Hey sis, welcome back. You're tuned in to Sis Mind Your Money, the podcast where we talk all things money, wealth, and financial freedom. Without the confusion and without the judgment. I'm your host, Bridgett Dickey, wealth educator and strategist, founder of Dickie Financial Services and Wealth Management firm, and the creator of Girl Mind Your Money Movement. My mission is simple. To educate, empower, and equip women like you to take control of your finances and build real lasting wealth. So grab your favorite drink, get comfortable, and let's get into it. Thank you for joining me for part two of a four part series, all about the four Ds, the D that no one wants to talk about. And if you joined me last week. Last week I spoke about drugs and how drugs affects your financial life. So make sure you go back to last week's episode and catch up. But this week, the conversation is all about disease, and how it affects your life when you're going through someone yourself, family member. and how it financially affects you. Now, at some point in time in your life, you, your child, your parent, your spouse may go through a disease, you may get some disease that's not curable. And what do you do? Your financial life? It could be destroyed if you don't have this plan in place, and I'm not gonna sugarcoat this. This don't end well if you don't have a plan. So this is time to make sure that you have a plan, that diagnosis changes everything. I know this personally, this is home for me. Watching someone diagnosed with cancer, the mental toll that it takes, the stress that it brings to the relationship. Nobody wants that. Nobody, and all of this was going on while building a business. And a lot of times we think about, you know, the big, you know, cancer, heart attack, stroke, but chronic conditions, somebody with diabetes outta control, heart disease, chronic conditions, takes a major financial toll because chronic is, that's. Like in my, in our culture, we say, what? Oh, sugar, somebody got sugar, I've seen the major toll that takes, if it's out of control, don't get the help. Don't regulate your insulin levels where I've seen people's toes amputated, their whole foot amputated. Completely gone blind. Men that are in their early fifties, no longer can have children, not sexually active. That takes a toll on, on you and on your financial life because the amount of money that it takes to care for a chronic condition, someone who has. Cancer, heart attack, stroke, that now the residual, the medication, the treatment. I remember when my father was diagnosed with cancer, he battled it for 10 years, and for 10 years that became the families battle. That, and more so I would say on me because I was the baby girl, and. I was daddy's girl, and so I'm gonna make sure my daddy is taken care of. And so for 10 years it was us. But the financial toll, I look back at it then and see my parents didn't have all the education and having things together as a family, we just, we gather together. So every day. I've never done the math, but I could imagine he would have to go to MD Anderson, I don't know, sometimes two to three times a week. That was $20 for valet, and that was the only way at that time, because of where we live, we, of course, we would drive there, so the gas, valet was $20 every day. So if we had to go there three days a week, that's $60, and sometimes you would go in there every week. For doctor's appointments, treatments, but at that time we figured it out, right? But the financial toll carpooling, making sure you're not eating out all the time. It took a financial toll because my father was, no, he wasn't able to work anymore. He got cancer when he was young, right? He wasn't, maybe 57. So he had to immediately stop working. So he still had some years of working, putting money in retirement. He wasn't able to do that anymore. So, now you become the caregiver. Things that you want to do, and medical bills, things working. During that time, I had not started the business quite, no, I had not. I was working on it. I hadn't officially launched it, so I, I was working on things. But being a caregiver, traveling, the monies that were spent, whatever he needed, it costs. And so it affects, so the insurance is only gonna pay so much. We had to apply for grants. It was so many different programs out there to try to help you because the cost it's a lot. And now one thing about my dad, during that time, He didn't believe in debt. He didn't believe in doing credit cards. So cash was everything. So I would say one thing, one lesson we learned, we, it wasn't a credit card thing. It was like we save up the money, you make sure you put money back, you have money set up for emergencies and you just make sure you pay cash. And that's what happened. So I would say during that time, he taught me some valuable lessons, even though life was happening during that time. The medical bills, I would say, because I was advocating and they had different resources where they can mitigate a lot of the debt, but the medical debt that came along with it, that the insurance didn't cover, and I'll say this to you, it'll get to a point where the medical debt is so high. What do you do? You can't cash out your 401k, how do you prepare for things like this? And during that time, my parents didn't have cancer insurance, so this is a good thing to make sure you have cancer insurance, having different types of insurance before, because once you get it, you can't go back. You can't say, oh, let me go get cancer insurance. But covering the gaps of things. During that time, a lot of people are not getting mental help. They're not going to the therapist. They're not getting the emotional support they need. They're just trying to survive and now have this disease that I don't know if I'm live one moment, you know what's gonna happen to me. So just the, it's just the toll that it takes. Now, one thing I do want you to know, medical bills. Is the leading cause for bankruptcy in America. So maybe that's why a couple of years ago they passed a law that they can no longer put a medical bill on your credit report. 'cause people were not even able to get homes or a car because they had 200, a hundred thousand. I've seen people up to a million dollars in medical bills, it's also make sure you're protecting yourself, having things in place, but it's understanding how this disease affects your financial life. If you don't hear anything I am saying here that's now, get in life insurance while you are young and healthy outside of work. Make sure you get life insurance outside of work, 'cause the moment you are diagnosed with some chronic, it can be heart attack, stroke, diabetes, cancer, you will not be able to afford it if you could get it. And most times you are uninsurable. They will not want, they don't want to take a risk. 'They' meaning the insurance company. They don't want that risk. If cancer runs in your family, and the history of it, make sure you have cancer insurance. Get it now so you can have it. So when, if, and when life happens, you are prepared for it. Bill for an emergency fund, make sure you have six months of savings. At least, review your health insurance. Make sure your health insurance covers certain things. I've seen where I've worked with families where they didn't pay attention to what they enrolled in for health insurance and certain things were not covered, have things prepared. I'd rather you have, more insurance that covers than not. That's what I want for you. Consider the HSAA health savings account. Now, only way you can get that is you have to have a high deductible plan. 'Cause you may be like, Bridgett, I can't qualify, some other things we can do. We can create your own health savings account and that account would be just for your medical. If you don't have a health savings plan, most of you have a, W2 job. Most jobs do offer it, get it at your job. if you had to stop working for whatever reason, 'cause you had some level of a chronic, critical, terminal illness, or disease. You could take that money, it rolls over, that money rolls over. You can keep it. Say you've been putting in every year, three to $4,000 every year, and every year it'll add up. You got 10,000, and you got eight. That money adds up. It doesn't go anywhere, so it's important to keep that. Now, I mentioned earlier that my spouse at that time said husband at that time while building the business, was diagnosed, so I lost a job at the beginning of May, a month later. Then husband was diagnosed with cancer, so lost a job. Now all this going on while building a business, trying to keep everything going. And he was diagnosed and I had just got that job and at that moment it was a blow. Like how am gonna go home and tell this man, I just lost my job. But he just, you know, how am I going to tell him this? It was the reverse. I'm sorry. I remember y'all. It was the reverse. He got diagnosed, then I got laid off. 'Cause I was afraid. 'cause where do I go? We, one month, we found out okay, he got cancer next month. I lost my job and I was so afraid. How do I go home and tell him I was, now I'm gonna say this to you. I was not concerned about anything else. I was just so concerned of how am I gonna share this information with him? And what I learned during that season, I called my therapist and I told him what happened. And he, the one, the number one question he asked me, he said, how is your financial life? And I said, it is not a problem. He said, so tell me. I said, I had cancer insurance, I had hospital insurance. I had all the stuff in place. He said, so perfect. So then now I can help you so you can be there for him, because then one thing I don't have to worry about is how you gonna pay your bills? And what I learned during that time. and I want you to hear me as far as being obedient, being disciplined is I did all of this, all the insurance, the medical power of attorney, all of this got done before we got married. All of this was set up before the marriage. So fast forward, that was six, six years, I think, into the marriage. All of that was prepared. So six years later, all of this hits. So that showed me the power of doing stuff, not putting it off because I've seen the horror stories, but the fact that I did it before and I made sure things were taken care of beforehand. Having a proper amount of insurance, because if I didn't, it would've hit harder 'cause I know it would've. What would've happened, I would have went and got the job because I would've abandoned the business, because I gotta take care of the spouse. I gotta have the money, but because I had things in place, it gave that wiggle room to take care of the spouse, and keep on with the business and not abandon the dream. And what I want you to understand, if that's, if you have to do it, I understand. But when you have things in place, it takes out that anxiety, fear, stress of financially, how we gonna eat, how the roof, and oh, keep in mind, I didn't mention this. But had just bought the house, hadn't even been in the house two years, but because I had things prepared, it did not hit as hard. Now, I wanna remind you of this. Love does not protect your finances. A plan does. I'm gonna say that one more time. Love does not protect your finances. A plan does. You want to have a plan, you need to have everything, and that's on both spouses. If you are married, you need to have this insurance outside of work, and you will keep hearing me say that outside of work. Why? Because. when you stop working, everything that you have at work ends. So what do you do? So I wasn't concerned about life insurance. I wasn't concerned about certain things 'cause everything was always outside of work. I have seen clients that come to me after when they, it is when they came to me. They were passed, I'm cured, or the disease or whatever it was, cancer, I'm in remission or I am, I had a heart attack, I had a stroke, and when they come to me, they're in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and medical credit cards, car repossessed, 401k, almost completely depleted because they didn't have a plan. And so now I have to manage what you give me. But one thing I want you to understand is being in preparation, having things prepared, having things set up is so important. These are the things that you want to have in place. I've witnessed people had to sell their homes, move in with family, because someone got sick. So when I'm doing financial planning with my clients, I'm talking to them about their parents. Why? Because your parents are getting older, what if they get sick? That becomes your financial responsibility. So having a plan for yourself in place, and then you make sure your parents, you make sure your children, you pay it forward, right? To have these things in place. And I know it can be a lot. It can be overwhelming. It's scary. A lot of times you don't want to talk about it. You don't want to deal with it. I don't how, I don't want to talk about this. I always tell my clients all the time, we talk about this one time, right? We gotta talk about it again. Let's put the plan in place. So then when life happens, then when you make that phone call to me, all you need to say is, and I've had the phone call where the client has called and said. Hey, I was diagnosed with cancer, or hey, my spouse was diagnosed with cancer. Hey, my mom or dad was diagnosed with cancer. The insurance you set up for them, it helped. What do I need to do to file a paperwork? What do I need to do? That's the power of having things set up because it's bringing that peace of mind. 'cause peace of mind is something you cannot buy Now, look. You can book your 30 minute clarity call with me. You can get the clarity, get the understanding so I can learn more, so I can help you with your financial future. If we need to do a deep dive and do a one hour consultation and to look more into your life to see what you need to do and get things done, you can schedule that as well. You can also schedule as that personalized plan that you need, to get things together right? Make sure you have that stuff in place, and that's a wrap sis. Thank you for tuning in to Sis Mind Your Money. I pray today's episode gave you something real to work with. I'm Bridget Dickey, your wealth educator and strategist, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, go mind your money sis. Real quick. If you're loving the show, please take 30 seconds and leave us a five star review. On Apple Podcast or Spotify, it helps other women find this show, and it truly means everything to me. Go do it right now while you're thinking about it.