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Safe Money Radio with Brad Pistole
Safe Money Radio host Brad Pistole is a nationally recognized Financial Professional who specializes in planning that protects principal from stock market volatility and creates guaranteed lifetime income. Listen here to receive insights from Brad and hear what he has to say regarding retirement income planning.
Safe Money Radio with Brad Pistole
Social Security 2026 Made Simple with Heather Schreiber
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A comfortable retirement isn’t built on hope or hot tips; it’s built on coordination. We sit down with Social Security strategist Heather Schreiber to unpack what’s new for 2026, why a 2.8% COLA can feel smaller after Medicare premium hikes, and how IRMAA cliffs can quietly siphon thousands from your income. From the first minute, we focus on practical steps you can take right now: when to claim benefits, how earnings tests really work, and how to avoid the most common mistakes at Peak 65.
The conversation goes deeper than dates and dollar amounts. We connect Social Security to pensions, survivor benefits, and taxes, showing how the wrong survivorship choice can leave a spouse short on income and stuck in higher single tax brackets. Heather makes a powerful case for building a strategy around the higher earner, planning for longevity, and using tax diversification—Roth conversions, timing IRA withdrawals, and smart sequencing—to reduce lifetime tax drag and premium surcharges. If you’ve ever wondered whether IRMAA is “only for the rich,” the numbers here will change your mind.
Real life enters the studio when Heather shares her experience caring for her mom through dementia. It’s a candid look at sudden change, unpaid caregiving, and the logistical maze of doctors, safety modifications, and benefits. We talk Medicaid lookbacks, spin-down rules, and the rising cost of long-term care—and how to start family conversations before a crisis hits. The takeaway is simple: you can’t control every curveball, but you can build a plan that bends, not breaks.
If you’re approaching 65—or helping a parent—you’ll walk away with a checklist to protect income, lower taxes, and prepare for unknowns. Have a question for our upcoming Ask Heather series on Social Security, Medicare, or IRMAA? Subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs it, and send your question to Brad@OzarksRetirement.com. Your future self will thank you.
To learn more about Brad Pistole and the Ozark Retirement Group, please visit www.ozarksretirement.com
Host Intro And Guest Setup
SPEAKER_04Where the market goes up. Where the market goes down.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to State Money Radio with your host, Brad Pistol. Brad is a retirement income and tax planning certified professional, primarily serving clients in the Midwest, but he's sought after nationally for his expertise in helping people secure their retirements. Mr. Pistol is a licensed life insurance professional in approximately 20 different states, and he specializes in working with people who are near retirement and those who have already retired with wealth management, income planning, and asset protection strategies using life, health, long-term care, and annuity insurance products. And now, here to talk with you about securing your retirement, it's your host, Brad Pistol.
Why Listeners Reach Out: Triggering Events
SPEAKER_03Well, hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining us again today for Safe Money Radio. And if you're watching online, you know, you can see this beautiful, lovely face next to me here today, split screened with the lovely, adorable my sis from Woodstock, Georgia, Heather Schreiber. Heather, thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I'm always, always glad when we have time together. We have so much fun. I'm looking forward to it.
Heather’s Role And Constant Rule Changes
SPEAKER_03We do. And so if you're if you're joining us for the first time, you might be listening on the radio. Just know you can go to YouTube or to Apple or to Spotify. And if you want to watch this, just go to YouTube because we're going to be talking about a lot of incredible things today. And this is what I want to do. You know, Heather, there's always, you know, every day is a reminder to me of the power of being on the radio for 16 years because someone calls in yesterday and they're like, hey, I've been listening to you for five years, and they start regurgitating all the things I say all the time and stuff with you. So they're talking about all this stuff, and I'm like, no, they're not making it up. They really listen to us all the time and they know the stuff. And they had a triggering event in their life which made them call to say, hey, it's time for me to come in and sit down, and I need to start putting together my plan. And everyone's going to have these triggering events. It may be at age 50 or 55, or it may be because of retirement, the death of a spouse, turning 65 and entering Medicare. We know we've done shows about all the key triggering events. Yeah. So what I want to do is for those that are listening, I just to tell everyone a little bit about you and what you do down there in Georgia.
SPEAKER_02Down there in Georgia. Well, down here in Georgia, it's a little bit overcast today, but uh I love it down here in the in the peach state. Um but I basically help you, Brad. Uh I I sort of work behind the scenes with uh advisors, um, making sure that, you know, kind of keeping track of all of the changes. Lord knows. We we both know how uh the laws uh tend to change on a dime. You know, we just had the one big beautiful bill act that wasn't as as expansive as some of the other acts that affect retirement income planning, but certainly planning overall and tax planning. Um, you know, but I really have a passion and have for over 30 years really keeping track of the way uh that you know, the dynamic way that retirement income planning has changed. And we've seen so many changes. If you've been in it as long as we have, seen so many changes. And so, you know, it's hard for the average consumer to keep track of it and and separate myth from fact, right? When you add the media into it, it's really hard to figure out on on your own how and when to trigger certain things, or you know, social security, a topic that is obviously near and dear to my heart because it is so foundational to the retirement phase of life, and there's so much information, a lot of misinformation, and you really want to get that right. So, you know, that's my passion it's consumer advocacy, working with um advisors and making sure we put a plan in place that works, you know, for each individual, each couple, each widow or widower. Um we we encounter so many things every every single day, and we just love to share it with all of you through this podcast.
Personal Lessons That Shape Advice
SPEAKER_03Well, and that's what you do. I mean, you're I know we were talking before the holidays, and you're like, uh, I'm about to have to start jumping on the planes and flying all over everywhere because you speak all over the country. And so I've always said you're you're probably one of two people in life. You're the person who knows everything about everything, or you're the person who has to know the people who know everything about everything. And I'm the person who has to know the people who know everything. So I like that.
SPEAKER_02You know, you know a lot, but you know, you I learn something new every day, don't we? I mean, we learn something new every day, and what I love too is that we learn from our personal experiences. We were just talking about that before we went live. Um, you know, our personal experiences, and boy, have we had some, both of us. Um, I've had a significant one in 2025, and you have shared, you know, the same, you know, similar experiences. And I find that when I do travel, and I I share those because those are the learning moments for their teaching moments for me, and I'm always one that shares my personal experiences because it just really, you know, it's one thing to teach about a concept, it's entirely different to live it. Um, and so I, you know, I use those when I do talk to people and when I do go around the country and speak because I think it really resonates with a lot, a lot of people to hear your personal stories. And, you know, I'm always learning, always learning something new.
Community Q&A Plans And How To Participate
2026 Social Security Updates And COLA
SPEAKER_03Well, that's so powerful. And so for those of you listening right now, in case you never have tuned in before, just know I've been hosting this show for 16 years. We celebrated 800 episodes this last year. We had Heather on and Ed Slot and Tom Hegna and lots of other key guests on the show. But we do talk about these things. I mean, we before we went live, literally, we were talking about my younger brother who just spent a year in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. He graduates on Saturday. That's real life stuff happening to my family. I lost my father a couple of years ago who was an advisor in our practice. Heather's gonna talk about the sandwich generation and what it's like when you have to place a parent in some type of long-term care or assisted living. She's going through that right now. So, what you're gonna find on this show, we're always gonna have key guest experts, people who are specialists all across the country who talk to people just like you all across the country about how to plan for retirement. And one of the things I'm so excited about is that Heather has agreed to join us several times this year. We're gonna do at least six episodes on Ask Heather. Ask the retirement expert your questions about Social Security planning, Medicare planning. Maybe maybe you got an Irma letter this year and you want to ask about mean old Aunt Irma, how that's gonna impact you, if it's just for this year or next year. We're gonna go into anything you want to talk about in future episodes. So just know if you're listening right now, you can go to Ozarksretirement.com or Brad at Ozarksretirement.com, send me an email, send us a message, or you could call into the show, 866-780-7233, and say, Hey, I want to ask Heather XYZ questions, and then we'll deal with your questions on air. We're gonna be talking about in the future. And so today, as we're getting started on this first episode of the year, we're gonna be talking about the following thing. 2026 Social Security updates. There's some new information there. We're gonna talk about what we talked about. What happens when you find yourself in the sandwich generation and you have parents moved back in with you, and you still have children or grandchildren living with you, and you're caught in the middle. And what have how do you plan for that? How do you prepare for that if you don't have a long-term care policy in place and the expenses involved and Medicaid spin down? We're gonna talk about all kinds of fun stuff on the show today. So we're grateful to have Heather with us. I'm gonna give you the information again right now. Just go to Ozarksretirement.com, click on the contact us button in the upper right hand corner, and you can schedule a free financial consultation. You'll see Heather's lovely picture on there. If you're driving around in the Ozarks, you'll see her face on our billboards. She's part of our team. And I love it knowing that no matter what the question is, we can go to someone like Heather and say, Hey, here's the situation. What do we do in the situation? And she's going to come up with answers that we didn't have before. So I know she finds this a lot of fun. And so we'll be right back after this message. Call us anytime, 866-780-7233. There's always someone standing by to take your call. Okay, friends, thank you for joining us today. We've got Heather Schreiber on the show, National Social Security Expert. She's a fellow retirement income certified professional graduate through the American College. And I know, Heather, you you speak of a lot of different events. You actually are going to the big conference this year, year number two for the American College that's coming up in May. I think we're going to be together in Florida.
SPEAKER_02We are. I'm excited about that. That's going to be an amazing conference with a lot of thought leaders with just different perspectives. And again, it'll be a learning event, I'm sure, that we'll both take something away that is just valuable to share with our clients that we serve, you know. So I'm super excited about that, that particular event. And we'll be together to have live radio shows there, whatever you're going to do. I know you're interviewing people and and doing the thing. You've become the spokesmodel for the American College's interviews at the Horizons event. So I look forward to being one of your interviewees.
SPEAKER_03You bet. We're going to have you and the this cloud of witnesses, these incredibly brilliant people, and I get to ask them the questions about retirement planning. So I look forward to it. So I tell you what, let's do. Let's jump right into 2026. Because, you know, we always record this a couple of weeks before it airs. So those of you listening, you're probably going to hear this in late January, early February. But this is January 6th with us recording this. And we just so happy new year, everyone. How are you doing on your resolutions? Are you still they, you know, the experts say it lasts less than 30 days. So are you still doing it when you hear this show? Because we're probably not six days in recording it.
SPEAKER_01So I don't even think I made any. I'm still trying to catch up from 2025. I just feel like it turns it turned 2025, and here we are sitting in 2026.
Earnings Tests, Taxable Wages, And Max Benefits
SPEAKER_03And that's the whole, that's going to be the whole recurring theme today, is just how quickly things happen. Because yesterday I had a 55-year-old say, you know, I I've been listening to you for a long time. I want to start putting together a plan in place, but I know I've still got time. And I said, Hey, we're the same age. I turned the double nickel this year, 55. I'm 54 right now. I said, we're going to blink and we'll be on Medicare. So you better have the plant. We better be working on it right now. So 2026, hit us with some of the Social Security updates that were announced for this year.
Pensions, Survivors, And The Widow’s Penalty
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you know, every year we get we and eagerly anticipate what's going to happen with the cost of living adjustment. Uh landed a little bit higher than we anticipated. You know, last year, as we know, the cost of living adjustment was two and a half percent lower than it had been a few years before that. We got these record high uh cost of living adjustments that, you know, obviously were in line with what inflation was doing this year, starting with the deposits that occurred in in January. Um, so people will see it in their their their January deposits is a 2.8% cost of living adjustment. Not bad, it's a little bit higher than last year. Um, it averages a whopping$56 for the average uh beneficiary, income beneficiary. However, the flip side is that Medicare, uh the Medicare premium for part B went from$185 in 2025 all the way up to$202.90. So that was almost a not a 10% jump. So, you know, as we've been talking about, healthcare, you know, costs are increasing, and so we see that this was a higher jump than the year before. I think lat the year before 2024 was 174.90, I think, and it went up to 185. So there was a steeper jump. Um, so that does take some of that 2.8% away. Um, again, so planning as you know as early as you can. Obviously, you know, timing is critical. Start now, don't keep putting it off. But um, so that's one thing. Um, the the Social Security taxable earnings went up to 184,100, I think, somewhere around there. I think I'm right, 184.5 maybe. Um, earnings limits went slightly up. So that's something you always want to be aware of. That if you plan to claim benefits before you reach your full retirement age, there is only a certain amount of income you can earn before Social Security says, wait a minute, if you earn, and this is just W-2 earnings or self-net employment from uh net income from self-employment, if you earn over these thresholds, roughly$24,000 if you're under full retirement age the whole year, then social security says, hey, we're gonna reduce or withhold your benefits to the tune of 50% of that excess income or that amount. Now we're not talking IRA distributions, pension income, rental income in most cases, uh, you know, things like that, dividends, capital gains, those are passive, right? We're talking about earnings, but those numbers do go up slightly. I usually recommend if you're working, pop you know, try to find some other income source if you're needing a bridge, just because it becomes a headache, you might likely end up paying taxes on some of the benefit if you do that. So those numbers went up slightly. Um, what else? The average benefit, I think, is a little bit over uh$2,000 a month. Um, and the maximum benefit for someone reaching full retirement age this year is$4,162. So that went up. So that's someone who had the highest Social Security taxable earnings throughout their highest 35 years. So those are some of the numbers. You can look at them yourselves if you just go to SSA.gov and type in 2026 Cola fact sheet, it gives you all of those numbers and it'll give you a comparison of 2025. So those are some of the significant numbers to be aware of. Um, the good news is, hey, Social Security is kind of like the pension, right? Of our most private employees, private workers, you know, the only ones really receiving pensions anymore are public sector government employees. They're kind of fading away into the past. And so, you know, most of them have been replaced by defined contribution plans. So that puts really the responsibility on the individual to save for their retirement. Only about 14%, according to the latest uh Bureau of Labor Statistics report that I saw, about 14% of non-governmental employees have access to a defined benefit plan. So if you think about it, social security really is the most pension-like source of income. That is, you know, inflation uh, you know, protected on, you know, it's not guaranteed, but you know, has an inflationary hedge. It's it's designed to last for a lifetime. It can pass on to a survivor if you have one, you know. So it's uh I'm a big advocate for social security and making sure that you make the right choices there.
IRMAA Cliffs And Medicare Premium Shocks
SPEAKER_03Yes, and I want to talk about in the next that in the next episode, just how important it is to claim at the right time and all these different strategies. We may talk about a couple of examples that I threw on you here recently, but that's one I think I recently read that it's it's in the upper 60s percentile that about 67, 68 percent uh Social Security provides the main source of income for 67, 68 percent of people. So it's like for a lot of people, there's nothing else, it's just social security. But they may have a little bit of a pension, they may have an annuity they've created, uh the some other side benefit, uh, but it's it's a huge part of the income, so it's important to get that right.
SPEAKER_02It is. And if you think about those folks that do have or, you know, remember, recall their parents having even a pension, you know, that was a pretty big decision. They didn't just, you know, point at one of the options and say, okay, I'll take that one, right? It was a careful decision about how do I want to take this? Do I want to take it over a single life, or do I want to take, you know, what's called a qualified and joint survivor option, where if I'm married, I'll take a little bit less because it's gonna cover at certain a certain percentage to my surviving spouse. So it's the same thing with Social Security. You cannot look at that and just say, oh, my neighbor over here did it at this time. I'm just gonna go ahead and do that. It's so critically important that A, you look at your own individual circumstances, needs, goals, other assets. There's so many things to look at. Um, you know, and you carefully you work with someone ideally, because there's so much to know. Social security is so complex. In fact, a former commissioner one time said that it takes a full year to train one employee to be able to do the job of answering questions about social security. And I believe it. I mean, I've been doing it for years, and I still sometimes dig into the the weeds and go, I didn't know that. So there's a lot to know. So it's just so important that you really understand what your options are based upon what your needs are, what your goals are, what other assets you have. So I I can go, I can spend an hour just on that.
How To Decide When To Claim Benefits
SPEAKER_03Well, friends, those of you listening right now, we know there's a pretty good chance that a lot of you are close to age 65. And how do we know that? We're in the middle of peak 65. Our good friend Jason Fickner says that uh for the next couple of years, there are some 13,000, 14,000 people a day turning 65 every single day. Uh well, it's and I know it's over 12. It's gonna be stay at 10 for many, many years. And so we're hitting the peak of people turning 65 every single day. Pretty good chance those of you out there are turning 65 and you're either winging it because of what Heather said, your neighbor said it, or your friend at the golf course, or your buddies, or someone in your church life group said, Oh, well, you should claim it 62 because the government's running out of money and you better get it and stick it to them while you can. And that may or may not be good advice. It more than likely will be bad advice. So we we want to talk to you about this in our next segment. Call us anytime, 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Or the easiest thing, just go to Ozarksretirement.com, click on the contact us button, and you could say, Hey, Brad, I listened to you on the show with Heather. I want to come in and talk about how to file for Social Security. We'd be more than happy to do that. So Ozarksretirement.com, click on contact us, and if you call our number at any time, there's always someone standing by to take your call. Okay, friends, let's do this. Let's we've got Heather Schreiber on the show with us today, National Social Security expert. And before the break, we were talking about the importance of triggering at the right time. And Heather, I want to say this as as because then I'm gonna shut up and let you talk because you've got so much knowledge on this. But I had someone come in yesterday, I had two meetings yesterday and six walk-ins, the most we've ever had in one day. But in my one of my two meetings, I came across something I come across all the time. And that's someone with a pension, which is rare, but when they have a pension, I ask a qualifying question that I've learned people almost never know the answer to. And I say, Great, you've got a pension. Does it pass on to your spouse? And they're like, um, I think so. Well, you think so or you know so? Do you know if it passes on? Well, I think it does. Does it pass on 100% of the benefit? Uh, you know, I'm not sure. And then we realize we've uncovered a problem and they're looking at each other, and she's over here like, wait, you mean you don't know whether or not the income we live on right now is gonna pass on to me? Right. And you don't know if it's the full amount. And as you were saying before the break, it might be half of the amount, it might be three-fourths, it might be none. They may have chosen a single lifetime annuity payment as a pension. So this is a big deal because when it comes to Social Security, as we know, you lose the lower and retain the higher. So you're already going to lose one of the two spousal Social Security benefits. What if you lose the pension benefit also? So it's very possible to have a great plan in place while you're alive. And it become a terrible plan that's in place once the first person passes, especially if it's the owner of the pension.
SPEAKER_02So well, what else do you lose? I mean, the other thing I'm just thinking out loud, and you know, you also lose the joint filing status.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02So, you know, that's a critical question. You have to know, you know, does this pass at what and at what percentage does it pass? So you've identified potentially an income gap there. But then also, you know, if if it's only 50%, you've got your income gap. That's also pension. We can't change the tax qualification of a pension. It's always going to be taxable income. And now we've gone from a married joint status to the next year. Usually for most people, it's a single status. It's called the widow's penalty, right? So these are the things that we think about. And that does go into the claiming decision. How should we claim based upon what's going to happen till the very to the last spouse to die? We have to be thinking about all of the things. What kinds of assets are we dealing with? What types, how are they taxed? How is this pension going to pass? Is it at all so we've identified one problem, which is we may have to to uh replace or bridge income with something else? And how does this all work with how we the timing of our claim, the tax efficiency of the modeling of the strategy? It's it all comes together. This is why we're so nerdy. We love this stuff, but it's the things that is so hard, like we said, for the average consumer to be like, what? You know, like how do we do all of that? You know, and how does that all go into the timing of the claim? It absolutely does. All of it.
Peak 65 And Bad Rules Of Thumb
SPEAKER_03Well, I know, and you mentioned this in the very first episode about the importance of several of these things, but I have posted in front of me because I'm still learning the numbers. It's brand new, first week of 2026. We record this, and that's Irma. You mentioned Irma and Medicare premiums and it being a Cliff regime, but so we've talked about tax brackets going from joint to single. Your IRMA bracket goes from joint to single, your Medicare premium surcharge bracket. So I'm sitting here looking at the numbers, and this is what blows my mind. I know you've seen these because we both work with uh the IRMA boys. So we've got Paul Morrison and Mark and Easy, and we both have been through Irma University. From 2022 to 2031, so we're in the middle of this decade, it's estimated that$355 billion with a B billion dollars will be collected from Irma surcharges going into the general account of the federal government. For 2026, it's expected that 9.1 million people will be affected by IRMA, and this will translate into$32.3 billion in what I call stealth taxes, flush it down the toilet taxes, light fire to it taxes, it's just gone. And so I know I think.
SPEAKER_02A lot of them.
Sandwich Generation Realities At Home
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, here's one that I thought of. So I thought, okay, I fall into the single bracket. So ding, you're hit right there. And I have been for many, many years. A lot of people don't know that, but I've been in the single filer bracket for you know a decade and a half. And so I go, okay. So many people online will say, oh, that's just a rich people problem. Irma's never going to affect anyone. It's a rich people problem. And I go, okay, let's scroll all the way down to the fourth tier for 2026, next to the highest tier. If you make$205,000 and one dollar, because it's a Cliff regime,$205,000 is a great income. But you know what? I talk to people all day long every day that make$200,000. If you$205,000, it is a$649.20 Medicare premium for part B. It's$83.30 for part D. I did the math on it, multiply that out by$12. That means you light fire to$8,790 of your$205,000. It's a 4.2% tax gone. Here's the government, 4.2% of my money. And that doesn't include federal tax, state tax, social security taxes, all these other taxes that are there. So that's why we always say, I know you work with the Ed slot group, we we see each other there all the time. Um the number one thing that will separate you from the retirement of your dreams is taxes. It's the number one thing. We're gonna pay them going and coming. And so we have to pay attention to all this. And so Social Security comes into that mix. It's a big part of it. How does someone even begin to know Heather how they should file? How do they figure it out?
Caregiving Costs, Medicaid, And Spin-Down
SPEAKER_02You know, I I I kind of touched on it before. I mean, first of all, your your filing or claiming timing has nothing to do with anyone else. Um it really has to do, you know, obviously if you're single, it's a little bit less complicated, but still, there's still questions to be asked. I mean, you know, you you don't want to always, I mean, and people do, they start with, well, what's my break-even? Because the idea is, well, if I wait, I'm taking the risk that I won't live long enough for that weight to pay off. The problem is, is that what if you live too long? And I think that's what people forget. Because, or they might say, Well, I want to take it now while I'm in my quote go-go years. I want to travel, I want to. The problem is that's great, and I get that, absolutely get that. But then you get into the situation where you live longer than you expected. 70%, we've all heard this, 70% of people age 65 or older are going to experience some sort of long-term care event, right? Right. Usually it's women because we live longer. I'm gonna go on about that for an hour as well. But so then you is social security, if you take it early, how's that gonna pan out? So the question then is you know, how what's the timing? You have to look at everything. It isn't just about the timing, I just retired, so therefore I claim benefits. Quite often that isn't isn't the right choice if we have other assets we're looking at. So we're looking at what other sources of income have you saved for retirement? What type are they? Because we want to create the foundation of social security, but we want to look at everything else. We're looking at how do taxes potentially impact, you know. Hey, we just, you know, one of the positives of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is that it did extend permanently, as permanent as it can be, right? Um, until Congress does something different, but it extended these favorable tax rates that were expected to sunset at the end of 2025. That's great. Um, but we don't know. We are in the historically lowest tax rates we've had in I don't even know how long that could change. So you're always taking the risk. As Ed says, you're in bed with Uncle Sam, right? If you have too much of your money sitting in pre-tax IRAs or 401ks or whatever. So the point is there's so many things to think about. You want to look at, for example, if you're married, is there a marked disparity in your income benefits? That's going to be something that we want to hone in on because if you are the higher earner, your claiming decision, your the timing of your claim, is not only going to affect lifetime cash flow more, but it's going to absolutely affect how much cash flow is left for that survivor who is now in that single tax bracket, having to pay you know more taxes on less income and all of that. So, you know, if there's a marked age disparity, that will come into play, um, depending on who's the higher wage earner, who's not. What if there's children in the home or there's a disability disabled child in the home? All of those things come into play. So that's why I say for anyone listening, if you ever work with someone or hear someone say, ah, you should take it at 62 and run because it's not going to be there, okay? Bad advice. Or the opposite. If someone says everyone should wait until 70, period, end of story, that's also bad advice. Because the reality is everybody is not everybody, everyone of you listening has a unique set of circumstances, a and you know, a unique uh desire about what you want to do with those assets. Even your legacy plan makes a difference to me. I want to know, well, you know, are you is that important to you? That could factor in to how and when you claim. And it's a matter of balancing the absolute needs that you have. You want to fill the, you know, you want to get your needs met through guaranteed income sources, right? And then there's some wiggle room. Um, but you really just need to understand what your options are. And and and I'll say too, you social security, if you think that you're gonna call Social Security and to have this discussion with them, you got another thing coming. They can't do that for one thing, they're there to answer the very basic questions, they're not there to really engage with you on this kind of level to say, okay, well, tell me about yourself. And I want to know. I mean, Brad knows if you'll call and ask me a question, I usually don't answer it right away. I'm like, well, tell me, you know, and I ask five other questions.
SPEAKER_03Yep, I've got to do this first, Brad. Find out.
Planning For Unknowns And Rising LTC Costs
SPEAKER_02I'm very long-winded. I can't, even in emails. I mean, I can't help it. My poor husband and my text messages, he's like, Oh, here she goes. But I'm very long-winded. But it's just because I want to know because that because these are people behind these numbers, right? And we're trying to create a tax-efficient retirement strategy. So I don't know. I again, I'm so passionate about it that I just want to make sure that people understand their choices. They also trust their gut, right? So I hear a lot of people these days, especially calling Social Security and getting different answers from the same agency, right? Trust your gut and ideally work with someone, you know, that can help you navigate these things. Don't feel compelled just because it's Social Security telling you, if you don't feel right about what's being told to you, then don't do it yet. Do your research, empower yourself with information before you do anything because this is such a critical decision. And it's usually a permanent decision. Of course, there's you know, exceptions to every rule, but most people don't want to withdraw their application and pay back all the benefits they've received. That's usually that works in some situations, but usually you're making a decision that will affect maybe just you, but it could affect your family down the road. It could affect obviously your surviving spouse, it could affect even an ex-pouse, it could affect children. So you really just want to get it right and make sure that you are considering all the variables in your situation.
SPEAKER_03And I will even go one further to say it's not that it can, it will. All those decisions will affect all those other people. And so, those of you listening right now, that this is why we have Heather on the show. That's why we're going to be having the upcoming Ask Heather questions. If you have a specific Social Security question, you can tailor it to your own specific need, or it can be about your friend. But send us the question. Say, hey, here's the situation. You know, my spouse was a teacher. I worked and I have a pension. Uh when, you know, I'm five years older. Here are our birth dates. When and how should we file? Whatever your question is, send it to us.
SPEAKER_02I love those. Yeah, and the chances are your question is what anyone else, a lot of other people would be thinking. Uh there's usually a theme in the questions. Uh, so yes, I can't wait to do the Ask Heather series.
SPEAKER_03It's gonna be great. Just send your questions to Brad at guaranteedsafe money.com. You can send them to Brad at Ozarksretirement.com. Just go to Ozarksretirement.com and click on the contact us button and we'll get your questions answered on the show. So, Heather, let's do this. Let's let's shift gears and let's jump into something that I know is kind of consuming your life right now. It's consuming a lot of listeners, and that is that they're dealing with this sandwich generation issue where maybe they're in their 50s. Um, a lot of times it is, but maybe it's their 60s. Hey, maybe they just retired and thought they were going to start their go-go years, and then they find out mom or dad or both are having health issues, and they start dealing with do we move them in with us? Do we move them into assisted living? Um, do we have someone come in part-time? I mean, life really changes in your retirement plan and how you spend your dollars when something like this happens, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03And it overwhelms everything that's going on.
Final Takeaways And How To Get Help
SPEAKER_02It does. 2025 was a whirlwind year, which is why I never made any resolutions because I still am like, wait a minute, that year went by so fast. And and yes, uh, you know, you and I have talked about this endlessly in 2025 because you've experienced it, but my mom unexpectedly came to live with us. She lived in a different state, she lived in Indiana. Circumstances required that she uh move quite unexpectedly. I had to sell her home, um, and she moved in with us. Now I'm still, you know, trying to graduate children, and you know, I have this business and I'm traveling. At that time, I was traveling three, sometimes three times a month. Uh, and so it was a pivot, a reality check. I mean, I was going back and forth trying to, you know, sell her home. She, by the way, has Alzheimer's and vascular dementia. Um, and so it was eye-opening. It has been, we've sort of come through the the massive shock of it all, um, because we had to, you know, my first, I don't know, three months of her living here was trying to get her acclimated to new doctors in a different state and getting her tested and doing all of these things that I just basically needed to get her tested for, get Medicare and all the things switched over, which was a whole eye-opening experience. Um, but you know, it really uh gave me a renewed or a passion for both those being cared for and the caregivers because I realized in doing my own research how many caregivers there are that are in this situation that I'm in. Um everywhere I go, I would share the story, and they would say people would raise their hands doing the same thing. You know, there's 63 million family caregivers of somebody. 53 million of them are unpaid. Most of them have full-time jobs. Hello, right? So I found myself, you know, getting mom to bed, and then I would stay up until 3 a.m. because I had to do that to balance it out. Um, and it came upon me quickly, and so I thought to myself, how many of those in my 50-something, you know, generation or anybody? The average age, by the way, is 51 for someone who's caring for an aging parent or you know, whoever it is, um, and 60% are women, which I found interesting. You know, I got finally got my mom out uh into the senior center near us, which was a godsend. And I sat there the first day I sat around this woman, and I was so fascinated by all those stories. And every single one, and they were in age range range from like 70 to 95. Miss Lola's 95. I love her. But anyway, every single one were being cared for at home by their daughters and their husbands, if they had husbands. But I was just fascinated by that and how many of them had actual jobs, and I was like, How are we doing this? Um, and so it's a real crisis.
SPEAKER_03That was one of my questions, because you had mentioned earlier how it's going to affect more women. We know that men are older and they die first for the most part, and the average spouse is gonna live about 14 and a half years longer than the death of their spouse. It's women more often than men, and so I guess there's more women in the facilities, long-term care facilities, and more women taking care of them, right?
SPEAKER_02That's right. And then so it's again going back to the claiming decision, does that impact or factor in? You betcha, right? If that pension we were talking about in the earlier segment, that that's only if a 50% or a 25% survivor or none, is that gonna affect our claiming strategy? Absolutely. Is that gonna lead to conversations about how are we going to handle if a long-term care event happens? And that's where I think the disconnect is. It made me realize how many people are really thinking about at my age, or you know, anybody that's in this sort of sandwich generation, or maybe they're moving out of it, and now they finally got the kids out of the home, but their parents are aging. I mean, my my husband's dad is also starting to show signs of um dementia. And so now we're we're getting in at both sides. And so it's an awkward conversation to have, but you need to have it with parents because parents could be thinking, Well, of course my kids, my child's gonna take me in or take care of me. And that can derail a retirement plan that you had in place if they don't have they funded, you know, if those conversations don't happen, then you know, you can create a retirement income plan for yourself, right? But then it's derailed if you know, if you don't understand what the choices are, what have your parents saved? If anything, is it what are those, what is that gonna look like if that were to happen, if you had to care for them? Are they gonna move in with you? Do you have a safe place for them to live? I mean, I re-outfitted my whole basement into an in-law suite for my mom and found that, you know, if the first time the home health aid came, I was like, oh, I felt like I was failing because I didn't have certain things on the, you know, like I didn't have the the grab bars and I had a um a rug that kind of slipped on the floor. I was like, I felt like I was in first grade again, flunking a test, you know. But these are the things I learned, you know, and I had to fight with home health because they said, well, she was going to the senior center. She was going, I she couldn't go without me or or the bus that takes um people, but they said, well, she's not qualified for home health because she's physically able. I said, Well, I beg to differ. She is not cognitively able, and her neurologist has said her best line of defense for not progressing this disease is social interaction. So I had to fight to get her home health because I couldn't continue to take her on all these appointments. So I've learned so much. But the the point I guess that I'm making is that these conversations need to happen because, you know, you and I are the same age. I'm slightly older, which chagrins me at this very moment to say that out loud on national radio. But um, you know, we have to have these conversations, not only for our parents' sake, but for our own, as we're planning our own retirement, because you know, my mom doesn't have a whole lot. Um, and so the question then becomes, how does that change our plans, right? We have, you know, saved and saved, and so we really weren't planning on, you know, planning paying for an assisted living private thing, you know, and then Medicaid is a whole nother animal that requires a spin down of every single asset she has and scrutiny of your flat the last five years of what she's done, any gifting she's done. It's it's a thing. So having those conversations with your parents or your aunts and uncle, whoever it is, is really critical when you're planning your own. And it then makes you think about what have I what have I put into place if this should happen to me? Am I gonna have enough money to just self-pay if it's gonna happen? Now am I thinking, should I file at 62 for my go-go years when I've just experienced my mom who quite who was diagnosed at 68? She's only 74 now, so she is young. That goes into my mind too.
SPEAKER_03Because I'm like, did you say a minute ago that 53 million caretakers are not receiving pay for what they're doing?
SPEAKER_02They are not. A very the you know, about nine million are, and it's through some sort of Medicaid waiver program, but the vast majority are not. And it's estimated that it's it's worth over 600 billion dollars in unpaid work. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_03So I want to do this. I know your head's gonna spin, Heather, and because mine is right now. She doesn't watch a timer or anything like that, she's just on doing her thing. But this blows my mind, and I knew this was gonna happen. But we've no, we've got like four four minutes left on the show, and we and we even skipped one whole topic. This stuff is so critically important. We can start talking about this when we're texting back and forth during the day, and we're both crazy busy people. But uh, I'll blink and we're we spent 90 minutes talking, and then we end up on the phone and we just can't quit talking about all the different things.
SPEAKER_02We do voice memos. Those are those work fabulously. We're like we can talk faster than we can text, so we do the voice memos.
SPEAKER_03That's it. I got two minutes in between meetings. Here we go. Yeah, but here's the here's the thing that I want to do. I I I want to. Just to let everyone know, you can contact us, go to ozarksretirement.com, send us a message, and say, hey, Heather was talking about things. This has made me think about stuff I've never talked about with my spouse, planning for the future for our parents, for the what ifs, and we'll talk about it. Um, because we only have a couple minutes to wrap up the show. And so I here's what I want to do. Call anytime 866-780-7233 or go to Ozarksretirement.com, send Heather your question. We will cover it on the next Ask Heather episode. So Heather, as we wrap up the show, which just flew by, you talked about something that was so important. It was preparing for something that's unknown. And how do you prepare for something that you don't know is coming? And so, yo, every week I hear of someone that comes in and they're like, Hey, did you know I I put my mom in a long-term care facility? No. Oh, yes, and you know, here's what's happened. It started off at this amount, and then we've already gone through a six-month increase, and it's gone up eleven thousand dollars. And like, so during uh a Christmas event this year, a client started off with their parent 18 months ago in a long-term care facility at about$87,000 a year. It's currently at$111,000 eighteen months later. How do you absorb that cost of living into your own expenses and into your own retirement plan? So, Heather, what I know we like two minutes, but how do you plan for the unexpected in life? Is it important to have a plan?
SPEAKER_02Today, right? I mean, you can't, and I know it's these are topics that are hard, right? They're hard to have, they're hard to think about. No one wants to think about long-term care and what if I about yourself, much less talking to your parents about it. But when you live it, you're like, all I want to do is share it now. I'm like, you know, this it's something that you need to hear, you need to have these conversations, and more about respecting each other and you know, understanding what they want and and just getting it out there. I think if you come at it with a love and concern for each other, because let's face it, I mean, one of the biggest fears in retirement outside of running out of money is being a burden on your loved ones. So I I look at this like it's the way that you approach it. You know, what is it that you want? You know, what can we do? God forbid something happens. What do you, what plans do you have in place that I need to know about? You know, that's really a way to start that conversation. And don't put off to, you know, till tomorrow what you could do today for yourself. I mean, it really does make me think, you know, gosh, I gotta make sure I have this in place. I don't want this to happen to my children. That's what's it's made me. I'm like, okay, I've got pretty much everything in place. I need to make sure this is secure. I mean, I've already started to put everything in a file of everything for the kids because I don't want them to, they've seen how much stress this has put on me in the last year. I don't want that for them. Um and mom didn't want it for me either. It just happened. And so thankfully I'm um, you know, a spring into action kind of person. I'm the oldest child. I've got the oldest child syndrome. So I'm like, I'll fix it. You know, that's what I do. Um, but she says all the time, I I don't know what I would do without you, and I feel badly, and I don't want her to feel badly. But, you know, being proactive and having these conversations with parents out of love, I think is really important so that no one is blindsided if and when it happens.
SPEAKER_03Well, and you thank you so much for sharing your part of your personal story, and I know we're gonna talk more about it in the future, but you said something that's so important. You said, you know, she wasn't expecting this to happen. It was life events that happened immediately that you're like, we have to deal with this. And that can be a slip, a fall, a heart attack, a stroke, something that's happening with a spouse or someone else in their life. And these circumstances can change everything very quickly. And our our colleague, good friend, America's IRA expert Ed Slot always says the number one goal, the number one purpose for every retiree should be to not become a financial burden on your children. Yeah, sure, we all want to leave them money if we can, leave them great inheritance. But the first thing is don't bankrupt them because of your own situations that you didn't take care of and plan for. So we I hate it that we're out of town, out of time, but I do want to say this. We're gonna talk more about this on upcoming episodes. That's why Heather's gonna be on so much this year. But I think you've seen that when it comes to retirement planning, oh, sure, you can go to the guy or the girl that's the advisor in town that hangs their hat on. I'll get you the biggest return, better than everyone else. And that's all they hang their hat on, because it's all they do. It's just the return. But I think you've learned, if you've learned anything else today, so much goes into retirement income planning. It's not just what stock, bond, mutual fund, annuity you own. It's not just about Social Security, when to trigger and how. It's about long-term care planning, it's about life insurance, it's about estate planning, it's about tax planning, and that's why we are RICPs and TPCPs. We want you to work with people who are experts in doing this every single day. So, Heather, thank you so much for joining us today. We're gonna put a pause on it for now, but we're gonna come back together here in just a few short weeks and jump right back in with where we left off today. So, thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_02Sounds sounds great. I feel like this was five minutes, so I can't wait for the next one.
SPEAKER_03It truly does. So if you're listening right now, go to Ozarksretirement.com, click on the contact us button, we will get right back in touch with you and we will start working on your safe and secure retirement income plan. Well, I'm about out of time, and I would like to thank you for listening to Safe Money Radio. If you're serious about your financial future, give me a call, and together we'll get your retirement savings on the fast track to accumulation while reducing exposure to market losses. Thanks for listening, and until next time at the same time, I'm Brad Pistol, reminding you to stay safe so you can step into a secure future.
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