Take Back Retirement
Episode 14
What Women Need to Know About Caregiving and Elder Law with Cathy Sikorski
Guest Name: Cathy Sikorski
Visit Website: cathysikorski.com
Today’s guest is Cathy Sikorski. She is a practicing attorney in elder law. At the same time, she has personal experience being a caregiver for elders and not-so-elders. Her bestselling book, Who Moved My Teeth?: Preparing for Self, Loved Ones and Caregiving, combines her 25-plus years of legal and practical experience into a guide for preparing yourself or your loved ones for the complicated future of healthcare and caregiving.
Initially a small-town general practice attorney, Cathy was initially driven to hone her skills just as a person taking care of the elderly, but quickly realized that elder law is legal practice unto itself. Her work as a caregiver, then, led her to embrace elder law as a profession.
Elder law is a relatively young legal practice that was established only in 1994 because “the issues” surrounding the practice “are becoming so much more prevalent in everyone’s life. How do we take care of Mom and Dad as they get older? What are their choices?”
Listen in and learn how having an elder law attorney can help you, alongside your other lawyers (i.e. estate), a financial advisor, to plan and prepare for retirement. Cathy also offers some best practices and hard truths about being a caregiver.
FREE RESOURCE: caregiver-contract
Please listen and share with your friends who are in the same situation!
Key Topics
An introduction to Cathy and her eight separate experiences as a caregiver (2:01)
What’s elder law all about and how did it shape Cathy’s other work as a caregiver? (4:08)
What areas does an elder law attorney cover? (06:03)
How these attorneys also aid their clients’ spouses, especially on the financial side (8:56)
The difference between elder lawyers and estate lawyers and what to know about wills (10:53)
Why your different lawyers, financial advisor, and accountant all need to collaborate (14:15)
What conversations do you need to have with aging family members today? (15:47)
“Please check every darn beneficiary designation that you have.” (18:58)
Considerations around of your spouse’s IRAs, 401(k), and other retirement accounts (22:07)
Cathy on her life as a caregiver (26:03)
Who can become a paid caregiver? (31:12)
The importance of having a support group as a caregiver (33:13)
How to contact Cathy (35:06)
Three action steps to take today (36:06)
Stephanie McCul…: 00:06 Welcome to Take Back Retirement, the show for women 50 and better facing a financial future on their own. I’m Stephanie McCullough. And along with my fellow financial planner, Kevin Gaines, we’re going to tackle the myths and mysteries of quote unquote retirement, so you can make wise decisions toward a sustainable financial future. Through conversations and interviews. You’ll get the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence, and we’ll be sure to have some fun along the way. We’re so glad you’re here. Let’s dive in.
Stephanie McCul…: Coming to you semi live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia, this is Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.
Kevin Gaines: Hello, Kevin.
Stephanie McCul…: All right, Kevin. Today I’m really excited. We have my friend, Cathy Sikorski as our guest. She is a practicing attorney in elder law, and she’s going to tell us the significance of that specialty. But, the cool thing is she also has personal experience being a caregiver for elders and not-so elders. Cathy speaks a lot on these topics. She’s quite funny in sharing some of her stories. Her book, which has been a bestseller is called, Who Moved My Teeth? Preparing for Self, Loved Ones & Caregiving. She’s been quoted all over the place and she’s also got a great blog called You Just Have to Laugh. So, very excited. Without any further ado, we’ll get to our interview with Cathy Sikorski.
Stephanie McCul…: Cathy, welcome to Take Back Retirement. We’re so happy to have you.
Cathy Sikorski: Stephanie. I’m so happy to see you and to be here with you. Thank you.
Stephanie McCul…: So, when you and I first met one of the things that really intrigued me is that not only are you an expert in elder law as an attorney, and you’ve practiced this, but you’ve lived it throughout your life, right? You’ve been a caregiver more than once.
Cathy Sikorski: Eight times and counting, I fear to say, eight times and counting, but yes. And I’m sure there’s plenty of people in your audience who have been caregivers multiple times, but don’t count it because if your husband breaks his leg and you have to take care of him for eight or 10 weeks, people don’t count that as being a caregiver because it’s ‘my spouse.’ But the way it upsets your life and changes your life, even if it’s temporary, that’s a caregiving life. Right? But most of my caregiving experiences have been much longer than that. I say the caregiving train stops at my door and everybody gets off.
Stephanie McCul…: Oh my gosh.
All Speakers: [laughter]
Stephanie McCul…: So, when you say eight, is it eight separate people or eight separate incidences?
Cathy Sikorski: Eight separate people. Family members and friends. So it started out with my grandmother when she was 92 and I had a two-year-old and she came to live with me because when my dad died in the service,
Stephanie McCul…: Oh my gosh.
Cathy Sikorski: I four years old, my mother had five children, was pregnant with her sixth and we moved in with my Nana. So, I was very happily returning the favor. Okay? What I didn’t know is that a 92-year-old and a two-year-old are kind of the same person, but not. And so, my life became an interesting challenge of two people ganging up against me on a pretty regular basis in the craziest of way.
Stephanie McCul…: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: So, for example, my friends, they would decide to have a mid-morning snack while I was upstairs gathering the laundry out of the dog dish.
Stephanie McCul…: Oh my gosh.
Kevin Gaines: Oh, jeez.
Cathy Sikorski: I said to my Nana, ‘what are you doing?’ And she points to the two-year-old says, ‘well, she’s eating it.’.
Stephanie McCul…: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: So, that was good enough for her. A snack is a snack.
All Speakers: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: And it was that kind of a caregiving experience that started my journey. And honestly, I understood, not as quickly as I should have, but that I was not prepared. And that I needed to get prepared.
Stephanie McCul…: So, what steps did you take to get prepared?
Cathy Sikorski: So, isn’t that an interesting question? I am an elder lawyer by trade and I was not at the time. And quite frankly, your audience may or may not know that elder law is a pretty new area of the law. It’s only maybe 30 years old. It’s young and it’s new. And it’s because of two things. Number one, we’re getting older and staying older, right? And number two, the issues around elder law are becoming so much more prevalent in everyone’s life. How do we take care of mom and dad? Because they’re getting older, they want to do different things. What are their choices? Et cetera, et cetera. Which I’m sure you run into all the time with your financial clients. It’s not just about you. It’s about you and your family. So as I became this progressive caregiver for eight different family members and friends over the last 30 years, I had to hone my law practice around that work because I was the caregiver. And I needed to know this stuff as a person, not as a lawyer, as a person. And then I realized, ‘oh, guess what? I need to know this as a lawyer.’ Because this is an area of law in and unto itself. So, that’s how I became an elder lawyer. Really, truly. I was just a small town, general practice attorney.
Stephanie McCul…: 05:24 Oh my gosh. So, your own personal experience led you down that road.
Cathy Sikorski: It really carved out my life. And I would say to a lot of people listening to this, don’t be surprised that what your other work is, outside of what your work is, is carving your life into perhaps a new kind of work. And it seems hard and it seems difficult, but be grateful for that because you might be surprised, especially now, especially what we’re all learning now during this pandemic, right? We’re all learning that we have other skills that may become our new commercial skills, because that’s what happened to me, literally. That’s exactly how it happened.
Kevin Gaines: What areas does an elder law lawyer cover?
Cathy Sikorski: Kevin, thank you so much for that question, because that really is the question, right? Why do I need an elder lawyer? And the reason you need an elder lawyer and you need it for yourself right now, even though you’re not old and please know the elder lawyer doesn’t mean we’re old people. It means it’s about elder issues usually, but it’s really, truly about all of our issues that are coming for us at some point in time. So, this is what your tools are. As an elder lawyer, we’re going to give you the first set of tools, which is your powers of attorney, your living wills, your wills, obviously, and the tools that you need, if you or a family member gets into a place where you need long-term care issues like a nursing home, an assisted living, veteran’s benefits, social security benefits, Medicare, Medicaid. When you start having a person in your life who’s going to need these benefits, you need to be prepared for that.
Cathy Sikorski: But I want to circle back a little bit, Kevin, if I can, which is to say that those documents that I talked about, those tools in your toolbox, they are critical right now for everyone. For this very reason, you don’t know when something might happen to you. You don’t know when you might become incapacitated, just like that husband who broke his leg and was out for eight or 10 weeks. You might need to take care of his affairs, even as a spouse. And here’s the definition of the most important document created for every person who I’ve ever met is the power of attorney. It is a document that you sign giving the authority to someone who is now your agent to act as if they are you in every capacity, financially, or in a healthcare situation.
Cathy Sikorski: So, it’s a really powerful tool and you need it if you get incapacitated, whether temporarily or physically. And I know this, I don’t think it’s horrible to say this, but the first thing I thought about with Tiger Woods yesterday, having that horrible car crash was he’s single. He’s not married. Is there someone who has documents who said, ‘yes, give him, surgery, he needs it now?’ Was there someone available for him? Had he signed those documents so they could call someone and say, ‘we’re taking him into surgery and he, we need people to make decisions.’ That’s exactly what I’m talking about. He’s not permanently, thank God, disabled, but somebody needed to have that power. That’s the most important thing I do, primarily, is get that power of attorney in peoples’ hands. And then from then on, I help with planning and preparation in conjunction with financial advisors who are helping with planning and preparation for the future of people in retirement and aging.
Kevin Gaines: And that power of attorney works for spouses as well. Just because you’re a spouse, you’re not automatically authorized to make every decision. Is that correct?
Cathy Sikorski: I cannot tell you how important that piece of information is more so on the financial side than the healthcare side, right? So, I always say this, the way we save money has changed. And because of that, we have put spouses at a very, very detrimental place, mostly women. Mostly baby-boomer women and Gen-X women at this point. But here’s the deal. How do we save money now? In IRAs, 401ks, 403bs. Most people’s big bulk of their savings is in that kind of a vehicle and that by law can only be owned by one person. And lots of people think, ‘well, that’s my husband’s money or that’s my wife’s money. If something happens to them, that’s our money. We’re married.’ But you have no access to that without a power of attorney. None. So, if your spouse has a stroke tomorrow at 35 and all your money is in that IRA, that 401k, how are you going to get that? You have no authority and he can’t sign any papers now because he’s disabled.
Stephanie McCul…: So, we talk about beneficiary designations all the time. But you’re talking about before the person has passed away, right? They’re still alive. They’re in that bed, but they can’t speak or write or sign their name to something.
Cathy Sikorski: 10:05 So, this is my poem. POA (power of attorney) POA alive today, once you pass away, only an executor can play. Powers of attorney are for live people who are sick, wills and beneficiaries are for dead people. Elder lawyers deal with live people, estate lawyers deal with dead people. That’s the difference. It is really dead or alive. That’s the question. And so a lot of spouses to your point, Kevin, say to me, or even children, ‘oh, I’m in charge of my mother’s estate. I’m a beneficiary.’ I’m like, ‘that’s all for dead people. I’m sorry if all those people in your life are dead, but if they’re alive, we’re not having the right conversation.’
Stephanie McCul…: [Ugh] Yeah. And when I tell people they need to get their estate planning documents done, everyone thinks: will. ‘Oh, I don’t have that many assets. It doesn’t matter.’ That is not the most important piece.
Cathy Sikorski: Well, and elder lawyers and estate lawyers aren’t necessarily the same people.
Stephanie McCul…: Yeah. Tell us about that.
Cathy Sikorski: That’s really important, as well. Wills are important. This is not to say they are not an important document. Especially a lot of people in your life, as advisors, will have wills because they’re young and they want to make sure their kids are taken care of if anything happens to them. Right? So, those young people have wills and that’s great. But my bet is they don’t have those powers of attorney. And they think, as Kevin said, that they have authority as a spouse to have access to their spouse’s money, stuff, financial stuff. No, they do not. You’ve got to have that document. Okay. That’s number one. Number two, a lot of your clients may be my age, which is they have grandchildren. They haven’t touched that will that they made when they were 30 years old. They didn’t pull it out of the underwear drawer or the safety deposit box, or look at it for 30 years and they have to change the document.
Cathy Sikorski: This is where your beneficiary conversation comes into play. So, an estate lawyer care of your wills. Many elder lawyers and estate lawyers do both sets of work. Right? Many of us do that. And it’s fine. I have no problem with that. But some do not. Mostly estate lawyers don’t do elder law work, but some elder law lawyers don’t really do estate planning work. Especially if you have significant wealth. So, you’ve got to make sure that you have the right professionals and there’s nothing wrong with having two.
Stephanie McCul…: Yeah.
Cathy Sikorski: Have two lawyers if you need two lawyers. There’s nothing wrong, but make sure that they know what they’re doing. I will say the elder lawyers specifically have a lot of information in Medicaid planning, right? So, if you have a mother or a father who has early onset Alzheimer’s and you’re trying to protect your mom’s assets because your dad is the one who’s sick and going to be sick and he’s got a big, huge fat $2 million IRA.
Cathy Sikorski: How is mom going to get that? You need someone who knows how to do Medicaid planning. That is not an estate lawyers bailiwick, usually. That’s an elder lawyers work and we should be working with people like you, Stephanie, all the time, because our job should be to work with financial advisors to make sure that our mutual clients are getting the best that they need. And here’s the beauty of Pennsylvania, you guys. Lawyers in Pennsylvania cannot be financial salespeople. We have to choose. We are not allowed to sell financial products. Okay? They made that rule about seven years ago. And I love it. Many lawyers gave up their legal license because they were doing well as financial people selling great financial products. I have no problem with that. In fact, I love it because they know the other side of it. But as lawyers, our job is to work with you. And I feel like we don’t have enough collaboration going on at all. You know?
Stephanie McCul…: Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Gaines: Well, I’m glad you made that point because it’s been my experience and I’m sure Stephanie’s experience as well with clients that they’re hesitant to introduce the professionals in their lives to each other, because they’re worried that their financial advisor is going to step on their accountant’s toes, who’s going to offend the lawyer, who’s going to irritate the financial advisors. And we never get to talk.
Cathy Sikorski: Isn’t that interesting?
Stephanie McCul…: Even though that’s the best way for us to do our job is to do this stuff together.
Cathy Sikorski: Yes. And my next book coming out, hopefully when I finish writing it,
Stephanie McCul…: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: [laughter] is called Conversations. And it’s exactly this point. It’s conversations you need to have with each other, it’s conversations with your family, it’s conversations with your financial advisors. And then it’s conversations with your professionals as a team. You’ve got to have a team behind you. And if you know how to approach this with your client in that, now see if you say to your client, ‘listen, I can’t sell you anything financial, but looking at this, it seems to me, you should be talking to someone about long-term care insurance or some kind of long-term care policy, because you know that your husband has early onset dementia or frontal temporal dementia. This is going to be a problem for you. And I see the financial picture is a problem. I want to talk to your financial advisor with you. I want to talk to your accountant with you.’ Zoom, this kind of a thing is a beautiful thing now, because we can do this together. Good preparation. I think they don’t understand why. And I think that’s our job to tell them why we need to have this collaboration. I also think it’s our job to tell other professionals why we need to have this collaboration, why I can help you and how you can help me.
Stephanie McCul…: 15:31 That’s one of the things I appreciate about you, Cathy, is that you’re out there having the conversations and talking to people. So, on the subject of conversations, I have parents in their eighties. What conversations should I be having with them now while they’re still fully functioning?
Cathy Sikorski: So, the first question is, ‘do you have your documents?’ The second question is, ‘are they fresh enough?’ We changed the laws in Pennsylvania five years ago, going on six about gifting issues. And this is even between spouses. So again, remember that guy who had a stroke at, let’s say 67. He had a $2 million IRA. He has a stroke. His wife has no access. She was a stay at home mom. She can’t get to it. But for this power of attorney. The power of attorney has to give her unlimited gifting in Pennsylvania. If it says no gifting, she can’t get any of it. If it says limited gifting, she can get $15,000 a year, which is the federal exempt gift tax amount. Big deal. What’s that going to do for her? Right? Especially if she’s using it to pay a mortgage on a house or whatever. She needs unlimited gifting.
Stephanie McCul…: So, gifting is getting the money from his IRA to her. And technically that’s a gift because he owns it. Is that what you’re saying?
Cathy Sikorski: This is exactly what I’m saying. And if you don’t have gifting in your power of attorney, Pennsylvania says there is no gifting. You’ve got to have that language. And we are very, very hard on people in that, in our state with that gifting issue. And that’s between spouses. You don’t get it. We don’t care that you’re a spouse. It makes no difference to us. No. So, ask your parents. Right? And that’s true of anything that they might own as investments, right? Do they have that issue? Because if one of them goes into a nursing home, you want to be able to move assets to the other one, to protect them. The healthy, what they call community spouse. And the way to move assets is to have that power of attorney that allows gifting. Do you see how we all work together?
Stephanie McCul…: Right.
Kevin Gaines: Yeah.
Cathy Sikorski: So, you have to have that talk with them. Do you have your documents? Are they good? Are they fresh? Are they new? Does your attorney keep up with that stuff? So, that’s number one. Do you have your documents? Number two. What do you really want if something happens to you? Do you want to stay home? I’m cool with that. How are we going to do that? What’s our plan? What’s our little plan, a mini plan, right? Because, what if something happens to you tomorrow and we got to put a plan in place like that very next day? What’s the idea? I’ll bring you home. How are we paying for that? What’s the deal? What do you want? Or the parent is going to say, ‘I do not want to burden my children no matter what. Not doing it. Put me in this beautiful place that I found down the street that costs $12,000 a month.’
Cathy Sikorski: Okay, great. Do we have that kind of money? How are we going to pay for that? People have lots of different ideas. Everybody doesn’t have the same idea. Everybody thinks, ‘oh, they all want to stay at home.’ That is actually not always true. Some people are like, ‘I’m not burdening my children. I’m not in the house.’ And then you have the client who, I was in a meeting once who said, ‘oh yeah, I’m going to live with my daughter. She’s a nurse.’ And the daughter turns to her and said, ‘no, you’re not. That’s not my plan.’
All Speakers: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: That’s a conversation. Right?
Stephanie McCul…: Right. And too often, they don’t happen until you’re in the emergency room waiting area. Until it’s a crisis. And then as we know, we don’t have full brain functioning when we’re in a state of heightened emotions. So, it’s hard to be cool and rational in those situations. So, having the conversation early, ahead of time is important.
Cathy Sikorski: Early and often. Early and often because things change. It’s like that beneficiary designation. Boy, that’s the other thing to tell your parents.
Kevin Gaines: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: ‘Please check every darn beneficiary designation you have.’ They’re on 401ks. They’re on IRAs. They’re on 403bs. Your credit union, you probably might even have a life insurance policy through them. It’s life insurance obviously, right? But things change. People change. You may have loved your son-in-law at one time and now he divorced your daughter and you forgot that you put him on your life insurance if anything happened to her. Check your beneficiary designations. Things change.
Kevin Gaines: Amen. Amen. Amen.
Stephanie McCul…: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Gaines: Beneficiary forms are probably one of my biggest bugaboos that people just ignore them. They do it once and they don’t do it again. And you come in on this trend that’s happening and several states have already passed these laws because there had been a problem where people would forget to change their beneficiary form. And the first wife would inherit the money because the guy forgot to switch spouses. But that also could create a problem that if you want your ex to inherit, you may have to update your beneficiary form again, to remind everybody, this is what I really want. Is that trend becoming bigger across the country? Or is this just like a one-off in a couple of states?
Cathy Sikorski: 20:30 Oh no, no, no. It’s actually even a uniform divorce law kind of a thing. And it has a place, of course, obviously the people forget to change beneficiaries or you would be surprised how many people actually die during the course of a divorce. Right? Not at their ex-spouse’s hand. But they just die.
All Speakers: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: And that became a thing it’s like, ‘well, wait a minute, we were in the middle of a divorce. I wanted that money to go to my kids or whatever.’ So, you’re right. It’s a double-edged sword. It is a really good thing that that’s in place because as we just discussed, people are very, I’m sorry, but lazy about changing their beneficiary designations. Right? They forget, whatever. They just are. So, that ended up being a good thing in a lot of ways, but you’re right. There are times when people do want that, but that just really circles back to: check your beneficiary designations. And if you want that, then you’re right, update it, re date it and say, ‘as of this time, I want Jane to get my stuff.’ And put it in your will. It doesn’t go by your will, but you can say I left my life insurance to Jane and that was absolutely my intent. Right? That’s a really important legal and financial conversation because it depends who you’re purchasing that financial product from, because I know you’re not buying it from me because I can’t sell it to you.
Kevin Gaines: [laughter]
Stephanie McCul…: [laughter]
Stephanie McCul…: So, Cathy, one of the things you had mentioned before we pushed record was this issue of couples where one spouse has the majority of savings, and can that be corrected? Can you talk about why that’s something we should worry about?
Cathy Sikorski: The correction part is the hard part, but here’s the deal. And we sort of intimated about it sooner. The way life has gone for many baby-boomer women and even many Gen-X women at this point is, and just women in general. I’m sure you saw that a hundred percent of the jobs lost in December were women because of what happened in the pandemic. So, women are still bearing the brunt of stepping out of the workforce, of getting paid less, of not having the retirement accounts. And this is not a political statement because many of us are in really wonderful marriages where we have a spouse who is building up this incredible 401k or IRA. As a couple, as a family, we’ve decided, he’s going up the corporate ladder, he is getting now 10%, 20%, 25% of his salary put into that 401k, why wouldn’t we save that way?
Cathy Sikorski: He’s got this big salary and they’re putting a big match in. That’s our family savings plan. And it’s a great plan. I’m sure you, as financial people would agree with that.
Stephanie McCul…: Yes.
Cathy Sikorski: Great plan. ‘We’ve got lots of money. It’s great.’ The problem is, as I said to you before, is because it can only ever be owned by one person, this is how we save money now. It can only legally be owned by that spouse. If he gets sick, if he is permanently sick, that money is perceived to be his and is to be used for his care. Period. It’s not shared money. So you’ve got to find a way to get some of that money to the community spouse. The one who is not sick. It’s really hard to do at any point in time because of the tax implications, right? So, if it’s a regular IRA, 401k, et cetera, taking that money out has a big tax hit.
Cathy Sikorski: If it’s a Roth, not so much. So, that definitely encourages Roth savings if possible. That’s one way to do it. The other way to do it is that a lot of times people will, once they enter those social security years, start taking that husband’s big social security check because it’s bigger than the wife’s and put it in some kind of a savings mechanism for the spouse.
Cathy Sikorski: So, if she’s still working and he’s retired, she can actually put that in an IRA for herself, right? But this is where you have to get financially creative with your financial advisor to say, ‘look, we are so heavily weighted in my husband’s IRAs, 401ks. I’ve got nothing. If something happens to him, I’m worried.’ And the answer might be, ‘we can’t do anything right now, but if he does get sick, we have to immediately start maybe looking at those Medicaid-approved annuities,’ which you may or may not know what that’s about, but that’s an elder law issue that says a spouse can get a Medicaid approved annuity to give her enough money to, have a certain amount of money that she’s allowed to have. But I’m going to tell you, the more you can give to that spouse as she approaches retirement, or even beforehand, is going to be a better balance for that family should somebody get sick.
Stephanie McCul…: 25:09 That’s an issue that, yeah, it’s not really on the radar.
Cathy Sikorski: So, if she’s a stay-at-home mom in her forties now, make sure she’s doing her IRA as much as she can. Don’t ignore that. That’s not as unimportant as you think it is.
Stephanie McCul…: Yeah. That’s one of the things we talked about a couple episodes ago with our guest, Sarah Brenner, talking about the spousal IRA and how often that’s overlooked. If you don’t have earned income because you are the member of the household that’s taking care of the other stuff, that’s the unpaid work, you can do a spousal IRA, which is not going to totally balance it, but it’ll go somewhere.
Cathy Sikorski: It’s a starting point. Yeah. And it’s not nothing. Exactly.
Stephanie McCul…: So, we’ve talked a lot about the financial implications and some of the legal stuff. Let’s talk about the personal impacts of being a caregiver and what that does to your life. And as we said before, you’ve lived it.
Cathy Sikorski: So, I’m really fortunate. I have a husband who is supremely supportive of my caregiving life. We decided early on that I would, in fact, be a stay at home mom. Although, I laugh at that because my kids really did think I was a stay at home mom. I would take them to school. I would go to work and I would pick them up at three o’clock and come home. So I worked part time, technically, even though it was every day, it was part-time because I was at work from eight to three and that was it. I tried really hard not to work at home or whatever. So, my kids thought that they had a stay at home mom. They didn’t know I was going to work. The point is, my husband then allowed me, when I stopped working for a firm, (and I don’t mean ‘allowed me,’) as a family to spend time being a caregiver.
Cathy Sikorski: One of my caregivees was my best friend who fell down a flight of stairs and had a traumatic brain injury. And her husband of 34 years decided he couldn’t handle it and he left town.
Stephanie McCul…: Oh my gosh.
Kevin Gaines: Wow.
Cathy Sikorski: Fortunately enough, the traumatic brain injury was not such that she could not sign a power of attorney because we had to get those documents for me to be able to handle her affairs. Another was my brother-in-law. My sister passed away at a young age from breast cancer. My brother-in-law was diagnosed a few years after that with multiple sclerosis. Ultimately he became bed bound and wheelchair bound from that.
Stephanie McCul…: Oh my gosh.
Cathy Sikorski: So, I was his primary caregiver. Those things take time. And if you have any elderly parent or relative in your sphere that you help out in any way, and by the way, you’re a caregiver if you are, whether you think you are or not, you are, if you take them to the grocery store, if you take them to doctor’s appointments, how many hours does that take out of your day? Right? How much time? Your wife, Kevin, is taking a neighbor to the hospital or picking her up. How much time does that take out of your day? Right? And if you’re doing this on a consistent basis, you are putting yourself in a place where you’re not earning money. You’re not enjoying your hobbies. You’re just giving. So, two things I want to tell you. I think you’re amazing and I applaud you for that and don’t ignore yourself. Stop it. If that’s what you’re doing, stop it right now. When I do these podcasts, I say, I’m going to give you some lip. I want you to learn. I hope to inspire you. And I want to give you a pat on the back to reassure you that what you’re doing is good, good stuff. Even if it’s this much or this much, Oh, you can’t see maybe on a podcast, but I made little fingers and big hands.
All Speakers: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: So, from the practical side of caregiving, there are what, 44 million to 60 million unpaid caregivers in the United States today, the majority of whom are women. They are stepping out of the workforce. They are curtailing their income, whatever it may be. And they are taking a financial and a physical and probably a spiritual hit every time. So, you have to allow yourself to know that you have to take care of yourself financially. I would say that’s the biggest problem. And I want you to step up your game there. I want you to talk to your partner if you have one. And if you don’t, I want you to step up your financial game. Get paid as a caregiver. If your mom can pay you, for crying out loud, get paid, right?
Stephanie McCul…: That sounds like a taboo topic, right? If you’re caring for a family member who are you to ask them for money? So, can you say more about that?
Cathy Sikorski: Yes. Stop being unpaid.
Stephanie McCul…: [laughter]
Kevin Gaines: Well, there you go.
Cathy Sikorski: If you’re going to pay someone to come in 25 bucks an hour, pay yourself 25 bucks an hour. If your parent or your loved one, whoever that may be, and in my case, it was not always my parent, can afford to pay you. And I will tell you, they didn’t all pay me. Some could afford it and some could not. But, if they can afford to pay you, they should pay you. There’s nothing wrong with that and pay you and make them give you a 1099. Put your social security in there.
Stephanie McCul…: Yeah. Why is that important?
Cathy Sikorski: Because it’s your retirement money, you guys. These are your retirement funds and if you’re lucky, you’re going to get to retirement. If you’re unlucky, you’re not going to have any money when you get to retirement. Retirement is about lots of wonderful, joyful things. One of which is money.
Stephanie McCul…: Oh yeah.
Cathy Sikorski: Don’t ignore that.
Kevin Gaines: 30:40 Let me follow up on what you were saying about getting paid. Now, I’ve seen on TV when I’m watching my lovely reruns in the early evening is when I tend to see them most between the lawyer commercials,
Cathy Sikorski: [laughter]
Kevin Gaines: [laughter] these companies that say, ‘hey, if you have a family member who wants to be a caretaker, they can join our group and we’ll coordinate everything for you.’ Do you have any experience with these guys? Are they good or are they…?
Cathy Sikorski: Well now that you’re mentioning that, I have seen that. And I haven’t tapped into that. What I’m guessing is a total guess. I don’t really know, but thank you. I’m going to check that out. I’m guessing what they are is some kind of a thing where you can then quote, work for them. They’ll 1099 you, they’ll take maybe a piece of it for the admin fee, but you are getting paid, right? So you are then a paid caregiver. Spouses can never be paid as a caregiver. You need to know that right up front.
Stephanie McCul…: Wow.
Cathy Sikorski: You can’t be paid if you’re a spouse. But everyone else is up for grabs, for your mom, for your aunt, for your cousin, for your best friend, you need a signed caregiver agreement, which you can do. And I will give you one, Stephanie, to put on your website.
Stephanie McCul…: Awesome. Thank you.
Cathy Sikorski: It’s really, very simple. I don’t have any problem with you going to and asking your elder attorney about that. You certainly should. It would protect you, I think from other family members, if you did it with an attorney. I like that. But, if that’s not in your sphere of whatever, I’ll give you a simple one and I recommend that you have that, but they probably do the admin, Kevin. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with that. Because again, it might be a layer of protection in case other family members are like, ‘who are you to get paid? Blah, blah, blah.’
Stephanie McCul…: Yeah. And that is important. Like you say, it affects your social security earnings.
Cathy Sikorski: But don’t be sketchy and don’t steal from your relatives. Don’t be stupid, right?
Kevin Gaines: Yeah.
Stephanie McCul…: That’s overall good advice.
All Speakers: [laughter]
Kevin Gaines: Well, I just want to ask, Cathy, I know when my father-in-law was sick from complications from diabetes, my mother-in-law, very happy to be his full-time care giver. But every Saturday night, my wife and I, we lived a few hours away, would drive up to town so she could go to bingo and just get away from everything. Cathy, you’ve done this eight times. How important is it to be able to have your own support system and to make sure you can take breaks.
Cathy Sikorski: Okay. I want you to know that I’m a very selfish person.
Stephanie McCul…: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: You think I’m selfless, but nah.
All Speakers: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: I take naps. I, up until COVID, would get a massage on a regular basis. I go to the nail salon. I go out with my friends. That was one thing I think I learned to embrace pretty quickly, probably because of the experience with my grandmother and my two-year-old. That was tough on me. I really learned very quickly. This is really hard. And I need to have people in my sphere who are going to support me and that all circles back to one very important thing. Ask for help. Do not, not ask for help. So, clearly you willingly helped your in-laws, and your wife recognized that her mom needed that. But the other thing that you’re doing when you don’t ask for help is you are denying the joy of sharing time with this person to other people. If you’re a control freak, and you think you’re the only one who can do it, then nobody else gets to spend time with someone who needs them desperately. Stop being so selfish and share the love. Really. I’m sure every time you did this, you felt really good about that, right?
Kevin Gaines: Absolutely.
Cathy Sikorski: You felt good because you spent time with your father-in-law and you felt good because your mother-in-law got to refresh and renew. So, you felt good about it. Stop taking that away from people.
Kevin Gaines: Plus, I got to watch whatever I wanted on TV because he and I had the same taste and my wife, while she has no problem saying no to me to watching really bad movies, she would never deny her father.
Stephanie McCul…: [laughter]
Cathy Sikorski: [laughter] Yeah. There you go. That’s good to ask for help.
Kevin Gaines: So, Cathy, I guess the last question is if somebody wanted to reach out to an elder lawyer and said, ‘hey, Cathy, she sounds like she knows what she’s doing. I want to talk to her.’ How do our listeners find you and your book?
Cathy Sikorski: 35:06 You can email me at cathy.sikorski@gmail.com. I welcome your emails. You can find me at cathysikorski.com on the internet machine. If you would like a speaker at any of your important events or to come talk to your financial advisors, if you have a team, I love to do workshops with people and you can find my books on Amazon. Just type in Cathy Sikorski. There they are.
Stephanie McCul…: And Cathy is a fabulous speaker and as you mentioned, we’re in the age of zoom. It doesn’t have to be a local Pennsylvania group looking for a speaker to address caregiving issues.
Cathy Sikorski: No, I speak all over the country and webinars have become the thing of the day and trust me, I try to make them fun and informative and give you lots to digest by the time you’re done and lots of action steps. So, today can I leave you with action steps?
Stephanie McCul…: Please.
Cathy Sikorski: Go get your documents and make your parents get their documents. And if they have their documents and you don’t, make sure you do and check your beneficiaries. There you go. Three action steps.
Stephanie McCul…: And make sure you know where your parents’ documents are.
Cathy Sikorski: [laughter]
Stephanie McCul…: You might not know that they did them, but if nobody knows where to find them, they’re no good to anybody.
Cathy Sikorski: Great answer. Yes.
Stephanie McCul…: Awesome. All right. Thanks so much, Cathy.
Cathy Sikorski: Thank you both. Thank you so much.
Kevin Gaines: Thank you.
Cathy Sikorski: This was a great conversation. Really enjoyed it.
Kevin Gaines: Appreciate it.
Stephanie McCul…: Wow. Cathy is a font of knowledge, but also so empathetic because she’s been through it herself.
Kevin Gaines: There was a lot to unpack in this interview. I’m not going to lie. I was a little happy to hear somebody else talk about the importance of beneficiary forms.
Stephanie McCul…: Other than just you? [laughter]
Kevin Gaines: I get tired of preaching. Let somebody else carry the load for a while. But seriously, I did like her pointing out that beneficiary forms work for the dead. They don’t work for the living. You need to have a POA and these other documents in place. And she made this point: just because you’re a spouse. You’re not always going to be allowed to make decisions.
Stephanie McCul…: In fact, you’re affirmatively not allowed to get at your spouse’s retirement accounts because they’re owned by the single individual. So, yes you need your power of attorney, but it has to have those gifting provisions. And as she pointed out, we all three are Pennsylvania people. You need to know the state law, or you need to make sure that your attorney knows the state law and is up to date with the provisions so that your document actually gives you the protections that you think it does because it’s all in the fine print.
Kevin Gaines: Absolutely. Yeah. Because I know there’s like different POAs and I wish we would’ve talked about this, that, there are different POAs for different situations and that a general POA doesn’t always work.
Stephanie McCul…: I appreciated her helping us understand that elder law is not just about the elderly, right? We heard the news yesterday. Tiger Woods had that terrible car crash. He could have been incapacitated and needed someone to make medical decisions for him. We don’t think of him as an elder. It could happen to any of us at any day. So, we all need to think about these things and have the conversations with the loved ones that we would want to step into place, but also have the legal documents that give them the authority when we are unable to speak for ourselves.
Kevin Gaines: Right. Because the thing is, it might be uncomfortable to have the conversation now, but you are saving so much heartache and stress. You’d rather make the decision when you can, not when you have to.
Stephanie McCul…: Yup. Yup. As they say, avoiding the hard stuff today can make life hard down the road. But taking those, what feels like uncomfortable steps now, can make things easier later. I also liked her point about making sure you’ve got the right professionals, right? If we’re not in the field of law, for example, all the time, we might not realize that an estate planning attorney and an elder law attorney have different areas of specialty. So, I think that kind of gets back to the point we always talk about of, ask the right questions, right? Know what you want from this professional going in and ask a lot of questions to try to suss out whether this person really has the expertise you need.
Kevin Gaines: Right. And don’t be shy about having the different professionals in your life, the different pieces of your life talk to each other.
Stephanie McCul…: Yeah. That’s important.
Kevin Gaines: There’s stuff that we know that estate lawyers and elder lawyers don’t, or accountants may not. And I can guarantee you, there’s plenty of stuff about taxes and trust that I don’t know. And even if I think I know, I don’t feel comfortable enough telling somebody you should do this or shouldn’t do that. Talk to somebody who knows this stuff and let everybody work together.
Stephanie McCul…: 39:55 Right. And let us, let your advisors talk to your attorneys, talk to your accountants, right? It’s like having doctors in different specialties, treating you for different stuff. Unless there’s some coordination or someone, often the patient, keeping everybody informed, things can go awry.
Kevin Gaines: Yeah. Think about a movie production. The director does talk to the editor who does talk to the cameramen and if they don’t talk to each other, they’re not going to make a good picture. We’re trying to make a good picture for you.
Stephanie McCul…: I loved her point about as a caregiver, don’t be afraid to ask to get paid, oh my goodness, this one really hit me. So as a spouse, you’re not allowed to do it. But if you’re caring for aunt Sue and aunt Sue has some money, it is legitimate. In fact, it’s not even selfish. It is the right thing to do to set it up so you legally can be a paid employee, contractor, whatever it is. Get the legal documents because not only does it allow you to have some income, but Kevin, talk about the other implications of actually getting paid for your work as a caregiver.
Kevin Gaines: Right. And we even said, women have a harder time because they tend to be the primary caregivers, they’re all of a sudden not earning money. And it’s not so much money to spend. If you’re not earning money, you’re not getting your social security credits or credited for the income. Two different things. We’ll talk in another episode. Also, earned income. It allows you to contribute to a retirement account. There are things you actually get out of this and it’s not so much the numbers that are important. It’s just having the ability to do these things.
Stephanie McCul…: Yeah. And she was saying, don’t neglect yourself. And this would be, don’t neglect yourself financially, right? If aunt Sue is 87 and running out of money, for example, you don’t want to end up like her. Do the things you need to now to protect your future self.
Kevin Gaines: Right.
Stephanie McCul…: So, lots to take away from Cathy. So glad she could join us. We might have to have her back to learn more. Thanks for joining us. It’s goodbye from me.
Kevin Gaines: And it’s goodbye from her.
Stephanie McCul…: 42:05 Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends. Show notes and more information available at TakeBackRetirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.
Disclaimer: Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you consult your financial advisor prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.