Senior Care Academy - A Helperly Podcast

Stability Over Strategy: Rethinking Family Finance In Later Life ft. Anne Taylor

• Helperly, Caleb Richardson • Season 4 • Episode 11

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Money becomes a monster in the closet when aging, memory loss, and online fraud collide. We pull the light switch. With Anne Taylor, founder of Grace Point Family CFO and former chief compliance officer stewarding over $300M in assets, we unpack how families can replace panic with predictability and give parents what they want most: independence with dignity.

We talk about the daughter’s dilemma—helping without overreach—and the moment when waiting turns into crisis. Anne breaks down what a Family CFO actually does: aligning with your financial advisor, attorney, and accountant while handling the daily mechanics that make life work. Think automated bill pay with oversight, cash flow mapping, reconciliations, alerts, and fraud triage. This isn’t about chasing performance. It’s about stability over strategy so premiums stay current, utilities don’t get shut off, and no one is hiding late notices in a drawer.

Fraud is evolving fast, and AI voice cloning raises the stakes. Anne shares practical guardrails: narrowing payment rails, enabling card controls, using real-time alerts, and adopting a “pause protocol” before any transfer. We also offer simple scripts to start sensitive money talks without undermining autonomy, plus the legal groundwork that prevents confusion later—updated powers of attorney, beneficiary checks, and clear roles. The payoff shows up in the room: anxiety drops, siblings align, and visits turn back into connection instead of investigations.

If you’re supporting an aging parent—or you work with seniors who lack family advocates—this conversation gives you a step-by-step playbook to act before a crisis. 

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SPEAKER_00:

Awesome. Welcome back to Senior Care Academy Help Really Podcast. Today's guest is Ann Taylor. She's the founder of Grace Point Family CFO, where she helps families bring calm and clarity to their financial lives through organization, bill pay, fraud protection, specifically for older adults. After nearly two decades in the financial industry and serving as the chief compliance officer at Leicester Financial Group, Anne took what she learned from stewarding over$300 million in assets and brought it to a place that's much closer to home that everybody deals with, inspired by walking alongside her mom as she experienced memory loss. Today, she's on a mission to give families peace of mind because when money is handled with care and clarity, that's um create space for what really matters, which is love and dignity and and relationship. So thank you so much, Anne, for for coming on today.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I kind of want to jump into you said as we were chatting, um, you started Grace Point family out of walking alongside your mom as she experienced memory loss. Um when did you kind of realize, because you've been in financial planning for forever, when did you realize like somebody needs to help families with this? Um it wasn't just like a little thought, but it's something you're like, I need to go bring this into the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right. And you think with being in the uh financial sector for 17 years as involved and helping clients walk through similar situations, but as a daughter, you experience things much differently. So it didn't really start as a business idea, it just started as a daughter walking with her mom through things. I'd get a phone call, I'd be like, hey, uh someone's frauded my account. Now, you know, walking her through that, being like, okay, mom, that, you know, with unfortunately, that is so prevalent. And I've had to walk through a lot of clients through steps on how to correct that, work with her bank. We get it all situated, everything back in, and then a month later, hey, I've been fraudded again. And uh walking through it again of like, wow, how did they get you twice in in one, you know, in in two months? Yeah, and then all of a sudden looking at it and saying, Uh mom, your bills uh you have bill pay, but they're all being returned because you don't have the balances. So it's just kind of getting into that. Yeah, but yes, but you're walking this fine line because even though I'm inside the financial sector, I'm still her daughter. So it was really hard for her to want to let me inside of her financial world because they want to protect their dignity, right? They they want their independence and they don't want to feel like a child is over the top of them or telling them what to do. So that's how this started, is because I started looking for another company to, hey, who can I reach out to? And I just didn't find really anything out there that would have a very personalized effect for my own mother to be able to walk with her so she didn't feel overwhelmed or anxious on her finances, and I didn't want to fraud it anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Um, it is something that it's a common theme on this uh show, especially when you have people that started out of just a personal family experience with uh aging. Like it's not your mom for from 18 years old until you needed to step in and help, was independent, paying your own bills, manage your own money. Right. Like you, as the kids probably never knew how much money she had. She was like, hey, can we get dinner? And she's like, Yeah, let's go out. And so like money wasn't I feel like it's normal for it to be a subject that's not talked about a lot, especially a parental to kid relationship.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

Your parents don't really four-year-old has no idea how money works still, but like he's not gonna know how much money we have. Um, so it is an interesting like um way of vulnerability, kind of of like letting that in of like this is how much money I have in savings, is how much money's going out to my bills, and it's it's uh it's interesting. Um, I guess so. I have some more questions, but I just realized before we go in, what is Grace Point Family CFO? Um, because it's it's something that's really cool.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, yeah, thanks. Um Grace Point, uh, it got its name just because with my mom watching her having that anxiety. I mean, it it it's when they start to have early dementia as well, and they don't necessarily even have to have dementia, they could just be older and having a harder time taking care of their bills. Yeah, I actually help a younger family as well, or two uh working adults, and they actually just don't want to take care of their bills. So I see that on that side. But it originated with my mom is having grace for them, right? Because they feel worse than you do, believe me. They they they already feel beaten and they don't need to feel that. So they need to have grace for themselves, but there comes a point where that it's gotta stop and they have to hand it over. So I just kind of put the two together as grace point, and then a lot of us know the C-suites of uh CFO, but I want it more personal. So to think of it as grace point is your family's chief financial officer. So it's hard as parents to have a child come in and take over that role. It's much easier to have someone that's a third party come in and and be that like liaison between the kids and the parents. A lot of parents really don't want their kids involved in their finances.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, it's even hard sometimes, like inner real like with spouses to be like totally because you don't want to feel like, hey, Spout, you can't spend that money. I'm like one way or the other. So it is nice to say, like, hey, mom, I don't want you to worry about your finances, and I don't want to be the one to worry about your finances because I don't want that to I don't want to have the relationship where I'm saying what you can do with your money, but there's this company that helps make sure that your your dollars stretch and they're taken care of. So I love that. Um after 17 years in the financial industry, as you said, managing it's over$300 million in assets, kind of structuring very corporate world,$300 million. Most people don't have any of that. Um, what did that teach you about like what families actually need versus what the finance industry tells them that they need usually?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And so uh that 17 years is huge. Uh you know, I'm a I'm a spreadsheet queen, right? I mean, I love systems, I love order, I love spreadsheets. Um but what families actually need is they need like less complexity, right? I I think in the financial uh districts, we're just kind of constantly about performance and planning. And what we're really looking for here is stability, not strategy. And we're looking to give the seniors their ability to be stable and to have a consistency in their life without fear and anxiety. And we're not here to do performance. And I work with financial advisors, I don't invest the money. I work with the financial advisor, I work with their lawyer, or I work with their accountant, and I make sure the systems that are set up happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I like that. It's making it a practical way to make sure that there's not stress every single, you know, first of the month when a bunch of bills are due. It's like it's systemized. You know, we don't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_02:

You don't have to worry about the electric being turned off.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I know. You seriously you work with families during such a like vulnerable time, whether it is like declining memory or it's declining health or loss of autonomy, maybe they don't have their driving privileges. Um, it just feels vulnerable. They're um so what's like a moment since you've started where you have a client that maybe maybe it felt uncertain or they had the the money was gone every month, and like I don't know what I'm doing. Um that made you stop and think, and you're like, oh, this is this is what it's all about. You have a story you might share, obviously.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So there's um there's a particular family that I'm thinking of. And this one I think is a good one because it it resembles so many families in America, where unfortunately, when you deal with finances, we always joke around in the financial world that it's like someone's showing you your underwear drawer, right? Yeah, it's I mean, people don't like to talk about it. It is quite yes, you feel vulnerable and naked completely. So it's like opening up this underwear drawer, and so this family, everyone kind of knew mom was slipping, but no one was really talking about it. And someone was thinking, well, and there was an older sister, oh, she'll take care of it. Or and she was thinking the brother, I think, would respond better to mom. Surely he's taking care of it. And so no one's talking about it. And this mom is just slowly going down and down. No one wants to embarrass her, no one wants to, you know, overstep that line. And so once it was actually brought where she was actually actually had her insurance uh cut off because the bills were not paid, so the insurance was super sad. We were able to get it re-established the next year. But once things, you know, really hit the fan that way, everything was laid out. And once we had, you know, all of the structure in place of who's going where, who's doing what, we get the power attorneys set, we get everything all laid out. We work with the financial advisor, make sure that money's going where it needs to be, or trusts are established. It's like all of a sudden, this family, I'll never forget it, looking at their kids and they're just like, the weight is just gone. Like they judge it. I think that that's probably one of my favorite moments for sure. It's just looking around and and that weight. They're able to be kids again with their parents. They're able to visit with them, and it's not something they need to pull back out ever again, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I like it, made me think about um, so I've got a three-year-old boy, and it's like the clos, the scary monster in the closet, like, oh, look at it's and then you turn on the light, and it's like his clothes are flopped over weird and it looks freaky. And it's kind of that same thing where it's like being able to really get into it and pull out all the pieces, it's like, it's not scary. It's you just have have to make a process around. Like turn on the light and let's take care of it instead of just like shivering up on our bed thinking there's a monster in our closet when it's there's not.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, um absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, giving families, like I said, peace of mind. It's one of the biggest, um I think one of the most rewarding things is that sense of relief after you're like, everything's set, mom's good. Um what's one of the biggest hidden financial um risks that most people don't think about as their parents get older, or maybe they don't talk about it, or that it just doesn't come to mind when they're supporting their older parents.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I I thought a lot about this question, and I I'm gonna say the same thing that I would say in the financial sector. It's the same, it's the same one. And the risk is waiting. You wait too long, right? If if you uh you get fraud and bills and all that kind of stuff, those are just symptoms of of not being prepared. And uh just like that 24-year-old that doesn't invest in his Roth IRA and all of a sudden they get to be 50 and they're like panic. Oh my gosh, I want to retire. What do I do? What catch up can I do? And I'm like, oh, you can't catch up from the 20 years of neglect, right? It's kind of the same thing. So I would say one of the biggest hidden risk of dealing with elderly parents is waiting too long until it's actually a crisis, like the family that I mentioned before, where then she no longer had her insurance uh available to her. You know, there's uh supplements and dental insurance, uh, you can get life insurance that laps. And so get these things and deal with them early because when you deal with them early, they're able to actually process these things and they're able to feel like they're working with you and getting what they want done instead of later when the dementia sits more in and they're already starting to feel like you're trying to take over me. Uh, how do I, you know, feeling like they're not sure you're in their best interests, and and that's when it gets difficult, more difficult.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I like that. Makes me like the best day, the best time to start it was yesterday, and the next time is today, like kind of thing. Um I was thinking about this. So the there's the the oldest lady in America, she's 115, and her husband passed when she was at 70. And I was like, man, thinking about compounding interest and stuff. But it's like you don't know that you're gonna be 115 years old. It's like, man, imagine what it would look like if she, even if she invested at 70 when her husband died, another 40 plus years has elapsed. Um and I think that that is a misconception that a lot of people have is like, oh, I'll do that when I'm older, or later, later, later. Um, but people are living longer and longer. And so waiting to like, let's get mom's finances in line when she's 87 um for the last two years of her life, it could have been so much better if it's like, okay, mom turned 60 this year or 62. Um, let's just lay out everything and we'll shoot for a hundred years. And if she's not here for the for 40 more years, like we got it laid out. So I like that advice a lot.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right. Plan early.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I wish there was more out there for families, and hopefully, you know, through podcasts and and companies, uh there can be more avenues. I think as these baby boomers are getting older and starting to retire, as kids, we're doing things that really haven't our parents didn't have to deal with the fraud, they didn't have to deal with all the online, they didn't have to like we're pioneers in our new tracks, dealing it with our own parents that they didn't have to do for their parents. So it's kind of a new situation and it's so needed because as you said, we're living longer. If we can get things established and we can do it uh before things are critical and get things set up and having a third party really helps. It's a lot harder for parents to want to have their children involved in their finances, and that's on any terms, and it doesn't matter, they still fill that with dementia. They feel that before, they fill it at retirement. A lot of parents don't want their kids to know what they're making or how everything is uh you know spread out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we had a guest recently, he did reverse mortgages, um, and he talked about there was a client that he had that his family, her family had no idea that she was buying groceries and paying her phone bill on like credit cards. She was like 84, she didn't want to say anything, and she was like, like I said, it was like so late. It's a sinking ship, she's out of all money, and she's like trying to make this credit line of credit stretch, and it was just bad. Um and to your point, I think having a third party helps a lot. But in that the beginning steps, trying to get the senior and then their kids on the same line could, I think, I would imagine, kind of feel like walking on a tightrope where you're like trying to care, you're trying like the kids are obviously caring, you lived it. You're like, I care about your mom, that's why I'm helping you. I'm not trying to control your money. Right, right, right. So, how do you guide families through the emotional balance without like crossing boundaries? And I'm thinking mostly in the beginning. Obviously, you take over and then it's it helps a lot. But just getting everything going, it's still a balance.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. In the beginning, I think that people think it's gonna feel like overstepping. Um generally how I handle it, I I really haven't had that uh experience because I uh structure it as I'm not here to overstep, I'm here to walk with them. So a lot of it is setting up with the parents, uh, you know, here is where you're spending. Is this where you're meaning to spend? What this is what you have, this is what you need to have, is this where you want to have it? You know, what what line items do you want? And it's just creating that structure. So it's actually a more of a partnership and working with them. And if they have a hard time, I'm like, if your kids want something, they can call me. Like I, you know, that's fine. They can call me. And that just takes the weight off from them so much.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Do you have advice for people on how to initiate the conversation? I'm just thinking, even in my like in my marriage, um, and I think every marriage kind of goes through this where it's like you don't really talk about finances, and then somebody's like, okay, we gotta do this thing. Um, and the way that I've approached it is like, hey, there's this really cool um, you know, coaching program or this financial advisor, like, I would love to talk to them, like trying to get the conversation started. How do you do that with your parents? You know, because it's like you're over on Sunday dinner being like, Mom, worried about you, you know, like how do you start?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, you have to be so careful too, because you know, they really don't want they want that autonomy uh from you, and uh, they never want to feel like now they're in a child position and that you're like over the top of them, right?

SPEAKER_00:

So and that's you have to do that. That's a huge question. Yeah, it's like your whole if their mom's 60 and you're 40 or 30 or something, um, for 30 years, she's been on this pedestal and she's been the example to just be like, hey mom, so do you actually have a savings for the next 30 years? Um it's kind of weird to ask.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey mom, are you sad if you live till you're 150? Yeah, are you gonna survive?

SPEAKER_00:

So how do you do that?

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's the beauty of Grace Point is that that is easier to bring up of like, hey, I was listening to this podcast, or hey, I was on LinkedIn and I was reading this article on fraud. And, you know, I know that you are nervous about AI, you're new nervous about these things. I think this would be a great person that you could reach out to and that you could talk to. Happy to go together with it. I think the huge success stories I see are ones where it's thoroughly like that, and I'm able to talk with them, get things aligned with them. Um, it's harder once they've hit the dementia. Um, it's certainly very doable. I I did that with my own mom, right? That things had already gotten bad when my when I took over from my mother. And uh so I do that as well. But I think just having those conversations of like, hey, you know, you should you should talk to them, put it in their ballpark, like if that I care about you, this is a great way because and and this is a scare tactic at all, but fraud is just crazy. And you know, now with AI, as great as I am a huge AI, I love AI, there's so much wonderful things to it, but with every good is an equal force of bad. Yeah, and fraud is becoming even more prevalent. Um, uh I know we sent out something with Lester Financial Group just last month of like actual pictures of tool booths and uh you know, everything they can do. They can even get AI to match a grandchild's voice, right? If they put the yeah, right on Facebook. Yeah, and they put it public so AI, these people can go into their social medias, pull things out of these parents' accounts, they make the voice sound the same, they know the names. So it is scary out there. So you want to be protected, you want to have someone that's in there that sees transactions that are happening and it helps your parents. So that's a good intro point.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love that. And I think it's helpful. Like it's I don't know, I think it is super nice for any of the most like taboo conversations to be like, hey, I saw this awesome video. Um let me know what you think. Or hey, you know, I saw this free um PDF. It just talked about like fraud prevention. And using that as the intro of like planting a little seed, maybe of like um, you know, I was I was on social media and I saw um Grace Point Financial. They like had this thing about fraud prevention, and I read it. Um I want to share it with you. And then from there, now they're on the same side of the table looking at oh, this cool Grace Point thing, not like sitting across the table saying, you know, tell me your tell me the numbers, Mom.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, don't you're not pulling out that drawer, you're just sharing with them because you you're showing that you care.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and and you love it. Um and then speaking of kind of showing that they care, you've I'm curious how you blend, because you've been on the corporate side protecting advisors and clients and massive amounts of money, and it a lot of times came down to the spreadsheet of like, this is the data and this is what we're gonna do to protect your money. Um, how do you bring that same structure of like data? Like you said, you love spreadsheets, um that same structure, but also balance it with the emotional side, where it is a lot more um intimate of a financial thing than just corporate assets under management.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right. Yeah, because it's not, you know, it's it's it's like we talked about, it's not about performance at this level. It it is about just creating security and clarity and dignity for the parent. So it is bringing those things more on an intimate level. It's almost taking those corporate things, but just creating more of an intimate setting for it. Uh and thankfully, over the 17 years, I've learned a lot of the workflows that need to have it, but they don't need to see those in the um, you know, those go on in the background. When I meet with parents, it's uh or a widowed mom, it's all about creating safety and dignity for them and making sure that the anxiety level is down. I mean, I'm sure you've seen the minute that they start getting anxious, that dementia raises, the sundowning is harder, things are so much harder on them. And once you can kind of take that away and they have that security, the peace that the parents can feel, the peace that the the children feel. I mean, they're able to build children again. They're they're able to go and visit and not have this like constant power struggle over, well, what did you spend your money on? Did you click on that link? Did you have that? You're able to actually go and have meaningful relationship-building experiences that, you know, frankly, are fewer with each age.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um and I like that because it's like you can go and be daughter, be son. And also, to your point, I think the stress that's getting minimized on the kids' side, it's not like, man, am I gonna have to be paying for all of mom's bills in two years from now or three years from now? You're just like, no, it's good. Um so mom's covered and mentally uh happy and um stress-free because she knows that she's taken care of, and then the kids know too. They don't have this weird lingering like, how many years until all of a sudden all of her bills are my responsibility, you know? Um it just helps the anxiety go away. Um two more questions. Where this is going fast. Holy cow. Um but when you first step into a family's picture, you see a lot of kind of those those things that maybe have gotten neglected. What's the hardest uh truth the family needs to face to really protect their loved one? And then I guess what's the most common one that's getting neglected and and why do you think they do delay it?

SPEAKER_02:

Um I think that probably the most common thing that I see neglected is is just honestly, and we said it before, is just the waiting too long. And so when I get in and I see it, there's just so many bills that have already been posted due. And these seniors, they don't want to have it where you know anything. And so they've actually tried in their own way to deal with like the power company, and a lot of times they'll be on levelized payments for like$2,000. Uh I kid you not,$2,000 that they hadn't paid in the last little bit. And you see like all of these notices and they hide them from the family. They, I mean, it's completely hidden, and you wouldn't know, you don't see it. So I would I would go back to again the the waiting of seeing these things, but on top of it, also the fraud. We just see so much of that. And um, a lot of times, kids, let's just be honest. I mean, these this is even new for us, dealing with all the fraud that we're dealing with in our own lives, right? And then on top of it, we're barely handing that the younger family that I take care of is actually because I was taking care of their parents, and he was like, hey, just give us an allowance every month, too. If you just give us an allowance, take care of our bills. We have someone come in and clean our house, and so uh, you know, we don't want to worry about that. This is kind of the same thing for them as well. So I think that I think a lot of people are surprised with how far down the road their parents' dementia has actually already affected their finances. How much is already gone before they they think they have savings, the savings gone, everything's gone, and there's bills that are so far back.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Let this be the invitation to just say, Hey, mom, I saw this like Grace Point financial thing online. You should like, we should look at it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we should talk to them.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, this is awesome. So uh who the question I always like to ask is like who should reach out to you? How do they reach out to you? Um and yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. So I have an email, Anne, at Les. I'm sorry, not Lester, but I do have that one as well. Lester, yeah, if you need asset center management. I've worked with Todd for 17 years. Um, but it's Anne at gracepointfamilycfo.com. Go ahead, shoot me an email. We'll set up a Teams meeting. We can meet on Zoom, we can meet on the phone, we can meet however you feel comfortable, and go through, uh, you know, assess what they feel. It can either be the parent or it can be the child or it can be them together, whichever way is more familiar. But definitely children, uh, you're very able to reach out to me. I can set up things, we can go up the finances, and I happily to even reach out to the parent, introduce myself, talk to them about what I do, see if that's something that they're interested, kind of take the weight off the kids.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, I had that thought. I was like, I think people should reach out to just say, how do I start this conversation? Like, oh, here's this PDF. Here's all these things that I can let's break the ice, and maybe it'll take a month or two to get mom on board, but let's let's have that conversation. So I like that. Um awesome. So for anybody listening who has an aging parent, um, or a lot of the people in this space, they work with seniors that maybe don't have involved children, but they know that there's stuff going on to try to bring order to their finances. I'd reach out to Anne, Grace Point Family CEO, or CFO, sorry. It's it's not just a service, it's it's a partnership to I think make the last few decades as as peace of mind as you can. So I I've really enjoyed our time, Ann. I appreciate you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Appreciate it too. Thank you, Kim.