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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
How To Plan For Parents’ Care And Protect Retirement Income with Heather Schreiber
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Your retirement plan can get blindsided by one question you never budgeted for: “What happens if my parent can’t live alone anymore?” We get real about the moment caregiving begins and why it feels like you’re solving ten problems at once: safety, doctors, accounts, passwords, housing, and family dynamics, all under time pressure.
We share the practical first steps that reduce chaos fast, including how to think about legal authority like durable power of attorney and health care directives, and why waiting too long can push families into guardianship. Then we zoom out to the money side of elder care: what Medicare does and does not cover, why long-term care costs can drain savings quickly, and where Medicaid fits in. We explain the basics of Medicaid eligibility, including spend-down rules, income limits, recordkeeping, and the five-year lookback, plus why tools like a Qualified Income Trust (Miller Trust) may matter in higher-income cases.
Finally, we tackle listener Social Security questions that prove claiming is never “one size fits all,” especially with a big age gap, minor kids at home, or a surviving spouse. We break down dependent and caregiver benefits, the family maximum, the earnings test for survivors, and the remarriage rules that can permanently change widow benefits. If you want clearer retirement income planning, smarter Social Security timing, and fewer surprises around Medicare and long-term care planning, this conversation gives you the framework.
If this helped, subscribe, share the episode with someone navigating caregiving, and leave a review with the question you want us to answer next.
To learn more about Brad Pistole and the Ozark Retirement Group, please visit www.ozarksretirement.com
Welcome And Listener Questions Setup
SPEAKER_03Where's the market goes? Where's the market goes down?
SPEAKER_01Welcome 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 retirement. 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.
SPEAKER_00Well, hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today for Safe Money Radio. 17 years rocking and rolling, more than 800 episodes, and my favorite guest, my sis Heather Schreiber, is on the show with us today for the Ask Heather series. This is the second one that we're doing in 2026. And in this segment today, we're going to start getting into caller questions. Those of you who listen, or maybe even podcast listeners, who have sent me questions for Heather to answer on the show. So, Heather, as always, thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02I'm glad to be back. I feel like we just did this yesterday, but I love it.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, that this is what's interesting about this series is that since I'm about four or five weeks ahead in my show and what I record, I know that anytime your show airs with me on the air, it's time to record the next one. And so this past weekend, your previous show aired with us on radio and on podcast, and so it's time to record a new segment with Heat. So here we go.
SPEAKER_02There's never a shortage of questions. So I I love that we get to do it so often.
SPEAKER_00Well, here's what I want to do as we begin because I think it's always good to give our listeners and our viewers, if if you want to watch this, just go to YouTube. This interview will be on YouTube where you can watch. But I think it's good for them to see part of the behind the scenes of what goes on in our lives and our world. I know we both had massive days yesterday. I got home at like 6:30. You had all kinds of things going on. Was up till 3 in the morning and started early today with me before most people have their business open. So here's what I want I want everyone to know if you're listening or watching right now. We spent 35 minutes talking before this series even started today. There's so many things going on with the caller questions. There's so many tangents and fingers and offshoots about the what-ifs, and this stuff is so complicated. And so we were just catching up on what's going on in our world, what's going on with clients. We're helping these questions. And so this stuff isn't just cut and dry, super easy. There's one answer. There's all kinds of possibilities, right, Heather?
SPEAKER_02Well, there is, and that and that's the thing, you know. Typically, when when we get questions, we have before we can answer, we have 10 more questions, right?
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02And that's the thing here. You know, the the caller's question was something, and I was like, well, asking more questions, you know, so it can be answered in so many ways. And that's why I always say every situation is so unique and requires more questions to get to the right answer. So that's why we were on the phone for 35 minutes talking about, well, if it's this, then it's possibly this, you know. So it's constantly a problem that you're trying to solve. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And yesterday, in the middle of all this craziness, I got a question I've never come across before from a from a caller. I think I don't know whether or not they listened to a podcast or a show, but they emailed me through the website, ozarksretirement.com. And so I'm like, okay, don't know if they're a caller, a listener, a podcaster, or a referral. I don't know. But they had a very unique situation, one I don't come across. And I'm texting you in the middle of the day going, hey, I know you're probably busy, but how do we deal with this situation? And so, not a normal situation. You have a male whose spouse was 10 years older than him. He's retired military, she's getting close to 65, Medicare questions, filing for Social Security questions, all kinds of things. And he's still in his 40s. So, like, how do you deal with that? It's not not your normal situation. So that's the fun of the show. That's why I've been doing Safe Money Radio for so long. We are passionate about keeping your money safe, protected, and providing guaranteed lifetime income streams that will never pass away for you and your family. But so many different things can happen in life. And so that's why Heather joins us from Georgia today. She talks to and helps advisors all across the country. So stay with us. I promised Heather I was gonna save some time from this first segment to deal with all these questions. We're gonna need a lot of time. So if you're listening, you can call us anytime at 866-780 SAFE. 866-780-7233. Or the easiest thing, just go to my website, Ozarchretirement.com, click on the contact us button, and then you can request a free financial consultation or send us a question for Heather, and we'll deal with it on the show, which is what we're gonna be doing the rest of the day today. So 866-780-7233, call us anytime. Okay, Heather, let's do this. As we begin, I want to say this. We're gonna we're gonna deal with two or three different specific client questions that each have about three questions with their question. But I want to do this before we do that.
Caregiving Reality And First Steps
SPEAKER_00On the show the last time, you opened up and shared some of your own personal situations with your mother, what you're going through with her and her health. And that really resonated with our listeners, those who follow us, and so many people responded and said, Well, I'm so grateful that Heather shared her own personal story. I'm going through this with my mother, I'm going through this with my aunt, I'm going through this with my sister. And they're talking about this sandwich generation of where you have a family and they've got parents living with them and kids still living with them and all this stuff. So I wanted to sp spend a little bit more time on this show talking about what someone deals with when they start to recognize that hey, maybe a parent has cognitive decline, maybe their health's not there, maybe they're making decisions and something's not adding up, and that whole process starts to happen. How overwhelming it can be, and what you what how do you even begin when that's the case?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh, and you know, let me put this in perspective. So there are 63 million family caregivers. 63 million, 53 million of them are unpaid. Many of them work full-time jobs. Insert myself. Yes. Right. And so with my mom, um, she, and I don't know if I said this the last time, but she was living in Indiana, and it became a situation where um, you know, she had been diagnosed with uh with Alzheimer's and dementia, uh vascular dementia two years before. She was living with um a longtime partner, and he the situation changed quite quickly, and you know, I was the obvious choice. I'm the oldest sibling. Um, and so that came upon my family very quickly.
SPEAKER_00And you're in Georgia and she's in Indiana.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And I travel a lot with my job, and so we sort of had a family meeting, and it was like, well, I need to get her quickly to Georgia, um, because she could not live alone. Um, and that involved selling a home and you know, not really knowing the financial situation. So, you know, I'm sure this resonates. I talked to so many people when I've shared this story that they're like, Yep, we we took care of my mother-in-law, my mother, whatever the case may be. So I think when you're faced with that, and now I go around saying, you know, when you're talking to clients about their own long-term care plan, how do they plan to, you know, mitigate that risk? Because the reality is you've heard heard that six or 70% of people 65 or older will have some need for some sort of long-term care service. We can't ignore that.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so we'll always talk about that. That's always been part of hopefully the planning process. But you also need to ask the question, what is your parents' long-term care plan? Because it could be you, right? And so if you're not having those conversations, you need to be. But in this case, we didn't have it. And so uh it became quick. And so I'd say the first thing to do um is you know, stabilize the situation. I mean, that's kind of what I had to do at first, is say, okay, the safety plan. How do we get her here? Um, you know, stabilize her, get her here is the first thing, you know, ascertain like they didn't know anything, passwords to accounts, her doctors. Obviously, in my case, I had to completely reestablish all of her doctors, and clearly someone who has, you know, she had moderate at this point, and she's young, she's 74 years old.
Getting Legal Authority Fast
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, I had to get all of that established. I had and the biggest thing even before that was authority. She was moving across state lines. Um, I needed to, you know, she she was still at that point, and she still is to a degree, but I needed to have power of attorney. Yeah. Obviously, I'm a financial person. So um, you know, my sister and I visited an attorney there immediately to transfer all, you know, we have a durable power of attorney so that we could essentially, really me, um, but both of us are named, could act on her behalf right now. Um, and so she essentially granted me authority on everything so that I could act financially for her and and control everything. So I think that really, because it depends on how far along, you know, a lot of people suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia. If they're too far along, then it becomes they can't sign that. So you have to look at guardianship, which is a little it's a lot more complex to get guardianship. So I'd say that being able to, you know, having a medical, you know, health care directive, those are the biggest things. Um, you know, the stabilization process. And then the next thing is ascertaining the financial assets, right? Because, you know, then you have to say, okay, how are we going to handle this? Is it going to be living in our home? You know, are we going to take on that burden or you know, that care? Yes. Because it is a lot. It is so eye-opening. I have such an appreciation for people that take this on. Um, and now it's become a passion project for me because when it happened for us, I had no idea what it would involve. I mean, we quickly made our basement and in-law suite.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because I was like, you know, she and she came with two dogs, a cat, and I was like, oh Lord.
SPEAKER_00Here we go.
SPEAKER_02But and we already had a good gaggle ourselves. So I was like, oh gosh, we're gonna we're we're gonna be outnumbered by all the pets. But um, you know, it quickly became obvious that I was trying to run a business while caring for her. I still had a senior in high school. I was like, huh, you know, and um, and so it, you know, it was a lot. I was getting up very early in the morning to make sure she was okay. You know, she has issues vascular, she had some mini strokes, so she was even having challenges dressing. I was taking her to the senior center. It was a lot. Um, we've since moved her recently into an assisted living facility, which I'm sure as we go on through the series, I'll share more about that. And it's been a wonderful transition for her. She's 2.1 miles away. I see her all the time.
Medicare Limits And Care Costs
SPEAKER_02She loves it. But, you know, those are the things that are imminent. You have to like figure out where are the finances and how are we going to move forward? Are we going to get care in the home? In her situation, I was able to get her home health care that was covered by Medicare. But even that is a challenge. You got to figure out do they qualify? Right. Um, you know, it's it's a family thing. So, you know, and then there's Medicaid, that's the largest payer of a nursing care, right? Um, but Medicare, that's a lot of it's something that get people get confused on. They think that Medicare will pay for long-term care and they do not. Right. I mean, they will, if it's skilled care that come you know, coming out of a hospital or something like that, but they don't cover that. So then you're looking at how are we paying for this? And I think we could probably spend some time talking about that as we go through this series.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um, but really the imminent thing is okay, figure out how we get them here to safety. What are we going to do in the short term? And then, you know, figure out your resources. That was the other thing. I didn't know where to go to figure this out. And it was sort of trial by fire. Um, your local senior services was was amazing for me. Um, got a lot of information from them. You should have an agency for aging um in your local um community. They're very helpful. Um, but you really, I really have I I want to like spearhead something to it's a manual for caregivers. Like, where do you go to get information? Because it's kind of difficult to find that information. So I don't know how much time we have.
SPEAKER_00I can talk about this forever, but you said so much that that's already given me two or three things I want to revisit after we take a quick break. But if you're listening right now, I know this. So many of my clients locally in the Ozarks, and I have clients in 20 states, but a lot of our local clients I know have come in and said, hey, we just moved my mother-in-law in or my mother's with us. We just completely reconstructed part of our home. So, I mean, there's just so many things from if they're in a different state, moving them here, getting powers of attorney, finding out if they have a plan. You said something about that that really it triggered in my brain, you need to find out whether or not your parents have a plan. Because if they don't, you're probably their plan. If they don't have a plan, you're their plan. And if you don't have a plan, your kids are going to be your plan. And so there's so much about this. So here's what I want to do I want to give you our contact information. We meet with people about this all the time. You can go to ozarksretirement.com, just click on contact us. Heather's a retirement income certified professional. I'm a retirement income certified professional through the American College of Financial Services, and we help people with these issues all the time. And so 866-780-7233. If you want a free financial consultation or to talk about some of these things or anything financial, just get in touch with us. There's always someone standing by to take your call, or you can just go to the website and request a free consultation. Heather, let's do this. I had a podcast yesterday, and this is what I'm learning. When you say these statistics and numbers about how many people are going to deal with this, I think the numbers are maybe even higher than what's being shared right now about how many people are going to deal with long-term care. Case in point, I'm doing a podcast yesterday morning with someone, and right in the very beginning, they say, you know, this past week we had a funeral in our family. Our 96-year-old aunt passed, and they lived, you know, in a different state. And they said, Here's the thing that was overwhelming about it. Her care was about $100,000 a year, and it's not even an expensive part of the world. It's a very rural part of the world. $100,000 a year. And they said, we were battling with as a family, what are we going to do about three months from now? Because all of her resources were almost gone. And so we she had been able, thankfully at age 96 to live off of her own resources through that age. But she was about to be out, and they were like, What do we do now? That's just one tiny part of it. Now, what do we go? How are we going to pay for this? Where's the care gonna come from? Are we dipping into our own pockets? Do we file for state assistance? What do we do? And so there's so many tangents that this can take. Um, I know that you so you moved your mother into your home and did some reconstruction there. She was in your basement, then she moved out, she's just a couple of miles away, like you were saying. But how do you even begin to start navigating all the finances, the physical decisions, the powers of attorney? And here's what I always keep in mind, because like I said, you're like a sister to me. So every time we're at an event, I have to run over to you and your husband and give you a hug because I know you need one. You're running your own job, you have your own career, you speak all over the country, you have kids at home and in college. How in the world did you do it? How do you do it?
SPEAKER_02You know, I don't know. I mean, honestly, it just you just do it. Um, you find a way to do it, you know. Um prayed a lot. Um, but when we were in the same situation, I mean, my mom, we never talked about her finances. I mean, uh, she, you know, she worked her whole life. Um, you know, she had a good social security benefit. Someone told her, you know, how to file. And so she had you know, she waited until 70. Um goodness for you. And she worked until 70. I mean, God bless her. She worked until 70. And I finally had to say to her, in fact, you know, she was working when she was really starting to lose her memory. And oddly enough, she worked in memory care. And so some of the nurses were saying to her, you know, you know, get it out. You know, when she would try to say something and she was struggling with it. And I said, Mom, the point at which you start going to work and you're dreading going because they make you feel bad is the point you stop. You've you've done your time, right? So that's when she stopped working. Um, but we're in the same boat. I mean, I'm managing, I'm stewarding her money as best I can. Um, she is fortunate that she has a very strong social security benefit. And my plan is to steward that money. I mean, I penny pinch, you know, we paid for her care while she was here. Um, she's we're we have a very lucky situation here. I mean, in our community, I'm shocked. I was shocked. I was prepared to pay more, but our um her, you know, she has level two, you know, they usually have a base amount for an assisted living, you know, facility, and she's staying in a very nice one. I wanted her to be very close to me because I knew I'd be there all the time. I've gotten to know the care staff and the nurses ever very well. She is not in memory care, which would cost more. I didn't want her to go there. She had a visceral reaction when I made the mistake one day of saying to the social worker that was with the home health agency that they had memory care at this facility and she lost her marbles because it was before I had visited the memory care side.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I understood why. She's very social,
Medicaid Spend-Down And Trust Options
SPEAKER_02she loves it there. Um, and it's beautiful. You know, she has access to wonderful things. I want to go there, you know, all the time. Um, but um right now our plan is to just you know spin down her assets because it, you know, for those that don't know, with Medicaid, you have to spin down assets to the point of having, you know, $2,000 of assets. Um, you know, if you're married, your home is protected if the if the non-institutionalized spouse is still living in it. But with her, she's single. So, you know, we have to spin down to where she has virtually nothing in terms of assets, $2,000 or less. And then there's an income part of that too. And then, you know, so the income part last year is probably slightly higher now, but I remember in Georgia it was 20, it was $2,901. Well, her social security alone is higher than that.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02So even if I spend her assets down, on the in on the asset side, she passes the test, on the income side, she doesn't. Okay, and so there's ways around that, but you have to use an elder law attorney to do it. I know it because I'm in the business, you know, that you can do a qualified income trust, it's called, or a Miller trust, that essentially is set up so that her excess income from Social Security goes to that trust so she can qualify. That's a planning technique. But then the question really is do you want to go the Medicaid route? Because oftentimes facilities, Medicaid facilities that accept Medicaid are different than where she is. I've already asked. The minute I walked in there, I said, if we get to a point where she is no she no longer has funds to pay for this, will you accept a Medicaid assignment? Because I don't want her to move.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right. I want her to stay where she is. Imagine that we run out of money and then I'm like, okay, mom, we have to move to this other facility. You've spent all this time here. They said no right now because they've only been there for a year. Um, so that's a decision I'll have to make. Am I willing to do that? Probably not. So it'll probably be me paying the difference. Um, and so those are all the questions that come. Now there are there, I didn't use it and I regret it. I probably will call them, but there are uh individuals that are like help you navigate all these situations and they do it for free. They must get something from somewhere. But there are people that do nothing, but they're like they assist you through navigating how how to find the right home, how to, you know, that or the assisted living facility and all of that. I strongly encourage you to do it. I didn't because I felt like I was trying to just do everything myself. I'm a do-it-yourself kind of gal, but I think I wish I had done that. Um, so look in your communities for that. Um, but yeah, yeah, it's there's a lot to unpack and knowing you know what Medicare covers, not long-term care, unskilled long-term care, which is what a nursing home facility or assisted living usually is, they'll only cover skilled care. Um, you know, and then deciding, okay, if we have some assets, we're gonna have to spin this down. Giving it away doesn't work, doesn't work, right? Because they Medicaid says what you did in the last five years, which also means you have to take keep very good records because they're looking. If you apply for Medicaid, they're gonna say, well, give me your bank records for the last five years, because if we see anything that was gifted away, right, then we're gonna take we're gonna extend the or we're not gonna give you uh money for that. They divide basically the cost of care into that and say, okay, well, that that gift of 150,000 divided by the divided by the cost of care, you know, the monthly cost of care, that means it's gonna be extended for that much longer because you gifted it away. So, you know, there are strategies, but you just have to be careful about that. So it's it's complicated, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, I will say this because there's so much information that you just covered, and and I this is just such a blessing to all of our listeners and viewers. So thank you. Because I don't think most people, when they think about their financial plan, I know they listen to this show and think about this as a planning for retirement, my future years, um, when I'm done with work and I'm gonna be able to enjoy what I've always wanted to do. Most people don't think about part of that plan needs to be how am I gonna care for my parents? You don't think about your retirement plan is yeah I Well I need to factor in.
SPEAKER_02I might have to, you know, plan for another three or four thousand a month.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02You know, and I didn't. I was like, oh, I've planned so well. Everything's going to be paid for. We're we're we're great. And now I'm like, okay, well, I know me. And I know that I probably will be like, well, if you're not going to take a Medicare a Medicaid assignment, I'm not going to move her.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Right? So I have I I'm going to be paying for it. Um I will.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah, I'll say there's thankfully in a lot of families, there is the deemed child who's going to take care of the circumstances. You are. I'm that child in our family. I want to just say you better be planning ahead, even if you're not thinking about it, because I purposely, when my father died, and Heather, you know this, I bought this big house I did not need at the time, but I did it because I knew what's coming. My mother comes up and stays a lot. There's an entire part of the house that's for mom because my mom is 78. And at some point, mom's gonna have to go somewhere, and I want to help take care of her. So I just didn't want that to all hit me all at one time. I planned ahead of time because I can watch what's happening with so many other people and go, hey, I better plan for that right now so that it doesn't hit me and catch me off guard. So listen, if you're listening, I know live there too.
SPEAKER_02I mean, you're a blessing. You are a blessing to your entire family, but you know, I'm gonna take a wing at some point.
SPEAKER_00You want to know that? You gotta come visit. We're gonna we've already said sometime this year Heather's coming to our new podcast studio. She's gonna come stay, bring her husband, enjoy some time in the Ozarks, and we'll we'll do a podcast together in person. So now that it's on camera, you can hold me to it.
SPEAKER_02That is absolutely gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00But I'll say this because we wanted to reserve half the show for two questions that have about six questions in them. And it's it's gonna be buckle your seat belt. So our first two caller questions are coming up after this break. We want you to know you can call us anytime, 866-780-7233. Or the easiest thing, just go to the website, Ozarksretirement.com, click on the contact us button. You can find our YouTube page there. You can find articles I've written. You'll see pictures of Heather on the website and her connection to us. And so there's all kinds of ways to get in touch with us. But just go to Ozarksretirement.com and request a free financial consultation. Okay, viewers, listeners, here we
Social Security With Minor Kids
SPEAKER_00here we go. We're gonna jump right in to ask Heather questions, and it's gonna get interesting. This one seems easy, but as we talked about this this morning, it's probably gonna take two segments to deal with this one question. So, Heather, here's your first question.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm 17 years older than my spouse. I am 64, she is 47. We have a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old still living at home. I'm still working, and my per my job provides our current health insurance. I would like to retire next year at age 65 and trigger my Social Security benefit when Medicare begins. Here's the question. Should I consider waiting until age 67 or 70 to trigger my benefit? What are the pros and cons of starting at age 65 versus waiting? Loaded question. Here we go. So many potential answers.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so my first question well, the first obvious thing that I'm observing in that question, or two things. One is that wide age disparity between the two of them.
SPEAKER_0017 years. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm lying. There's like four things in this. Second question is did she work? Is she working?
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02That matters to me.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02Third thing is they have these children. Fourth thing is he's gonna get Medicare at 65, but she'll she's gonna have another however many years, 18, 17 years next year before she's entitled or eligible for Medicare. And we all know what healthcare expenses are these days. So those are all things that I would be saying asking, right? Right, right. But let's go at this from which direction should we go first if she didn't work?
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Let's do that.
SPEAKER_00Let's say she's 47. So let's say since the kids are 14 and 12, and he didn't say if she worked or not, let's assume she doesn't work, she stays at home.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So she's got a either she's never worked, didn't qualify, or she has a very low benefit. Okay. So if that's the case, then the concern is you've got sort of so let's peel back the layers. If he files next year, then he's gonna open up, he has to file, he's gonna open up benefits for his kids. Because they're minors. So he's gonna have an influx not only of his own benefit, but it's gonna be reduced because he's not yet full retirement age.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yes, he'll he'll he'll obviously he's not gonna have health insurance, so he's required to uh turn on social uh Medicare, but it will, he'll automatically be enrolled anyway. Once you're on, if you're on Social Security, they're gonna automatically enroll you if you're on it at 65. Uh but um so and then he could file for dependent child benefits. Those kids can collect benefits under his record up until they're 18 or when they graduate from high school, if that's later, but no later than 19.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02Interestingly, she can also collect benefits too, because she's the caregiver. So it's called child and care benefits or mother's benefits, they're all the that's they mean the same thing. So technically, all three, the two kids and her, can collect benefits. Um, they can collect as much as 50% of his what's called his primary insurance amount. That's the the amount uh based on his full retirement age benefit. However, two things. I mean, if she worked, we're gonna assume in this situation she's not working, but if she worked, we'll talk about that later. But they could collect that, that's 50% for each of them, but there's something called a family maximum that only allows a certain percentage to be paid to the entire family. So it's usually 150 to 180% of his overall benefit, including what he's receiving. So with three people on his record, they're gonna be capped lower than 50%. So that's what I'd say. But the problem here is if we assume that she has a low benefit, I would pause about this. Oh, the other thing about her is that she can only collect benefits as a caregiver until the younger one turns 16, assuming the kids don't have a disability. See how this can go all kinds of way? There's all kinds of questions I'd be asking, okay? But let's just assume they don't. Her benefits would stop when the the younger one turns 16. That's how child and care benefits work, unless they have a disability. The children have disability, or one of them has a disability that started before the age of 22. Okay. So that would stop. If she was a very low wage earner that had either a negligible benefit or no benefit at all at all, it sounds good at first to say, oh, wait a minute. They a lot of people don't know. You mean I could get more money? The problem is it's a finite period of time because they're only going to collect it. These kids are not babies, they're going to age out of it in a few years.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And what he's giving up by taking that benefit early is higher cash flow later on for both of them, especially if she has a small benefit that she's not going to be able to collect for a long time. Um, and survivor benefits are critical here, especially if she has a low benefit. Right.
SPEAKER_00Because of the age difference and how long she's going to have to live in the city.
SPEAKER_02And if she has a very low benefit. So I would personally say we need to pause and think about this. Again, critical information we don't know here is really both of their benefits amount, a benefit amounts. I'm assuming that he, you know, he's worked a long time, he's thinking about retiring, but that's a critical part. But anytime I hear an age disparity, big one, um, and also um, you know, there's children, people tend to say, oh, I can get a benefit right now because my children, I mean, unless they're young, young, I'm like, let's pause a minute. Yes, you're getting, you know, a benefit for them. Um, or if they're their children, the child is disabled, because then if they're disabled, you know, then those benefits continue. If if it's a childhood disability of some sort, then those benefits will continue. And then I'm not as concerned because they're going to continue. But when they're, you know, high school kids, let's pause a minute because we're taking a reduced benefit, the wage earner. And it's going to be what the surviving spouse gets later on.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02You know, they get 50% as a child and care um, you know, benefit. They also get 50% as a spouse, as much as 50% when they switch over from child and care and then they become re-eligible at 62. Well, then there's a reduction factor there. Because if she then has her, like I call it a blackout period, she then can't reapply for spousal benefits until she's 62. Okay, he's still alive. So instead of getting 50%, she's gonna get a reduced spousal benefit because she's taking it at 62 if she does. And then fast forward, if they have that plan where he files early, then her survivor base amount is what he took at 65. And so she'll she can collect as much as 100% of that if she's at least 67 when he dies. But she could have gotten a lot more heady weighted, right? So those are all the intricacies. I mean, you can see how working with someone that kind of can put all of that together and say, wait a minute, do we want to do this? Because what they hear is we can get more income now into the household, but we got to think about the fact they have a huge age disparity. So he might die. You know, she she's already statistically, most women live on average six years longer than their spouse.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02So you're talking about many years that she could be living solo on less income already, right? On single tax bracket, where she's got a compressed tax bracket on less income. You see how that goes. So, and more likely to be in a long-term care facility, right? I mean, I look around and it's a lot of women.
SPEAKER_00So let me let me do this. I'm gonna take a little bit of liberty here. You correct me if I'm wrong, because I know I know there's a long answer to this, but I first want to say to all the listeners or viewers, did you get all that? Is it cut dry? Sorry. No, but I'm just saying here's the thing: it takes on so many tangents when you go, oh, it's because it at the beginning, it's hey, I just have a question. I'm 17 years older than my spouse. I'm one year away from really wanting to retire. Should I do it? That's one question. But then when you turn on the I have a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old, oh, well, they're then there are minors in the home. That means income could be generated from this. It could for your spouse also. But then you also have to go, knowing all the rules, wait, okay, if it's a year from now and they're 14 and 12, that means they're gonna be 13 and and 15. So her benefit would only last for a couple of more years till it's gone. So is it worth it? They're only gonna get income for those kids for another four or five years and then it's gone. So, in the long play, is it worth it? Because this is what I'd like for you to talk about next. I'm just off the top of my head, let's say he lives a little bit past the current male life expectancy, which is about 79 years old. Let's say he lived till 80. That means she's 63. So if he took a permanently reduced benefit by triggering at age 65, she's now gonna live on that permanently reduced benefit from age 63 for the rest of her life. And at five years at an 8% roll up, if he would have waited, that's like a 40% reduction in what her pay would have been, correct?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And not only that, she's gonna automatically switch well from what she was collecting. So let's just fast forward that at 62, she switches over, you know, she's no longer, she's got this blackout period where she lost the child and care benefit when the youngest one turned 16. So she hasn't gotten anything from Social Security. Then at 62, let's say they just trigger the spousal benefit. So she's been living on, you know, roughly 35% of his primary insurance amount. And then he passes when she's 63. Well, she's not gonna get his full 65 benefit. She's I mean, survivor benefits step up to as much as 100%. They're not capped at 50% of what he was collecting. But because she's 63, Social Security is gonna automatically switch her if she wasn't was a completely dependent spouse, but they're gonna reduce it because she's only 63 at the time, right? So it's it's a ripple effect of things that you can't possibly get or understand unless you're a nerd like me, who kind of has spent a lot of time to make sure that people understand what they're doing when they do it. Because Social Security, you know, we don't most people don't have pensions anymore unless you're governmental, you know, and so this kind of replicates that it's sort of the foundation, and then you got to say, okay, well, how do the taxes fall with this too? Because, you know, the the year after death, you know, that's your last year of marrying filing jointly, correct? Right, unless you have head of household of some other reason, you've got a parent or whatever that you're caring for, but then you're looking not only at what's the income that we've got, now we've got a single tax bracket. What's the tax impact? There's there's so many things that go into it. So you really want to have your foundation, that social security, lifetime, you know, pension-like source of income. You really want to get that down and say, okay, is this good? Do we understand what's going to happen if and when this? And when you're dealing with not only a lower earning or no earning spouse that's dependent on that, uh, and the age disparity, where we know that she could potentially live for another 20 years after he passes or 25, then we've got to say, okay, let's step back and look at what the scenarios are. If we did it this way, where he did file at 65, or maybe he should just enroll in Medicare. Because guess what? They're also gonna have to pay for her health care for out of pocket.
SPEAKER_04For a long-term care.
SPEAKER_02So do we think about that? And healthcare is not cheap, right? So, you know, and she's gonna, there's a potential who's gonna pay for her long-term care if she needs it. Yeah, you know, so that could be another way that, you know, let's think about it. We got a 2.8% cost of living adjustment on Social Security for 2026. That cost of living adjustment is, you know, it's the same for everyone, but depend it's gonna be work better on a higher benefit. Of course. You know, yes. So that's something to think about too.
SPEAKER_00Well, friends, those of you listening right now know why I always say Heather Schreiber is the nation's number one expert when it comes to Social Security and income planning. And so I've got all these letters behind my name. We share some of the same ones. She's in TPCP right now that I've completed last year looking at all the tax side. But when it comes to Social Security, I tell everyone up front, I know a lot about it, enough to be dangerous, but I ask Heather every question that I possibly can regarding this stuff because it just is so complicated. It has so many different tangents. So it's not just as simple as the 64-year-old saying, Hey, I think I want to retire next year. Should I do it or should I wait? And he, if he expects a 30-second answer, that's not going to be the case. This is very complex stuff that depends specifically on what your situation is. Married, how much of an age difference does she work? Does she not? How old are your children? Are they minors? Are they adults? Lots of things. So believe it or not, we only have time for one more question, one more segment. So I want to give you our contact information in case you're listening and go, hey, this just made me think of a lot of questions. Great. Simply contact contact us at Ozarksretirement.com. Click on the contact us button, request a free consultation, or shoot me an email. I will personally respond to you. You can also call us anywhere, anytime, 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233, and there's always someone standing by to take your call. So, friends, we're so grateful for Heather having us uh joining us today and being back on the show. I want to say this uh we've got time for one question. It's got a lot of questions on it, so listen closely because I think probably a lot of our viewers can relate to this question.
Widow Benefits Earnings Test Remarriage
SPEAKER_00Heather, my husband passed away this year when I was 57 years old. I've been told that I can't start my widow's benefit until I'm age 60. Should I file to start that benefit at age 60? Will my benefit increase? Should I continue working to try to increase my benefit amount in the future? What happens to my benefit if I get remarried? A lot of questions there, but all very important. So let's jump in and talk about this.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So the first question I would ask if I got that question would be do you have any dependents of the deceased in the home and how old are they? It kind of goes back um to the prior question.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02The only way uh, or are you disabled? Okay, because typically widow and widower benefits begin the earliest age at which you can claim those is 60. Unless one of two things is is um applicable. One is that you have younger dependents of the deceased that are either under age 16, then you could claim benefits along with those those dependents. Um, or or they're disabled, like one of the dependents is disabled and was disabled before the age of 22. That's another way because you can get child and care benefits that way. Or the widow or widower is disabled or becomes disabled within seven years of death. So that would be someone who, like, say that the widow is on SSDI, for example, they're on social security disability, their spouse passes and say they're 52. Well, if the survivor's benefit is higher than theirs, then they could switch then. Um, they're not going to get the full benefit because they're younger than their full retirement age, but they'll get they could switch over at that point. So let's assume that none of that is the case. She's 57, the kids are out of the out of the house, none of that applies, she's not disabled. Then I would say the earliest age, she's correct. The earliest age would be 60.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02The second question I'd ask then is are you, you know, she's mentioned that she's working. On any benefit that is taken, disability benefits are different, but anything, retirement, spousal, ex-spousal benefits, if you have the ability to take benefits from a former spouse that you were married to for 10 years or longer, any benefit you take, including survivor benefits, if you work and you earn too much money, if you earn this is wages, not IRA distributions, dividends, all of that. But if you're working, Social Security says if you want to take benefits before your full retirement age, you can only earn a certain amount before we start withholding some of your benefits. Now, withholding, they do give it back to you at your full retirement age, but if you earn more, we're gonna withhold a certain percentage of that excess amount. So for her, I would ask her how much she earns because if she earns more, now I have to use this year's, I mean she's 57, so it's gonna go up every year. But this year, if she were 60 this year, I'd say, well, if you earn more than $24,480, then Social Security is gonna take the excess amount over that limit, and they're gonna withhold a dollar for every two over the limit. So if you are $20,000 over that limit, they would withhold half of that or $10,000 from your survivor benefit. So she could file, but you know, say her benefit, I'm gonna make it easy, was $2,000 a month as a widow, then they would withhold, they don't prorate it over the year, they withhold it up front. So they would say, okay, if you're gonna, you know, apply in January, I'm making this very easy, then we're gonna withhold the first five months of the year and not pay you until starting in June. So you get your first payment in July. That's how they would do that. They would do that every year. She'd report her earnings until she reached 67 or you know, her full which her full retirement age is 67. Once she got there, they would they would tabulate all the months that they withheld and they would recalculate her benefit at that point, her survivor benefit, and say, okay, well, we withheld a total of you know 14 months of benefits over the course of that time. And then we're gonna so we're gonna increase your monthly benefit to include those missed months. That's how that works. Um, the her question about does my benefit increase? So if she took it at 60, her benefit, his benefit wouldn't be 100%. The survivor base amount, that's what you need to know when when you go and say, okay, my spouse died, what do I, what am I entitled to? They're always the the base amount is what he was collecting at the time of his death or entitled to collect. So if he was collecting a benefit, whatever that benefit was is the survivor base amount.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02If she collects it early at 60, then she's gonna collect 71.5% of that. Okay. So she would get basically 71.5% of that if she collected it right at 60. Um, it doesn't increase other than by cost of living adjustments. However, she could what she could do is file, she could file at 60, she's only entitled to a survivor benefit. At six at 70, though, she could switch over to her own retirement benefit, which continues to grow regardless of whether she continues to work, because it's increasing, right? It's increasing, and the maximum it reaches is at 70. And so she could say. Oh, well, that benefit is going to be higher. So even if she worked and they withheld some of her benefits from Survivor, I mean, we'd have to look at that to say, okay, how much over are you? Or maybe you're just slightly over, I'd still tell her to take it in the survivor situation. Um, because she's working might be increasing her benefit too. Like, even if you claim benefits, people say, well, once I claim benefits, might if I continue to work, it's not going to do me any good. It might. You know, some people still work at 70 and they're still working and they're making good earnings, that could still increase your benefit. You know, so her benefit could increase that way. But the survivor benefit, once you take it, it isn't going to increase, right? You've taken it. The timing of your claim is going to impact how much you get. Where's the case?
SPEAKER_00It's locked in, but it may be at a reduced benefit. Correct. Well, let's do this because we've got one minute left. So what about because I know this is a huge question. What about the remarriage question? You don't expect it, you just lost a spouse, but but you meet someone, and what happens if I get remarried? What does it do to the benefit? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So you want to ideally wait until 60 or later to remarry. The reason you want to do that is because you would lose the ability to take the survivor benefit. Why is that a big deal? Well, because survivor benefits are typically much higher than a spousal benefit. You can't collect a spousal benefit once you remarry unless it's higher than your own benefit. Well, this caller or person that emailed said she's working. So the chances of her collecting a spousal benefit are probably far less than a situation where a spouse never worked or had a very small benefit because Social Security says during lifetime, you can only collect the higher of your own retirement benefit or 50% of your spouse's full retirement age benefit. But with survivor benefits, you can strategically claim one before the other. Claim the smaller one first, switch to the other one. Huge, huge opportunity that she would miss if she if she got married at 59 and 10 months. She would lose the opportunity to do that. So remarriage at 60 or later, 50 if she were disabled. But generally, for most people at 60, that's incredibly that's a strategy. That's a cash flow optimization strategy that would be missed if remarriage occurred before uh 60.
Closing Guidance And Free Consultation
SPEAKER_00Well, friends, I know if you're listening to all this and your head's spinning, it's okay. So is mine. And I do this every day. So the just know this with every question, there are multiple questions that come back. We have to make sure that we've asked all the right questions to make sure we can correctly answer your question. So that's why we're here every week to provide this information. We've run out of time again, and so that's why Heather's gonna be on all throughout the year. In our next segment of Ask Heather, we're gonna go through four or five more questions if we can get through them. We could do a whole show on one question, but we're gonna try to always get to three or four questions in every segment. So, Heather, thank you so much for joining us. Until the next time, uh enjoy things down in Georgia. And those of you that are listening or watching, send us your questions. Just Brad at Ozarksretirement.com or go to Ozarksretirement.com, click on the contact us button, send me an email, we'll deal with your questions online. 866-780-7233, call us anytime. There's always someone standing by to take your call, or you can just go to the website and request a free consultation. 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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