The Financial Reality of Developmental Disabilities, with Keith Wargo

26:38But of course, the hours that you put it on the job are hours that you are not spending with your child. How should a particularly a parent who is thinking about the best long-term needs of a child with special needs? How should a parent think through that? I mean, it's a great question. It's such an individual question. It's something we have. One of the services that we offer is called the Autism Response Team, and it's basically an information referral service. We have 12 members on it. They're all highly trained in all areas of autism of the community, whether it's medical need or education needed.

27:14Financial matters is our third largest topic that we get inquiries for. So this is a big threshold question. I think it's a balancing act and it is a long-term, it's a marathon, not a sprint. The need in the early days to make sure you're finding the right resources through schools and therapies and other activities, et cetera, can be that relief valve to provide a family, to provide a couple the ability to focus on their careers, the ability to focus on things to bring resources into the family. For my wife and I, what it meant when we knew of AJ's diagnosis was my wife basically stopped working, right?

27:58And we said, well, you know what, this needs to be the focus and to do what needs to be done for AJ for the next four hour long, that means. that was the personal decision for us. And we've been very blessed. That was not a financial hardship, but it was not the plan. It wasn't a plan at all. The plan was for both of us to have our careers for quite a while. I think that's where tapping into the resources that are there to support is so important, where building a community of individuals and supports around you whether that's family friends otherwise so that you can do the best thing for your child for your family the reason it's a hard question is because it's a hard situation to manage that load can you talk about the siblings of special needs children like you have a daughter so age is 27 your daughter is 23 yeah let's start with when they were young what was the experience of working with her, you know, in the context of what your family is dealing with.

29:02It's interesting. Siblings, they get autism prevalence has grown dramatically over the last 20 years. We have a lot of siblings now who are becoming young adults and who have brothers or sisters who are autistic. We actually have a group called the Emerging Leaders, which is a good group of folks that are earlier in their careers, as the title would imply. Half of them are siblings. They've been active in the community and they've been volunteering with us. One of them is in medical school right now and planning to become a psychiatrist and work in the field. We see a lot of that. And I guess that's not really surprising, right?

29:39Because it's so much of a part of the way that, you know, that you grow up. I don't have any real specific things about our family, right? It was just, this is how you grow up and you love one another as a family and you take was thrown at you, the good times and the bad. But I do think when I look and there's a lot of initiatives going on for sibling support out there and for sibling groups coming together, it's remarkable to me, although not really surprising, how many people end up in those fields. One of my senior team members who runs a whole area for us, the autism response team, she runs that team.

30:15She has an adult brother who's on the spectrum with very significant needs. And again, I don't think it's really surprising, but it's very interesting how many siblings seem to move into an area that is close to the cause. I know of another individual I'm close with who is running an investment fund, making small venture capital, small investments in disability and autism oriented companies and organizations. And his primary motivation to do that is because his adult brother, who's both in their 40s, is autistic. Oh, venture fund. That's very cool, right? Yeah. Do you know the name of the fund?

30:52I'll have to look it up. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Yeah. I'd love to learn more about that one. What are some of the biggest misconceptions that people have when it comes to, well, there's two parts to the question, but we'll start with autism in general. And then the second part, spoiler alert, the second part that I'm going to ask is about the financial piece, but let's start with autism in general. What are some of the biggest misconceptions? I think, well, number one, I think that there's far more awareness today than there used to be. Autism is in the media, right? There's lots of individuals who are having incredible careers, incredible lives who are autistic.

31:26And so I think there's a lot more awareness than there was, you know, again, versus the 20 couple of years ago that Ann and I started telling folks and our family and friends and saying, I don't know anything about this. And that's a good thing. You know, we're proud of having a role in. But as a society, we've become more aware. I still think that there is a misconception of other people with autism, that their abilities are limited, that their prospects are limited, that just like all of us, life isn't static, right? Sometimes we feel great. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes people start slow and finish really fast.

32:03Sometimes the opposite happens, Right. So I think probably the biggest misconception would just be that, you know, limitations are not permanent and that individuals are just that they're individuals. Like when we talk to employers about employment programs and bringing in neurodiverse and autistic people into their companies, that's one of the biggest misconceptions as well. This person's not going to be able to function in this role. They are going to be sensitive to sound. They're going to be sensitive to lights. They're not going to be social. They're not going to be able to dialogue with their managers, et cetera.

32:36Those are the sorts of micro misconceptions that we overcome for the bigger misconception of going from can't to can. That's the biggest thing, I think. What are some occupations that you've seen people with autism thrive in? I mean, they're limitless, to be honest. AJ works for a company that's actually right here in New York. It's an insurance company, like a high growth insurance company. and his work for them is, I would call it data cleanup. They're high growth and so they're adding people very quickly. And so they're sort of like their HR records are needed to be digitized and brought up to speed and put it in a better order than it would.

33:16And then since that project, this company has found multiple other opportunities for that sort of data migration, data cleanup work. That works for my son. There's a company down in Florida that has opened up a whole series of car washes, where all the individuals who work there are autistic. It was called Rising Tide Car Wash. Great company. The founder wrote a book about neurodiverse employment, which is really good. It depends on the individual. But I think that the, and I actually, I'm also part of minority owner of a company where we sell textiles to hotels and hospitality chains, et cetera.

33:56And about a third of our warehouse staff is autistic. That was one of the goals that I brought to the company when I invested into it. And they're working in our warehouse. And most of them have started in pretty simple tasks of folding garments before they get packaged or taking them out for embroidery or whatever. But one of them, this individual started with us two, three years ago. He's now operating a forklift for us. So he's moving around a couple million dollars of inventory every single day on a piece of equipment that's an expensive piece of equipment. We can't have an accident, et cetera.

34:28We didn't know what this individual was capable of when he started with us. We worked with him on it. And then he came to our warehouse manager one day and said, I want to do that. And so we worked with him over the course of six months and made it happen. Nice. So what jobs work for an autistic person or what jobs work for anybody? It's a matter of matching up those skills with desire and ability. And what I would say, and we talk to companies about this all the time, there's lots of benefits to having autistic individuals work for you. The turnover rate is exceptionally low. Most people are happy, they're engaged.

35:02I think there's a benefit to the whole organization just from a morale perspective. There's work that's been done by Deloitte and others about customer satisfaction with companies that hire people with disabilities and autism, there's really good benefits for the organization as well as for the individual. Nice. I'm thinking right now about my cousin's son who's nonverbal. This is probably an answer that I should know, but I don't. Is he likely to be nonverbal for the rest of his life? Does that happen? There are certainly folks who are nonverbal for their whole lives, but there are also many examples of folks who will find language later on.

35:40And there's a lot of good emerging technologies. There's a lot of good emerging therapies to explore. So, you know, I think it's important to keep hope and to keep working. You know, there are some individuals who don't communicate verbally. We find other mechanisms, you know, assisted devices that type to spell, type to talk, those sorts of things that are out there and new ones coming out, you know, all the time. And so impossible to know, but lots of instances. One of our emerging leaders, I mentioned earlier, when he gets speeches, that's his job. His major job is writing books and giving speeches.

36:21He leads by saying, I didn't speak a word until I was five years old. And here I am, you know, presenting to schools and companies and, you know, flying all over the country giving speeches and writing books. Yeah. Wow. How do you see AI playing a role in the future of, how do you see AI playing a role in all of this job development in, well, I guess this is too broad of a question. So let's start with job development because the next portion of it is in the financial realm as well, in the financial planning realm. But we'll start with job development. How do you see AI playing a role? It's a good question.

36:58I wish I had the answer. But I think that what AI can allow is for one of the things that many people with autism have challenges with is nuance, nuance of human communication, nuance of intent in a conversation, that sort of thing. I think AI can be really helpful with that because it is very cut and dry and can be a tool to help overcome some of those challenges. We're going through the same thing everybody's going through and figuring out how AI is going to impact our organization as well as our community. But I think from a job perspective, I think it'll open up more avenues for folks to get beyond some of the difficulties they may have in interaction.

37:45I think that probably the one that comes to the top of my head. All right. How about in the financial planning realm? We started this by talking about a lot of the financial planning challenges that parents are going to have. How do you see AI playing a role or do you see AI playing a role in improving any of that? Well, I hope that it is another tool that folks can use to scenario play on their situations and to get information and get research. I mean, that's how my wife and I tend to use it is for figuring out how to improve our lives and become more knowledgeable. I'm not aware of any financial planning organizations that have come up with anything yet.

38:23I'm sure it's going to come. I mean, the pace of change here is, you know, it was so dramatic. I am aware of some AI kind of enabled products. I mentioned to you earlier the asset limitation on SSI. That's something that's really important to not breach. So for the reasons you already talked about, I'm aware of an app that basically manages an individual's finances through moving money around to accounts, to enable account, for instance, right? That's a really small example that will make a big difference to, you know, for financial planning. But I guess bottom line is, I don't know, but I think it's probably, you know, it probably is that sophistication and the amount of information available to help parents, to help families, to help an individual like yourself who cares about this topic, to get good, solid information just makes it that much more accessible.

39:15I am seeing AI enhancements in a lot of existing financial planning tools. So like retirement planning tools, which are the ones that I'm most familiar with. I'm seeing AI enhancements where, you know, in which AI reads and synthesizes the data a little bit better or a little bit more clearly, you know, or AI spots more patterns in your spending so that you can use it to discover patterns and how your spending tends to fluctuate in ways that might be non-obvious. Yeah. I mean, look, it used to be to run a Monte Carlo simulation, took a couple minutes on a computer, right? Now you can do it. Now you can do millions of permutations instantaneously.

39:57I mean, I could also see it helping in the context of, you know, if you have an individual who is, you know, supporting someone in their financial management, you know, just did the ability for that, for that information to flow back and forth. I had this set up with my kids, right? My son right now that if he, you know, has a transaction that's over a couple hundred dollars or I don't remember what the limit is. I get a text, right? That's old. That's been around for a while. I could see something like that being a, you know, a consumer facing product that made that more seamless. I can see products like that becoming a lot more seamless and out there and right, right in your palm of your hand.

40:36What are some frauds, scams? What are the vulnerabilities that parents or caregivers should be aware of? Well, I mean, one thing to be aware of is just safety. Tragically, there are drownings every single year of individuals who don't know water safety and have a tendency to what's called eloping or wander. And so we do a lot of awareness training on this, and there's other organizations that help with that a lot. We do a lot of work with first responders for those to be aware of, that an individual with autism may present differently. They may, if they're not verbal, they're not going to respond to a question or may respond in a way that is unexpected for the police officer or the fire or whatever.

41:23So I think that's something that's basically just very foundational to understand. We have a ton of resources on this and something we feel a great responsibility to, not just the autism community, but the community in general to be aware of because every single one of these incidents and they happen far too frequently is obviously a massive tragedy. I don't know of specific scams or fraud that I've seen. I think it all falls in the general category of we live in a world today where there's far more fraud and scams on every front, whether it's somebody calling impersonating a bank or somebody calling and impersonating a loved one.

42:06I mean, it's saying they're in a situation or fishing through emails, et cetera. You know, again, for many individuals, including my son, who are autistic, the world's very literal. It's black and white. Right. And so that nuance or even the kind of the idea that, gee, something doesn't look right here. He'd lose that. He'd miss that 100 out of 100 times. for us like we blocked his phone with any kind of solicitation type phone calls that sort of thing thankfully i don't know of any specific scams or otherwise that have targeted autism community but i would just say in general awareness around that and thinking through that and being in front of that for our community is really important for caregivers and parents right yeah i'm thinking about the parallels between this and elder care because you know elder care there are so many scams targeting seniors.

43:00And that's for a variety of reasons. I mean, people, seniors tend to have higher net worths than other cohorts of the population simply by virtue of having had the time to accumulate that higher net worth. But, you know, you've got that, at least in the senior community, you've got that combination of higher net worth. And often there can be some mild cognitive impairment that increases that vulnerability. Look, I think there's a couple of practical things. Again, there's a limit on how much can be taken out of my son's account. I mean, it's a limit because we keep the asset level a certain amount as well.

43:37There's an alert that comes and having little protections like that would just are logical things to do and try to figure out what those vulnerabilities are and go for them. It's right to have a heightened scrutiny or a heightened awareness. Right, right. And I think the challenge, my mind keeps going back to my cousin's son. And I think the real challenge comes in, you know, as long as my cousin and her husband are alive, I have no worries. You'll be fine because mom and dad are going to watch out for him and mom and dad are going to take care of him for as long as they are alive. My real worry sets in when it comes to what happens after they pass away, the second to die, the last to die, you know, because it goes back to the question that I'd asked earlier about the trustee.

44:21they might pass away and there might be a trusted person who watches after him for a while but eventually that trusted person will die right will develop dementia yep and then what like there needs to be multiple lines of succession and almost like a game of telephone you you worry about the trust the trustworthiness atrophying with every passing of the baton with every new successor until you reach a point at which, you know, will successor number three or four or five be trustworthy or even be attentive? Yeah. And so then to the setting up an alert so that if there's a transaction that's over a certain threshold, by the time you pass the baton to trustee number three or trustee number four, will that trustee care enough to pay attention to that notification.

45:18Right. There's a technical part of that, right? Which is kind of the boring, but important part of, is it appropriate to have a power of attorney? Is it appropriate to have a guardianship? Those are individual decisions, but ones that should be at least thought about before somebody becomes an adult and then implemented at the right time. Overlay that, you know, what I said a couple of times, which is we're all organic individuals and we all change over time, right? The fact that my son is more or less independent is a remarkable accomplishment for him. One that we certainly weren't sure about, you know, a few years ago.

45:54He never went to college. Many individuals with autism do go to college. So overlay that part on it. And then your last part of that, you know, how do you think three, four stages down the road? That's exactly what I was trying to say earlier about building that network and having these communications early, right? Because it will change, right? That individual who could serve that role at some point may not be able to serve that role. And what you want to obviously consider is the wishes of the individual who is being cared for. And those wishes can and probably will change as well as the wishes of their primary caregivers.

46:33My wife and I sit down every couple of years and go through some of the stuff and look it over. And we look at how we designed this 20 years ago. And it's laughably naive in how different it is today. And so that's how we've done it. But the vulnerability and communication and having that communication today and understanding that that picture will change. It may end up being that the answer is the same as what you laid out 10 or 15 or 20 years ago. But having that frequent sit down, thinking deeply about what is this individual's wants and needs and capabilities, understanding that that will evolve.

47:11And then how do we continue to make sure that we've got the scaffolding there to help? And that's exactly what all the planning is about. It's like retirement planning and then retirement planning for somebody else. Right, right. It is. It's retirement planning for somebody else, but with a much, much longer time horizon, you know, with maybe a 60 year, 70 year time horizon. Right. And so one of the things I like to say to people is this can all feel, and frankly, you know, is in some ways very overwhelming, but even just taking small steps early and like getting into the cadence of doing what we're just talking about, of having, you know, having these dialogues, which aren't necessarily natural dialogues for some people they are, but it might feel unnatural.

47:51But if you do it early and you start getting into a rhythm and start thinking about these steps and thinking about an ABLE account, if that's going to be in the cards and start thinking about how to fund things like that. And one of the things we didn't touch on is one of the great things about ABLE accounts as well is for our son, we weren't sure where he'd want to be at 18, 19 years old or what he was going to be capable of doing, what he'd want. And he probably could have gone to college, but he didn't want to. Like the day he graduated from high school, he's like, thank God I never have to sit in a classroom again.

48:21So, okay. So we had built up a 529 plan that was there. All right, now what do we do with this? And to be honest, I didn't know what are alternatives. I mean, I knew what the alternatives were in a traditional sense of leaving it for somebody else or that sort of thing. But one of the nice things about the ABLE accounts is you actually can transfer up to$20 ,000 a year from a 529 plan into an ABLE account. So even knowing that is, I think, important for folks to understand because that's kind of your traditional planning. But you're left with an optionality there that gives you a good amount of flexibility.

48:55You mentioned ABLE accounts, they differ a bit state by state. They do. Are there any particular states that are better to live in than others if a person has that kind of geographic mobility? The biggest aspect of them is the upper limits. I'm not enough of an expert to know all of them off the top of my head. I know New Jersey and New York because I spent so much time here. Both of those have quite high limits. But beyond that, it's similar to 529 plans where some of the investment options are better. Some of the expenses are lower. I'd go to an expert on it. But it's similar to some people, including us.

49:31Our 529 plans are – I don't know what state they're in. But we decided to use a particular state for specific investment reasons. I believe individuals have the same flexibility. I believe they have the same flexibility to do it out of state but still have the same kind of cap. Oh, okay. So you don't necessarily have to be a resident of the state in order to have an ABLE account based in that state. I believe that's right. Yeah. Similar to a 529 plan. But talk to an expert. Yeah. Is the custodian a brokerage like a Vanguard Schwab Fidelity? In some states, yes. In some states, it's done by the state itself.

50:07Yeah. And like I said, the great thing about an ABLE account is, again, 529 is a pretty good equivalency. And the way to think about it, the way I mentally think about it, is quite flexible. What you can utilize the funds for are basic living expenses, food, transportation, entertainment, et cetera. So the limitations on it are quite low. It's got to be used by the individual. It's dedicated to the individual involved. But the flexibility is quite high. Limitations are quite low. We advocate for increasing the amount of folks who put into it. And we advocate for a lot more awareness on it because it's a great tool for folks.

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52:13this for about a half a dozen years. And where we really focus is on the demand side of the equation. We go in and work with employers, provide digital training, provide hands-on training, etc., and work well in a consultative basis to help them understand what could be the benefits of their organization, what kind of roles might work best, help put together job descriptions, help if there need to be accommodations in a workplace, help them work through that, and really do the nuts and bolts side by side with them to make employment happen. We do that all the time. You mentioned entrepreneurs and small business owners.

52:52What we have found is employment challenges for small and medium-sized businesses is often the highest, particularly ones that aren't in New York City or in major metro areas. And we have found those are some of the most successful companies where they've been able to make this work and make it work for them and for the organization and the individuals involved. I wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review a couple of years ago now, and we call it the missing middle. There are very successful individuals who are in Silicon Valley and in Wall Street who are autistic, and there are some portion of our community that aren't interested in working.

53:32It's not going to be part of their equation. But for that missing middle, we found that there's a really nice intersection between the desire to work and kind of small and medium-sized growing companies who are willing to put in the investment. I say investment is like with a small eye. Accommodations is often people say, oh my God, what do I need to create in order to do this? These accommodations can be as small as changing the handset on a phone because somebody's very sensitive to sound, something like that. The investments turn out to be, number one, they pay off really well for loyalty and all the things we talked about earlier.

54:08But number two, they're not very daunting. They're not daunting at all. Why do you think small and medium-sized businesses tend to do so well? Is it that just more nimble as a business? I think so. And maybe a little bit more flexible as well. I think for many small, medium-sized and growth businesses, their cultures are so malleable. Sometimes larger companies are very set in their ways and have a certain way of doing things. I mean, we try to work with a number of those companies as well. But oftentimes, I find that those sorts of businesses are more, yeah, they're more flexible. They're more interested in trying things different ways.

54:41And that's what the biggest thing this is all about. So we have lots of resources on this and we're happy to help companies. We do it every single day. It's a good part of what we try to do for the community. Excellent. I want to go back to, you know, earlier I'd asked about siblings. For parents who are listening to this, who are wondering about how to prepare if you have an autistic child and then you have a sibling or siblings who will one day be the trustee or the primary caregiver, how do you prepare those children? How do you prepare those siblings for the role that they will eventually step into?

55:17It's a really good question. I can tell you individually what personally what we have done is open up the curtain earlier than we might otherwise about what our situation is and what we've put into place. I think it's about communication. And I think that from some of the siblings that I've worked with and met along the way, they have felt part of the journey of their family from an earlier stage. and kind of matured earlier, I'd say, a little bit. Because I've seen some of the caregiving and some of the needs that have been there. And otherwise, they might not be exposed to until later in life.

55:55So I'd say communication is probably the biggest thing. Maybe opening to the extent comfortable, maybe opening up the curtain a little bit about specifics earlier on. I personally think it's really important to let children be children and let them develop into their own individuals and making them part of the discussion because ultimately you're a family. The sharing of information that you might wait until your child's in their 20s or something, if you do that earlier on, I think that is probably going to be beneficial to them and beneficial to the situation, beneficial to the caregivers who are trying to work through some of these situations.

56:31Right. So financial transparency. Financial transparency. Yeah. Here's what we've got in a place. Here's how we're thinking about things. And then also having the feedback. I mean, maybe it might be a sibling says, you know what, I'm not comfortable with this. I don't want to talk about this now. That's okay. Or they might say, you know what, I view this as my role as an adult. I understand it. And I'm there right now. And I think that the only way to do that is by being open and communicative. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they want more information?

57:02Well, first of all, I appreciate you having me. It's a really important topic, and I'm glad to have the chance to talk about it. So our website is autismspeaks.org. All the resources that I've mentioned here today are available through that website. Our autism response team, if somebody needs specific advice, needs specific information, specific referrals on a topic, those individuals are highly trained. You can interact via email, talk on the phone, however you want. really great service. We interact with 50 ,000 individuals, 50 ,000 contacts a year on all kinds of matters. And again, like I mentioned earlier, financial, which has been most of this conversation is the third highest one.

57:43So we're there for you. Yeah. But you said financial is the third highest one. What's the second and first? The first is receiving or just after a diagnosis. Somebody has concerns or questions about a diagnosis, how to get a diagnosis. Should I be pursuing a diagnosis and the second is sort of like right after a diagnosis is finding early stage resources so school age resources therapy ieps which are the program setups with the of the school district but financials right there and growing it's one of the biggest growing areas for us as well right for all the reasons we talked about yeah the financial management aspects of this just seems so daunting you're i mean i think you said it very well it's you're planning your own retirement and then you're planning the retirement of your child and you're planning their retirement for 60 or 70 years.

58:31Thank you for spending this time with us. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Keith. What are three key takeaways from this conversation? Key takeaway number one, you are planning two retirements, not just one. Standard retirement planning is already complicated, but families that are raising a child with a developmental disorder or a developmental disability, you're doing all of that. You're planning your own retirement. You're planning your own elder care. And then you're also planning for somebody else's future on top of it, often across a 60 to 70 year time horizon. Because you're not just planning for your own retirement.

59:11You're planning for your retirement as well as providing for this individual for, in many cases, the rest of their lives. My wife and I sit down every couple of years and go through some of the stuff and look it over. And we look at how we designed this 20 years ago. And it's laughably naive at how different it is today. That is the first key takeaway, a recognition of what we're dealing with. Key takeaway number two, in terms of how to begin to deal with this, the ABLE account is an underused tool. So an ABLE account is like a 529 plan for a person with a qualifying disability. Anyone can contribute up to$20 ,000 per year.

59:51The money grows tax-free and it can be spent on everyday expenses like food, transportation. There's even a provision that's not widely known that lets families roll unused 529 funds directly into an ABLE account. One of the great things about ABLE accounts as well is for our son, we weren't sure where he'd want to be at 18, 19 years old or what he was going to be capable doing what he'd want. And he probably could have gone to college, but he didn't want to. Like the day he graduated from high school, he's like, thank God I never have to sit in a classroom again. So we had built up a 529 plan that was there.

1:00:27All right, now what do we do with this? But one of the nice things about the ABLE accounts is you actually can transfer up to$20 ,000 a year from a 529 plan into an ABLE account. So that is the second key takeaway. Finally, key takeaway number three, be aware of the$2 ,000 trap. SSI, Supplemental Security Income, has a$2 ,000 limit. So an individual cannot hold more than$2 ,000 in assets. Now that is different from SSDI, Social Security Disability Insurance. There's no resource or asset limit on that because SSDI is based on work history. But SSI, Supplemental Security Income, has a$2 ,000 limit.

1:01:08And that means a well-intentioned gift from a grandparent can render an individual ineligible. Now, the way that families protect against this is through what's called a special needs trust. Assets that are held in a special needs trust don't count against that limit. Imagine this scenario. You've worked for three years to get your adult child on Medicaid and SSDI. As a well-intentioned grandparent leaves a gift of$50 ,000 in the will to that individual, goes to probate, et cetera, and comes to the individual. That has disqualified that individual for Medicaid and SSDI going forward. And like everything, there's a cure, but that there's a cure period and it's a lot of headaches, et cetera.

1:01:52So if instead that gift goes to a special needs trust, then you wouldn't disqualify for federal benefits. Those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Keith Wargo, the CEO of Autism Speaks. Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope that you learned from it. I hope it was helpful. If you have any follow-up questions, Keith Wargo is a great resource and Autism Speaks is a great resource. There's also excellent information available about ABLE accounts, about SSI qualification, about special needs trusts. I hope that you have learned a lot from this episode about financial planning for for people with developmental disabilities, people who will need ongoing care and support, please forward this episode to anyone you know who might be facing these challenges.

1:02:41And thank you for being part of the Afford Anything community. We have a free newsletter that we send out. You can subscribe at affordanything.com slash newsletter. We dive into a lot of these topics. We go even deeper. Affordanything.com slash newsletter. It is completely free. Affordanything.com slash newsletter. Thank you again for being part of this community. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything Podcast, and I'll meet you in the next episode.