Navigating Caregiving & Financial Challenges with Danielle Miura

In this episode of the Steadfast Care Planning podcast, host Kelly Augspurger and guest Danielle Miura, a certified financial planner, educator, and caregiver advocate, discuss the complexities of caregiving and the financial challenges that come with it. They delve into the costs of caregiving, the impact on the caregiver's financial health, and the subsequent ripple effects on their families and the next generation.

Danielle shares her personal caregiving experience and provides valuable insights into the emotional, physical, and financial toll of caregiving. She emphasizes the importance of having a plan in place to protect caregivers and advises on key steps to safeguard one's financial health while providing care.

In this episode they covered:

🔹 The Economic Strain on Family Caregivers

🔹 Impact of Caregiving on Career Progression

🔹 The Mental and Physical Toll on Caregivers

🔹 The Realities of Family Caregiving

🔹 The Financial Strain of Unplanned Caregiving

🔹 Financial Advice for Family Caregivers

🔹 Support Networks for Caregivers

🔹 The Importance of Money Conversations in Families

To connect with Danielle Miura and for more information about Spark Financials message Danielle through LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-miura/) or visit: https://spark-fin.com/
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➡️ Watch this podcast:  https://youtu.be/oNSv7nqj0Do

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Steadfast Care Planning podcast is made possible by AMADA Senior Care and Steadfast Insurance LLC.

Come back next time for more helpful guidance!

Transcript

Kelly Augspurger [00:00:02]:
Hey everyone, welcome to Steadfast Care Planning, where we plan for care to live well. I'm your guide, Kelly Augspurger. With me today is Danielle Miura, certified financial planner, educator, caregiver advocate, and owner of Spark Financials. Danielle, thanks so much for being here.

Danielle Miura [00:00:18]:
Thanks for having me.

Kelly Augspurger [00:00:19]:
Today we are going to be talking about how to navigate caregiving and financial challenges. So, Danielle, can we jump right in?

Danielle Miura [00:00:26]:
Yeah, that sounds great.

Kelly Augspurger [00:00:27]:
All right, well, let's kick it off with what are the costs of caregiving? Can you speak to that? What do we need to consider when we think about caregiving costs?

Danielle Miura [00:00:36]:
The cost of caregiving, unfortunately, has impacted so many people. If we're just looking at a generalized scope of statistics, family caregivers are approximately 20% of the population, if not more. What you'll find out later is a lot of the statistics that I have are here in the right now, but there's a lot of more studies that need to be completed in order to really understand what it's like to be a family caregiver. And those can differentiate based off of the person and who they're caregiving for. So just to give you some generalized statistics, about 18% of caregivers pull out of the retirement savings either through a 401K loan, a hardship withdrawal to take care of their loved one. And usually those costs for their loved one are about $7,000 to $7,200 per year to pay for cost of care. And that doesn't even include the one third of caregivers who are dipping in their savings to take care of themselves. So you're looking at someone who is caring for someone, either that's an aging adult, an adult child, or a young child to take care of their care.

Danielle Miura [00:01:42]:
We're not just talking about an aging adult, unfortunately, anymore. Through the pandemic, this number has increasingly grown of what this demographic looks like. And we have so much more research to accomplish.

Kelly Augspurger [00:01:55]:
It's not a drop in the bucket. Caregiving financial costs are very high, and it not only affects even the actual caregiver, but it can affect their family too, right? If you're a caregiver and you have extended family, maybe you have a partner or a spouse and you have children, there's a ripple effect there of how it actually can affect them, too. Because if you're caregiving and you're paying for care also, maybe you're not working as much. Maybe you're having to take time away from your job and you aren't able to earn the income that you once were able to earn.

Danielle Miura [00:02:25]:
Yeah, in a lot of the research that has been done about many people experience less wages based off of the hours they're able to work. And then they're also missing promotions. About 40% of the caregivers that they did in the study, they found that they felt that their supervisors or their managers weren't giving them promotions based off of the feeling that they had a missed opportunity to really go up the ranks in their company due to the sacrifices they have had to make for caregiving.

Kelly Augspurger [00:02:53]:
Yeah, I understand that. And it's a sad situation because people depend on their income and they depend on their jobs. And if they're missing out on opportunities because of caring for loved ones, it's not ideal. Not an ideal situation. Aside from the financial caregiving cost, Danielle, what are some other things that we need to consider when it comes to caregiving costs?

Danielle Miura [00:03:13]:
About 50% of caregivers experience anxiety and or depression, which that's exponential. But at the same time, as a former family caregiver, I'm not surprised by that statistic. They also are likely to have a decline in health. About 65% of caregivers have a decline of health during their caregiving period. So not only you're getting the financial costs and the financial burden of taking care of someone, you're also getting the emotional and the physical toll that comes with caregiving. So it's like you're getting a wraparound cycle of really difficult time for someone.

Kelly Augspurger [00:03:47]:
That's right. It really goes well beyond the financial burdens and consequences when it comes to caregiving. The physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. It is a very tiresome and can be burdensome activity of providing care, especially if you are a sole caregiver. If all the caregiving falls upon your shoulders, that is a tall order. And so we're going to be talking about later in the show of how do we best protect caregivers and how do we come up with a plan and all of these things. But I think this is a good baseline for people to understand that caregiving costs go beyond the financial. There are physical, mental, emotional things that need to be considered, which is why we really need to protect caregivers and come up with a plan.

Kelly Augspurger [00:04:30]:
So, Danielle, before we get to that, can you tell us how do you know about these costs of caregiving? You're not very old. I don't know if you want to divulge your age, but you're not 50 years old and caring for your mom or dad or anything like that, but how do you know about this?

Danielle Miura [00:04:45]:
Yeah, as we talked about earlier. Caregiving can be anybody. I was 25. I had a child a couple of years before I started caregiving. And I really thought that one day I would be in this caregiving position because both my husband and I are only children. But I didn't think at 25 that I would be a family caregiver. I moved closer to home. My husband was working from home, and so it was a perfect opportunity to live closer to my family and help support them.

Danielle Miura [00:05:12]:
And about a month after moving closer to my family, my grandmother fell on tile floor. And that was when my life changed, because I wanted to be with my family. And my grandmother poured so much into my cup. She was like a second parent to me. And so I felt the lovingness and the care that she provided to me. I wanted to pass back to her.

Kelly Augspurger [00:05:34]:
And so you had the opportunity to provide caregiving to your grandma. How long did you do that?

Danielle Miura [00:05:39]:
About three years.

Kelly Augspurger [00:05:41]:
Okay.

Danielle Miura [00:05:42]:
It was funny because as a financial planner, I'm looking at statistics, and I was looking at the Genworth study and this may make me seem awful, but I was looking at the Genworth study and I was thinking, like, mostly for women, they need x amount of years of care. Usually, as you know, for women, it's about 2.9 years. And I was like, well, maybe I'll just be doing family caregiving for about three years, and that's it. And of course, you can't go all based on statistics because that's just the average. So I could have been like five or six years down the line. But I was kind of thinking to myself, this is kind of what the average is. This is what my perimeters and my financial boundaries look like, and that's all I can do. And she passed away before meeting the statistic.

Kelly Augspurger [00:06:23]:
Okay. And there are a variety of statistics out there, not just the one that you spoke of. There are statistics that said women need 3.7 years of care. There are statistics that say if you make it a year, that you're likely to need 5, or more, years of care. So there are lots of statistics out there. But I think it's important to know that we as people, we are not statistics. Right? We aren't averages. Someone might need no care.

Kelly Augspurger [00:06:46]:
Someone might need 15-20 years of care. It's hard to know. And we can't know how much care each of us will need. But what we can do is come up with a plan in the case that we do need care, right? Who's going to provide care? Where do we want to receive care and how we're going to pay for that care if we're going to have professionals and how are we best going to protect our family and finances? And I think that's key because I think some people do get caught up in those statistics, Danielle. And, okay, well, this is what average is, and so I'm going to plan for that. But we're not average, right? So they provide some nice baselines and give us an idea.

Kelly Augspurger [00:07:22]:
I think, especially in financial planning, a lot of financial advisors look at these numbers and look at these statistics because you guys are numbers people. But I think it is important to think outside of that box, too. Is, okay, well, we don't know what's going to happen to us or our clients or our family, but how do we best protect them if this happens? Right? And Danielle and I share a similar caregiving story because I also was a caregiver to my grandma when I was in my 20s, when I was in my early 20s, before kids. And so we identify there and sharing that similar story. And so we weren't that statistic of average of being older. Typically, we see people in their 50s as caregivers or older, often in that sandwich generation. And so we didn't fall into those normal statistics, did we? Danielle?

Danielle Miura [00:08:06]:
No. That's why it's important to not assume that that's what it looks like, because I could tell you all the statistics that I can provide, but as you said, those don't really mean as much because it can really be anyone. And caregiving is so complex. Every situation is different.

Kelly Augspurger [00:08:23]:
It really is. The Steadfast Care Planning podcast is sponsored by AMADA Senior Care. AMADA provides complimentary consultation with a senior care advisor to find the right care, from in-home caregiving to community care, as well as long-term care insurance claim advocacy, and unique support partnerships for financial advisors to address family transitions and generational retention. To learn more, visit www.SteadfastWithAmada.com. Danielle, how does not planning for extended care financially affect the next generation? Because we know this is not just the individual person that needs care, right. This is multigenerational. How does not planning affect the next generations?

Danielle Miura [00:09:11]:
Yeah. What I'm finding with my clients is that the generation they're caring for is not planning for long-term care. And so someone has to pick up the pieces. And oftentimes that's a family member, that's the person who cares so much about them, they're willing to sacrifice theirselves, whether that's emotional, physical, or financial, to take care of them. And often people are dipping into their savings, as we talked about before, and then they have barely any left for their retirement, for their care. And so they're starting over once caregiving ends. And it's a really sad cycle that is being processed to start over at 50 or to start over at an older age, that's difficult. There's so much risk involved.

Danielle Miura [00:09:58]:
And then what happens to your children, to the next generation for you, if you are not planning for yourself?

Kelly Augspurger [00:10:04]:
Right. So we want to break that cycle.

Danielle Miura [00:10:06]:
That's the hope.

Kelly Augspurger [00:10:07]:
How do we break that cycle? How do you best protect financial health as a family caregiver?

Danielle Miura [00:10:12]:
So I would just say the basic three: 1) having emergency fund. That's three to six months worth of expenses. But I think what most people forget is there are some expenses that you're paying for to take care of your loved one that needs to be included in your emergency fund. Because if something happens to you, then who's going to pay for your loved one's expenses if you're the sole person paying for those expenses? 2) The next thing I would look at is setting boundaries, financial boundaries. As I said earlier, I was kind of using statistics at that time because I didn't know any better to kind of estimate how long family caregiving could last. And I said, this is how much I'm willing to do as a family member to take care of her. This is the three year mark, and that was my financial boundary. And then 3) creating a plan.

Danielle Miura [00:10:57]:
So when that three years are over, what does that look like? How can I recoup my savings? How can I get myself back on track? And don't do it alone. Because I think we think we're heroes sometimes and that we just have beautiful capes and we can do it all. And that's not always the case. I think we could do it all, but we might be burning out and hurting ourselves worse by not getting help.

Kelly Augspurger [00:11:23]:
That's right. And how do we get help? What does that look like? Who can help us with these things?

Danielle Miura [00:11:26]:
Yeah, I'll start by putting an olive branch and saying, feel free to message me on social media, or through email. I'm always there to be an olive branch, to hear other stories and kind of be a comfort to somebody else. There's organizations such as Agency on Aging, Caregiving.com, that can be a support and provide support groups. I even say that even if you don't think you're a family caregiver, check out those support groups because you might get tips that you may need later on. You don't have to be like me, literally starting from scratch and not knowing anything about caregiving. You can start with a foundation of great and useful tips.

Kelly Augspurger [00:12:06]:
What you just said there, I think, is so wise. Not only just the support groups and getting the help, but the statement that you made about you might not even think you're a caregiver. The Steadfast Care Planning podcast is sponsored by the Certification for Long-Term Care CLTC, an in-depth training program that gives financial advisors the education and tools they need to discuss extended care planning with their clients. Look for the CLTC designation when choosing an advisor. If you're looking to become a CLTC, enroll in their masterclass and enter "Kelly" in the coupon code field for $200 off. What defines a caregiver in your mind, Danielle?

Danielle Miura [00:12:45]:
In my mind, I see it as helping someone who's vulnerable. That's my generalized definition.

Kelly Augspurger [00:12:50]:
Yeah, and that's very broad.

Danielle Miura [00:12:52]:
Yeah, I know that's really broad. But I feel like that's the best definition that I can come up with, because I don't want to just say it's just for an aging parent, or just for an adult child. And that definition can really expand many different ways, and that's why I usually just say it's taking care of a vulnerable person.

Kelly Augspurger [00:13:11]:
Yeah, I love that. When I was taking care of my grandma and it was just part time, it's not like I was doing it 24 hours a day. But I didn't consider myself a caregiver. I didn't realize that's what I was doing. I thought, I'm just helping grandma. And it evolved over time, which I would imagine, I don't know, for you and your grandma. I know your grandma fell, and then you started helping her. Was it a progression, though, as far as how much help you were giving her over time, or was it pretty much the same amount of help the whole time?

Danielle Miura [00:13:35]:
No, it definitely got progressively, I wouldn't say worse, but it got progressively harder to care for her. I burned out, and then I realized, "Oh, shoot, I really am a caregiver." And that was maybe like six months in. So I don't expect people to notice or idealize themselves as a caregiver right away. It may really take some time to really be a caregiver and may experience burnout for you to really understand that maybe you do fit this role that you didn't think you fit before. At the time of burnout, I was caring for two aging adults. They both had very different needs, and it was just...it felt like way too much.

Danielle Miura [00:14:19]:
It was just too much overwhelm at that time, where I was just like, I'm burning out.

Kelly Augspurger [00:14:24]:
Yeah. And we don't want people to get to that point, to the burnout. Right. We want to prevent that burnout, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, all of those things. And so having a plan in place before you get to that point is really important for me. I didn't really realize I was a caregiver until I was helping my grandma bathe. Up until that point, I was helping with meals and some medications and transportation and some light housework and just helping around the house and taking her to appointments and those types of things. And then when it came to the point of, "Oh, she doesn't have good balance.

Kelly Augspurger [00:14:59]:
She needs help in the shower." I'm physically helping her, and I'm a petite person, and she wasn't a big person. But how do I physically do this? How do I do this properly? I'm not trained for this. I don't know how to do this. And so that was my "Aha moment" is, "Oh, my goodness, I'm a caregiver. I'm not equipped for this. I need some training in this."

Kelly Augspurger [00:15:20]:
And then that really, a conversation with the family came after that is, we need to do more for a grandma, this is not working. She needs some more help than what she's getting. And so you might not think you're a caregiver, but if you're helping someone who's vulnerable, then you probably are a caregiver. Right? And so look into support programs. Look into professionals like yourself, Danielle, people that can help to relieve some of that burden and hopefully to prevent the burnout.

Danielle Miura [00:15:45]:
Yeah. I think that's the end goal that we want to accomplish, is we hope that people figure out or at least get the support that they need before those kind of light bulb moments happen. I think sometimes caregivers think that, "Oh, I'm just doing these small things," as you said. "I'm just giving them a call to see how they're doing every morning, I'm picking up their groceries." But those small things can lead to very bigger things, as you noticed. And those small things like going to the grocery store, that's caregiving. That's what the role looks like.

Kelly Augspurger [00:16:15]:
Yeah, it really does. It might not be what you assume caregiving is, right, but there's different levels of caregiving, and so we want to best protect ourselves, our family members, our loved ones, our neighbors. And so people need to have a plan of, "Okay, if in the event that I need some help, I need some extended care, what is my plan? Who's going to provide care and coordinate care? Where do I want to receive care and can receive care and how am I going to pay for that?" Those are really the basics in developing some type of a plan of care. Well, Danielle, any final advice on how people can plan for care to live well?

Danielle Miura [00:16:46]:
Communication. I think we keep especially money conversations behind closed doors, and we don't pass money lessons and money conversations to the next generation. A simple conversation of "I can't pay for long-term care" would be enough for a child to understand. Maybe I might have to save a little bit more just in case my parents need long-term care and might develop conversations that you didn't have before that can help prepare your kids. And I know that having money conversations is not easy, but the more you communicate, the easier it will be.

Kelly Augspurger [00:17:21]:
Absolutely. Good communication really changes outcomes. And so if we can have regular, consistent, effective communications, then that really is going to help everybody involved. I agree. Good advice, Danielle. Well, tell us, where can people find more information about you and the services that you provide, Danielle?

Danielle Miura [00:17:39]:
So first and foremost, my website. I have a lot of resources there as well that covers a lot of these topics. And I'm also on social media, on LinkedIn and Twitter mostly, talking about my story and some tips that I have for others. So feel free to check me out there.

Kelly Augspurger [00:17:55]:
Fantastic. Well, Danielle, thank you so much for your time today. Have a great day.