:55]:
Oh, so you kind of flip flopped geographies. That’s interesting.

Elizabeth Miller [00:16:59]:
Yeah, he’s a snowbird. But my mom, to finish the story there she passed away in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. She didn’t pass from COVID but that COVID pandemic and grief and all of that had its own kind of caregiving challenges that, you know, you’ve heard the horror stories and can imagine what they were like.

Wes Moss [00:17:22]:
Yeah, well, I mean, 2020 was a hard year for just the world in America, but yours was exacerbated with your mom. So what you’ve lived, none of these are the same. Is the other thing caregiving is never, it’s very unique. And maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel as though there are as many resources around caregiving. And every caregiver has their own difficult journey. If you’ve ever done a Jane Fonda workout or if you remember as a kid, Rocky running the steps, and if Michael Keaton is still mister mom to you. But guess what? It’s officially time to do some retirement planning. It’s Wes Moss from money matters.

Wes Moss [00:18:07]:
Weren’t those the good old days? Well, with a little bit of retirement planning, there are plenty of good days ahead. Schedule an appointment with our team today@yourwealth.com. dot. That’s your, yourwealth.com. so what have you learned? That you now in part on millions of Americans that need help with this and if they’re not there, they’re going to go through this. Like what? How do we get prepared for it? Are there financial? I have like 100 questions. How do we get prepared for it? Tell me maybe a little bit about the business that you run now in relation to caregivers.

Elizabeth Miller [00:18:45]:
Well, and it has evolved over the years. You know, I’ve thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall. Like what? You know, one thing I needed to be true is like, I wanted to help family caregivers. I knew I could do better job at it if I could do it full time, but I also had to make a living. So figuring out, you know, the monetization part and the mission part of it took, took a while. But, you know, for me, where I focus on my niche is like, I really wanted to help arm the family caregiver with how they could make this a sustainable caregiving season for themselves. That’s the goal. We want to mitigate burnout.

Elizabeth Miller [00:19:18]:
We likely know this is going to happen. How can I help? Be proactive in it. How can I help you figure out how your own health and happiness needs to be nurtured at the same time? I think a lot of times we hear the oxygen mask analogy and I don’t love it. And the reason why I don’t love it.

Wes Moss [00:19:37]:
Tell us that one.

Elizabeth Miller [00:19:38]:
Well, the oxygen mask is like, you know, from the airplane, you put your mask on yourself before you can put your mask on other people. Okay. Like, it kind of makes sense, but then as a caregiver, it doesn’t. Because when in my daily life, is there just going to be like an oxygen mass flying out of the ceiling? It’s like a one time crisis situation. Like, this is my crazy life.

Wes Moss [00:19:59]:
It’s over and over. Yeah, it’s every day.

Elizabeth Miller [00:20:01]:
It’s every day. So coming up with something that worked for me was really important. And so what really worked for me, as far as an analogy, was feeding a nest of hungry birds and thinking about being this nurturer of this nest of birds and like, it being your pets, your relationships with your spouse or your partner and your kids and your care recipient and all, and your momma bird. Yeah, I’m mama Bird. Or you could be papa bird. And hopefully you do. Hopefully you have somebody that’s also helping you with the nest, but sometimes you don’t. And it became clear to me that I was never going to have all these mouths be closed at one time.

Wes Moss [00:20:41]:
Yeah. Somebody’s always needing something. Why not?

Elizabeth Miller [00:20:43]:
They need something. You’re never gonna feel like you’re doing enough. Then it’s kind of, you know, being pragmatic about it and practical about it and figuring out, like, okay, this is my situation, I’m gonna adopt this different mindset. But I also realized that if I don’t go out and nurture myself and find the energy and the joy and the peace of mind that I need, I’m no longer gonna be able to show up to this nest and help other people.

Wes Moss [00:21:08]:
So. Okay, so what you do with the happy, healthy caregiver?

Elizabeth Miller [00:21:13]:
Yes. Sorry. I’m like, you could tell I’m passionate about this. Yeah. What I do with happy, healthy caregiver, good question. So I do a lot of things like, you know, and I think you would like this because the business is kind of like an octopus. My main two arms for me, of how I monetize is mostly I do professional speaking, a little bit of a combination between educational and storytelling, and pragmatic so that people have real solutions of how they can make caregiving sustainable. I am a coach for caregivers, so I can offer coach support.

Elizabeth Miller [00:21:48]:
I don’t do that all day, every day because it’s not scalable for me as a business, and it’s really heavy.

Wes Moss [00:21:56]:
Yeah. It would be like being a full time therapist.

Elizabeth Miller [00:21:59]:
It would be like being a full time therapist, which is not necessarily what I signed up for. But I do do some coaching. I do some, I have a handful of clients and then I always offer a complimentary coaching session because I want to hear your story and I want to try to fast track you to some of the resources that I think could potentially help you. And a lot of that looks like support for you, like helping you figure out how to infuse self care in your life, how you can connect to a caregiving community so that you’re getting it proactively before you’re in a crisis situation.

Wes Moss [00:22:32]:
And then, but you also do this in groups as well, or you do, it’s all one on one.

Elizabeth Miller [00:22:37]:
So the coaching session’s usually one on one. I do volunteer for a nonprofit called Daughterhood.org that does virtual support sessions, and I lead and facilitate one of those every month. So daughterhood.org is open for anybody, but it’s just called that because a lot of them are daughters of aging parents. But we have topic and support circles. And then in Atlanta, if you’re local here in Atlanta, I’m part of another nonprofit called ACAP, adult children of aging parents. And we provide non sales but programs for adult children of aging parents. And so the topics vary month to month. You can go to acapcommunity.org and look for the Cobb Cherokee chapter, but we’ve got other chapters in Atlanta and other places kind of in the southeast you might find, too.

Wes Moss [00:23:26]:
So if you were to say, and I know you give talks on this and you write about this and the happy, healthy caregiver podcast about this, but how do you make caregiving sustainable? I mean, what are your top three for your typical caregiving situation?

Elizabeth Miller [00:23:42]:
I’m glad you mentioned that. Cause like, we talk about self care, but the media’s portrayal of that is like mannies and petties and nights on the town and vacations away, and that’s not a real holistic thing for many family caregivers who are juggling lots of things. So when I’m talking about how to make it sustainable and really incorporating eight categories of self care, and some of those might be emotional, physical, professional, financial, social, practical, different ways that you can infuse self care. So it doesn’t necess, and it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing. You can do these in little micro acts in your day, but it could be anything through the lens that’s going to give me peace of mind, that’s going to energize me or is just plain joyful goes into that self care bucket for me. And as a caregiver, that might be how to expand your care team, how to research technology to kind of be a part of your care team. How to find the right professionals that are going to give you peace of mind, how to advocate for yourself and for your loved one. How to set boundaries of the things that are irritating you in your life and how you can make some choices there and then how to just have the plain fun.

Elizabeth Miller [00:24:52]:
Like, so some of us have been caregivers for so many years that we forget to how we used to have a good time. And so I lead different workshops and things like that. And, like, you know, what used to bring you joy when you were ten years old.

Wes Moss [00:25:04]:
Here’s one thing that I see is that the work about caregiving becomes, a, there’s a lot of hours, b, that there becomes this guilt, particularly as it evolves where you can’t be away and you’re almost, you’re like 24/7 so what do you tell a caregiver that feels like it’s kind of taken over their life and they’ve lost their socialization? Like, what do you do?

Elizabeth Miller [00:25:30]:
You start with them with really small things, because, like, what could you do with an extra five minutes? You know, what kinds of conversations could you have with people that we need to put some more white space in your life, like, where you’re just not feeling like you’re always on. And usually it’s because they don’t have enough support. And so then it’s really diving into their family dynamics to maybe the things that might be offered at their workplace, that they might not be taking advantage of other resources in their community that might be able to help them so that they are not solo caregiving, because solo caregiving never works.

Wes Moss [00:26:09]:
Okay, so, Elizabeth, is the typical path to kind of recovery or helping someone who’s a full, full, full time caregiver. Is it first to build a better team? So it’s not just you? Is that kind of like, yeah, we got to get you a team here.

Elizabeth Miller [00:26:24]:
I mean, we do it at work, right? Like, for those of us who have been in the work professional environment for so long, like, we know it’s a bad idea for something to be single, threaded on one person.

Wes Moss [00:26:33]:
Right.

Elizabeth Miller [00:26:34]:
It’s a bad idea. So thinking about it almost like a really emotional, difficult project, but that knowing, too, and realizing that you don’t have all the strengths of everything that you’re going to need, and so you’re going to have to identify and do some gap analysis to where you need help. Like numbers is not my thing. I’m a words gal, so I know that the finance stuff is not going to be my wheelhouse. So I’m going to have to pull in some people and some resources that I trust that can kind of get us to those places. A lot of times, the very first people that I do recommend that people pull in outside of the day to day help of their family are typically elder law care attorneys, and they’re financial planners.

Wes Moss [00:27:14]:
So, Elizabeth, those are kind of two. When you’re talking about building that team, you’re right. Those are two really big, those are super important areas because they’re kind of foundational. I think a big part of what I’ve experienced over the last many, many years is that, first of all, like, how. How are we gonna pay for this? Yeah, someone’s gone into hospice, and now all of a sudden, it’s expensive. How do we pay for this? Does mom or dad have enough money for this increase monthly amount? Or can, how can the siblings maybe help? Because there’s two siblings, maybe three or four or five. Can we split something? And I think that that’s usually a good first stop. Like, wait a minute.

Wes Moss [00:27:56]:
Okay, how do we pay for this? Go to the financial advisor. The financial advisor can help. That’s one, two. The elder care attorney can. That’s the person that will help put in place the durable power of attorneys, health care directives, et cetera, et wills.

Elizabeth Miller [00:28:14]:
And all the special things you might need in your state so that you have access to the right things without jeopardizing kind of the situation. But I think those are important conversations because, first of all, it’s always easier to have a difficult conversation with a third party involved, like coming right from a family member. These things are not necessarily always well received, but if you hire a professional who can kind of hold your hand and walk you through this process, it will help, kind of, first of all, narrow down the options of what you have available to you so you can kind of get. Get to the stuff that’s in your area that you could potentially pay for. But then also, what does this person want to be true at the end of their life? Having those discussions is really hard. But talking through some of these things, like, well, what if these what if analysis, what if you’re no longer able to take care of yourself on a daily basis? What does that look like? And asking those conversations, can I call them courageous conversations because they’re necessary and they’re really hard to have. But sometimes these professionals that we interface with can help us have those conversations, and I think that’s a good thing.

Wes Moss [00:29:21]:
How helpful do you. So the senior living community, I know there are consultants for that, and there’s been more and more over the years. I remember being, finding it difficult to find anybody to help find the right assisted living or continuing care facility. Now, is that a big. Is that a part of a team for most people?

Elizabeth Miller [00:29:41]:
Part of the team, yeah. I didn’t know it existed. I didn’t know, like, for instance, even that my employee assistance program would help me kind of see what senior living options were in the Atlanta area. They would have done that. That would have saved me a lot of time. But now there are even people, like, there are real estate agents almost, or senior living community experts that will kind of go out and understand your requirements and find the right match for you and help you understand. I didn’t even understand the differences between all the different senior living options. So there’s a person who will do that, that you don’t have to pay directly once they are placed in the right person, that community.

Wes Moss [00:30:19]:
And I’ve worked with a couple of different consultants that I’ve found over the years that I really like, I think are amazing at their jobs, and they really do create a great amount of peace for the caregiver.

Elizabeth Miller [00:30:31]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:30:32]:
So it’s okay. So you do need to build the team. You’ve got to be thinking about that. Then I go back to the question. Well, a couple of questions. What if there’s not a lot of mom and dad don’t have the finances to pay for it? Is there, are there resources for that besides them having to be on Medicaid or not?

Elizabeth Miller [00:30:53]:
Or not really, it’s not. I wish there was a good option. You know, I wish there was a good option. There’s a lot of people in the middle who don’t necessarily can’t private pay for the places that they would want.

Wes Moss [00:31:04]:
To live, but they don’t qualify for Medicaid. Yeah.

Elizabeth Miller [00:31:07]:
And maybe then you’re looking at using some of your equity in the home, and so you definitely want to kind of talk to a professional that can outline all of the different options for you, because there’s a lot of different things that could potentially be pulled into as far as the different assets and stuff that they have. One of the things that I learned about, like thinking about it for my husband and I, one of the things that we did was we realized we needed more insurance. If something were to happen to us. But we also realized there was something called, like, a living benefit that we could potentially use for home care and help while somebody was still alive when we might really have needed that versus waiting till somebody passes. There’s a lot of. There are other things that I’ve learned, like, through the finance. Part of it is your power of attorney ends upon death. So sometimes you can see that there’s going to be impending funeral and memorial expenses, and you don’t have access to those funds.

Elizabeth Miller [00:32:03]:
And so one of the things that we learned the hard way in my family is that we had to be able to pull out some of that money before the end happened. Just, like, to even think about that is just really hard. So to have somebody that’s professionally helping you, to help you kind of like, hey, remember this or think about this, that’s looking at it from the outside is really powerful, but I wish there were options for pain. It’s Medicaid. I mean, it’s a horrible wait list. It’s not some great options. A lot of people want to age in place and live in their own home.

Wes Moss [00:32:35]:
Yeah. They don’t want to move. Yeah.

Elizabeth Miller [00:32:37]:
And I know for us in our family, like, it was really, really hard on my sister and when she moved in and still kind of learning coming out of her after caregiving ends. But it did make our dollars stretch a lot further when we did something like that. And she was in a position where she was an artist and, you know, could to do some work at some time side of her house if she wanted to.

Wes Moss [00:33:01]:
Let’s talk about the length of time. I mean, I know that there’s these averages of 44 or five years. It’s. Do you see these journeys are more than that. These can be five, 6710 years.

Elizabeth Miller [00:33:13]:
I mean, I think sometimes they are. Maybe they’re not all with the same person. Like, you know, you can be like a serial caregiver where it’s just like something happens and that’s what’s happening to you right now.

Wes Moss [00:33:23]:
Right.

Elizabeth Miller [00:33:24]:
That’s what’s happening to me. Like, it just kind of like landslide into. Into another situation. So I think the average of four and a half is a lot, but I typically it’s longer. I mean, medicines and technology and I think depending upon different circumstances.

Wes Moss [00:33:41]:
Now, if you are a. A. I guess it can be more complicated when you have multiple siblings, three, four, five different people helping. In your case, six or five. But then there’s some challenges come with that, too. But if you are an only child or you’re only one adult. Taking care of one or two parents, that seems like it’s gotta be. That’s really, really hard.

Wes Moss [00:34:07]:
And I guess that’s hard. That’s when you really need to do what.

Elizabeth Miller [00:34:11]:
So then you gotta get really creative and think about the other people in your life that are friends and family. Like, you know, you’re thinking you’re friends of yourselves, that it may be like, what can we do to help? Like, don’t just let that question roll off you anymore. Like, I appreciate you asking. Here’s my list of something, you know, or can you just do something to put more joy in my life? Like, that’s essentially like, plan our next outing or something. But cousins, aunts and uncles, you know, extended family, there’s community helpers, like, perhaps at your faith community, that would be helpful, like a Stevens ministry. There’s one of the things, too, is I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that hospice is typically covered by Medicare, so don’t wait too long to kind of use those hospice services. As I mentioned, my mom was on hospice for two years and got reevaluated all the time. Could she have passed away within that boundary level? Absolutely.

Elizabeth Miller [00:35:10]:
But that will save, give a caregiver a lot of extra hands. I know they bathe my mom three times a week, brought in the cost of all the extra supplies, so that could potentially be something. And then the other organizations related to your disease specifically, and talk to your providers, your healthcare professionals, could there be something where they could prescribe physical therapy or occupational therapy or recreational therapy, which I didn’t even know was a thing until recently, but there’s a lot of ways, like, look, I’m looking for more support. How can you help me? And just being really vulnerable about it, and it’s going to get easier the more you do it, because you kind of have to let the cracks show in yourself of what’s going on in your situation in order for all of that light or that help to get in.

Wes Moss [00:35:55]:
Are there support groups that get to know each other for people that are in these difficult caregiving situations? Or is that. Are there. Tell me about that.

Elizabeth Miller [00:36:05]:
Oh, yeah. Could be through like, a disease specific organization, like the Alzheimer’s association, your faith community could have something, your place where you work could have an employee resource group that. Where people share ideas and education services. There’s the. Daughterhood.org is the virtual support that ACAP community offers the programming where there’s a lot of support that happens before we kind of do the presentation.

Wes Moss [00:36:28]:
And so let me make sure I get this. So it’s daughterhood.org.

Elizabeth Miller [00:36:31]:
Dot is one community, and acapcommunity.org is another one for in person stuff.

Wes Moss [00:36:37]:
And that’s the adult children of aging parents. Acap. Right. Okay.

Elizabeth Miller [00:36:42]:
Yes. But there’s, like, dementia groups. Like, I know one led by Seth Rogen. Hfc.org, comma, is very specific for dementia caregiving support. So, you know, I love for people to kind of connect in, and I want to be that connector for folks where I want to fast track you to the resources. I do a weekly newsletter that always highlight something happy, something healthy, something caregiver related, because there’s a lot in this space, and it’s not a one size fits all. So how do we get exposed to it? And let me, you know, let me help fast track you to some of those things.

Wes Moss [00:37:14]:
I think one thing that you’ve kind of helped me reshape my perspective a little bit here is that it is a caregiving because it’s so unique to everyone’s situation. Different diseases, different ages, different shared amount of work because of the sibling situation. It’s really a place to continue to educate yourself. It’s not. There’s not just a one time. Here’s what’s going to solve it. There’s not a one size fixes all. There’s not a one person you can go to.

Wes Moss [00:37:43]:
It is about becoming educated about all of the different things that you’re going to. Going to face as a caregiver and to somehow.

Elizabeth Miller [00:37:53]:
Yes. And not feel overwhelmed by, like, that. You’ve got to learn everything all at once, but kind of do it more on this just in time training. Like, what’s the next thing that you think you might need help with? You know, Google that as a search term on the podcast. See if. See what comes up there. As far as listening to that and kind of getting introduced to this space, I think is going to. We’re going to benefit from it in the long run as individuals.

Elizabeth Miller [00:38:17]:
I know I have learned a lot about how I can better prepare myself to. For my kids to thank me in the future. I mean, they certainly were old enough at the time to be like, don’t do this to us, you know? And that was also a reminder, like, oh, well, if we don’t take care of our health, we’re gonna. We’re gonna be in the same exact situation.

Wes Moss [00:38:37]:
What’s the hardest thing for most caregivers?

Elizabeth Miller [00:38:41]:
Ooh, I think the hardest thing, I mean, taking out kind of the financial piece cause that is.

Wes Moss [00:38:45]:
Let’s assume we solve for that.

Elizabeth Miller [00:38:47]:
Yeah. It’s emotional. I think it’s feeling like you’re alone and you’re not doing enough and that you’re kind of in this. You feel like you’re spiraling, and hopefully you can see an arm out there that’s just, like, stop me from spiraling, because. And I will say, too, like, wes, it’s not all bad. Like, I think sometimes we say, oh, this is such a heavy experience. But with most of our families, like, there are exceptions, for sure. It’s really hard to take care of somebody you don’t like.

Elizabeth Miller [00:39:23]:
It’s hard. But we would all kind of. If we all had to put our trash out on the curb, our family’s drama and things being those trash. And they said, go out and you can pick whatever trash you want. Most of us would bring our own trash back into the house.

Wes Moss [00:39:38]:
Right.

Elizabeth Miller [00:39:39]:
You know? Cause so, like, we’re.

Wes Moss [00:39:41]:
At least it’s our trash.

Elizabeth Miller [00:39:42]:
At least we know, like, we’re experts in our family and. And the dynamics of it, and hopefully it’s a solid foundation. Cause it is gonna feel strain.

Wes Moss [00:39:54]:
But you’re saying that the upside is that it may be the joy of taking care of mom and dad. Yeah.

Elizabeth Miller [00:40:01]:
Yeah. I mean, I will say, like, I am certainly a better cheerleader for caregivers than I am a hands on care person. Care partner. I’m a tough love kind of person for my mom. She knew what she was getting, and sometimes that was okay, but we all have different strengths and weaknesses. But I spent a lot of time with her that, you know, had it been different, I may not have spent. And we had amazing coffee chats. You know, we had lots of conversations.

Elizabeth Miller [00:40:31]:
I’ve interviewed her on the podcast before she passed away. She knew about what I was doing. She never. And sometimes I wasn’t talking very favorably about her, but she was. She was. She was good for it. You know, I think when you put. You can kind of see the alchemy in a really tough situation.

Elizabeth Miller [00:40:50]:
Like, it certainly made our family tighter.

Wes Moss [00:40:52]:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Miller [00:40:53]:
My kids more resilient and definitely more independent. Maybe they would have been a little more spoon fed and helicoptered had I had the capacity to be able to do it. But I was like, who’s got the time to be a helicopter mom? I’m just trying to survive. And it really put more onus on them, which now, as 25 and 22 year olds, like, wow, that’s a good thing.

Wes Moss [00:41:15]:
So now the happy, healthy caregiver, and you, Elizabeth Miller, people will come to you, you will go to groups and educate, you will facilitate connections. Your world is to make the caregiver’s life a little bit easier and really just more sustainable. Correct.

Elizabeth Miller [00:41:34]:
Sustainable and supported. Yes. And, you know, if there are businesses out there that are doing, like, products and services to help the care recipients or the caregivers, like, I have also kind of found myself as an accidental influencer in this space.

Wes Moss [00:41:49]:
Yeah, you’re like Angie’s list for caregiving.

Elizabeth Miller [00:41:52]:
I. Maybe I don’t, you know, I just. It wasn’t intentional, but it is a way that is also helping me monetize, like, pay. Pay this, pay for the advertising on the podcast, the newsletter, or whatever, so that I can do more things to help caregivers who can’t afford to pay for it. Cause they’re already paying, you know, on average, $7,000 out of pocket a year.

Wes Moss [00:42:12]:
Where does that cost? So where does that caregiver cost mostly coming from? Is it.

Elizabeth Miller [00:42:17]:
Ooh. I think it’s home care. Like, getting more hands on care. I think it could be supplies or buying groceries, gas, travel, missed work. I know. There are things that I definitely, like, there are hidden expenses of all of those things. Gasping being a huge one.

Wes Moss [00:42:37]:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Miller [00:42:38]:
And flights, like flying. I’ve had to sometimes, like, it was like, oh, let’s take this out of mom’s. After the fourth trip, it was like, okay, let’s get mom’s account to pay for this. She has the money you’ve just done in a last minute flight, of course, is going to be a lot worse than one that you can plan for. Yeah. A lot of hidden costs, a lot of hidden labor.

Wes Moss [00:43:00]:
So tell our audience what’s the easiest place to find you and be able to discover.

Elizabeth Miller [00:43:08]:
Yeah, let’s connect. Happyhealthycaregiver.com dot. Just go to happyhealthycaregiver.com dot. You can see the links to the podcast, the coaching, the support I do for groups, the social links, all of that, and join the newsletter, and we’ll.

Wes Moss [00:43:23]:
Put a link to that, obviously, on the website. Again, knowing that you’re in Atlanta, I guess. What county are you in? Georgia.

Elizabeth Miller [00:43:32]:
I’m in Marietta, Cobb county.

Wes Moss [00:43:34]:
Okay. All right. Are there folks in other states that are doing what you’re doing or you want?

Elizabeth Miller [00:43:39]:
Oh, yeah. So I’m a certified caregiving consultant. So there’s hundreds of us that are spread out that are helping to coach other caregivers. And there’s kind of this, like, movement. We’ll call it. I’m gonna call it care preneurs, caregiving entrepreneurs. So there’s like this layer of people who are using something from their experience to help make it different and advocate for change. And so I call that kind of group care printers.

Elizabeth Miller [00:44:10]:
And then, of course, we have some bigger organizations that I would love to see the gap kind of close there. Like, I don’t want the caregiving support to be as fragmented as the healthcare support.

Wes Moss [00:44:22]:
Yeah, well, and again, a huge part of your job as a caregiving consultant is to try to bring the resources together. Yeah.

Elizabeth Miller [00:44:30]:
Make it easier. It’s hard.

Wes Moss [00:44:33]:
Yeah. The DNA and the fingerprint of caregiving is just unique to every single family. Well, thank you for your insights today. And now that we know you’re in Atlanta, we’d love to get together and utilize you as a resource. Because the reason I wanted to have you on the retiree podcast is I just, I see people going through. It’s hard. I haven’t gotten there yet. Fortunately, my parents are still healthy and pretty active.

Wes Moss [00:45:05]:
But again, that obviously that can’t last forever.

Elizabeth Miller [00:45:09]:
Tell them how grateful you are that they are taking care of their own health and happiness and just even start to have the conversations now. I think about what they would want to be true if things change. It’s not easy and it’s not a one conversation, but it’ll benefit you.

Wes Moss [00:45:25]:
I’ll bring it up. I will bring it up.

Elizabeth Miller [00:45:27]:
Bring this. You can use this podcast. Anybody listening? Use this podcast as a launching off point for the conversation.

Wes Moss [00:45:32]:
It’s an awesome idea. Elizabeth Miller thank you.

Elizabeth Miller [00:45:36]:
Thank you.

Mallory Boggs [00:45:38]:
Hey y’all. This is Mallory with the retire sooner team. Please be sure to rate and subscribe to this podcast and share it with a friend. If you have any questions, you can find us@westmoss.com wesmoss.com dot. You can also follow us on Instagram and YouTube. You’ll find us under the handle Retiresoonerpodcast. And now for our show’s disclosure. This information is provided to you as a resource for informational purposes only and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations.

Mallory Boggs [00:46:06]:
Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. There is no guaranteed offer that investment return, yield or performance will be achieved. Stock prices fluctuate, sometimes rapidly and dramatically, due to factors affecting individual companies, particular industries or sectors, or general market conditions for stocks paying dividends. Dividends are not guaranteed and can increase, decrease, or be eliminated without notice. Fixed income securities involve interest rate, credit inflation and reinvestment risks and possible loss of principle. As interest rates rise, the value of fixed income securities falls past performance is not indicative of future results. When considering any investment vehicle, this information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance, or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. Investment decisions should not be based solely on information contained here.

Mallory Boggs [00:46:53]:
This information is not intended to and should not form a primary basis for any investment decision that you may make. Always consult your own legal, tax, or investment advisor before making any investment tax, estate, or financial planning considerations or decisions. The information contained here is strictly an opinion and it is not known whether the strategies will be successful. The views and opinions expressed are for educational purposes only as of the date of production and may change without notice at any time based on numerous factors such as market and other conditions.