"I Was Diagnosed With Stage 4 Cancer. How Do I Protect My Dependents?"

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2:53Otherwise, 1.00 % APY applies. No min balance required. Chime card on-time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See Chime.com for details and applicable terms. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some Money Rehab.

3:16Today's episode is a really, really special one for me. It's one that I hope you not only listen to, but really sit with. Because today we're talking about money and mortality, life and legacy, about how to take control of your financial life in a moment when everything else feels so uncertain. My guest today is Erin. She is someone whose story is going to stay with me for a very long time. She's a money rehabber who DM'd me on Instagram and told me that she had been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She wanted to talk about what she needed to do to get her finances in order so that her husband and her mom are taken care of in case her condition worsens.

3:52I wanted to make sure that Erin not only had the financial insight, but the legal insight as well. So later in the episode, Erin and I will be joined by Veronica Escobar, an attorney specializing in trusts and estates, as well as elder law and special needs training. Erin also asked me some questions around saving for medical care that I want to answer for her as well. So you're going to hear a second episode tomorrow focusing on those questions. But today we focus on what's top of mind for her, how to make sure her dependence will be okay. I know you will be moved by Erin's story just as much as I was.

4:26I was actually so affected by her selflessness that on air, I decided that I wanted to be there and take the next steps with her. So I'll share more on how I did that at the very end of the episode. But first, I want to introduce you to Erin. Erin, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you so much. This is pretty amazing. I followed your career and you motivated me to open my 401k years ago when I bought your book. So thank you for having me. Oh my God, Erin. I'm already tearing up. I'll just want to say you are amazing. This is legit tearing up. I want to start by just saying how honored I am to have you here sharing your story.

5:05Can you just start by telling all of us the story of how you were diagnosed? Sure. So I'm about 16 months into my journey. In February of 2024, I was diagnosed with metastatic stage four breast cancer after receiving my very first mammogram. The reason I was going for my mammogram is because the end of 2023, my mom had been diagnosed with stage one breast cancer and I was turning 40 last year. So it was a priority for me to do that. Just thinking it would be routine, nothing out of the ordinary, just kind of checking it off the list to say, I'm getting my first mammogram, check, done, can move on.

5:44Didn't expect to then get a scare followed by biopsies and told that I had stage two breast cancer and that we were going to do chemo, surgery, radiation, and put me in menopause. and as if that's not enough to deal with wrapping your brain around that, I then go for a PET scan and my own oncologist was surprised to learn that it was actually stage four and it had spread unbeknownst to everyone to my liver and my bones and there were no physical or outward indications that any of that was happening. I considered myself to be physically fit and active, just never sick in the hospital, you know, all the things that we think there's some kind of warning, there's something to tell you that something's going on in your body and there was nothing at all.

6:37So it was devastating to try to reconcile that. How do you go from maybe seeing your doctor once a year for a physical to now having dozens of appointments and scans and treatment plans and truly at the base of it, wondering, am I going to live and how long? So it's a very hard thing to reconcile. And it's been difficult because my first two lines of treatment have failed, unfortunately. And just so people are aware, metastatic breast cancer does not have a cure. So it's not as my mom's situation was different where she had stage one, had a lumpectomy and radiation and hopefully can move on with her life and will never have a reoccurrence.

7:23This is a totally different ballgame where I will be in treatment the rest of my life. And we pray that each treatment lasts as long as possible. So within the first year, my first two lines of treatment had already failed. I'm on my third line of treatment now and tolerating it well. It is a chemotherapy. So I think people have maybe an outdated perception of what stage four cancer looks like, what chemotherapy looks like. I look and feel very much like myself for the most part, thankfully. I'm working full time, active, traveling. And right now I'm in a very stable period. So because it's working, I can focus on the conversation we're going to have now, which is so important, and enjoying my life.

8:06And it's a nice time to just be me and just feel like myself again. Always in the back of my mind, worried that when and if this treatment fails, what will the next one look like? Will the next treatment be more aggressive? But a lot of women deal with that, unfortunately, in my situation. Oh my God, sister. I wish we were in person right now. I would give you the biggest hug. I'm giving you the biggest virtual hug right now. I hope you feel some of that. How are you feeling emotionally? It's awesome that you are feeling so good physically to work, to have conversations like this, to help other women.

8:45But what about your thoughts, your emotions right now? It's different, I would say, week to week, every couple weeks. Sometimes I'm disconnected from my diagnosis, which for me is a healthy way to be because it can be all-consuming, just thinking about the inevitable things that will happen and what's to come and I kind of have to tune the volume down on that, you know, if that makes sense. Like just, I'm not in that place right now. And then sometimes it all rushes at you and it does consume you. And you're just like, how am I functioning? I asked myself that because people around me ask that, how are you functioning?

9:23How do you work? And all I can say is you get up and you just do it. I have no other explanation because I've asked myself the same thing. I I'm more than entitled to fall apart every day if I wanted to. But I don't, for me, don't find it to be helpful. The normal, the routine, just getting on with life, it's helped me. And what does your care team say now about what treatment might look like for you next? What does the road ahead potentially look like? That was a difficult conversation with my oncologist. I'm a very facts-based person. I like to know and be prepared. I generally don't bury my head in the sand with things.

10:06So I asked my doctor flat out, being that my first two treatments failed and I'm in this position now, less than two years later, already needing chemotherapy. I'm not asking you to put a date on the calendar, but in your experience, how many good years would you say I have from now? And that was in February of this year. And he said, honestly, one to two. That's his experience that no one knows what's going to happen. I can only hope that I have as many good years, vibrant years as possible, but I do have to prepare myself for that eventuality, unfortunately. Thank you so much for sharing that truly, Erin.

10:47I just can't tell you how meaningful this conversation is to me and to all of our listeners, how moved I was when you reached out to me. So just so our listeners know, you DMed me to ask if we could have a conversation on estate planning. And I just want to say, you know, that being proactive is so, so brave. It is so, so powerful. And I know your intention is to help a lot of people listening. So thank you. Yes, thank you. It is because if anyone is in this situation and somehow has the wherewithal and the capacity to answer these questions, I do think it'll be helpful. There's so much swirling around when you find yourself in this position, staying alive, getting a good doctor, getting a second opinion doctor.

11:34So if you find yourself and you're listening and you're just like, these are some other things I should prepare for, I hope that you are finding this helpful and it'll be a roadmap maybe to help get some questions answered for anyone who finds themselves in this place. Amen. Okay, I can't really be helpful physically and emotionally, but I can be helpful financially. So let's talk about what you have built financially. I'm so honored that you were inspired to start a 401k by some of my work. You sent me some of the details before we spoke today. And let me just say, you and your husband have done an awesome job.

12:13Right now, you guys have no debt outside of your mortgage. You have savings. You have strong retirement accounts. I know one of your top questions is, how do I create a will to protect this for my family, my husband and my mother? And so I'm actually going to bring in Veronica Escobar. She's an awesome lawyer out of New York. She has her own elder law and trust and estates practice in New York to answer some of these questions as thoroughly as possible. Veronica, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for welcoming me. And Erin, once again, it's so lovely to meet you and hopefully answer some of your pressing questions.

12:50You too. Thank you. So Erin, you asked me what type of will you should consider. You don't have any will or any trust currently. Is that right? That's right. Okay. So Veronica, what are some of the best practices that Erin can do around starting a will for the first time? Well, I just want to backtrack a little bit and say that despite everything that she's going through, she's one tough cookie and she actually is doing all of the right things despite what she may be feeling emotionally and what is going on in her body. So that's first and foremost. In terms of a will, it's really case specific and it depends on the person, their family structure, as well as their assets, what type of assets they have and where they're held.

13:39So having listened to Erin tell you a little bit about her financial background, I have a follow-up question. Erin, do you have any children? No, no children. My mom is retired and lives with us, so she does depend on us financially for the most part. And that was one of my concerns, how we protect her in the event of my passing so that she's cared for. Thanks so much for that tidbit of information. And more and more, you do find adult children caring for their parents, whether it's the parent living in the home with the adult child or the adult child providing financial support for that parent.

14:19So if that is a concern, and if your parent you suspect at one point in time in the future is going to require long-term care, you may want to consider establishing a trust that specifically addresses her needs, whether it is providing a lump sum to her or whether it is providing a monthly sum to her that is for her health, her maintenance, and her support. If I can ask a follow-up question, does your mother have a long-term care policy or does she have sufficient funds liquid to fund her own long-term care? No and no. Okay, do you have life insurance policies? On myself, yes. Do they at any point have a beneficiary?

15:06Yes. Is your mother that beneficiary or is it your spouse? My spouse is the primary and then she would be contingent if we were to both pass away. Okay. So one of the things that I would tell you that in addition to working with an estate planning attorney, you should also work with your accountant. And if you have a financial advisor with a financial advisor, because they're very good at advising people about, number one, how to best invest their money, but also how to plan for long term care. And if your focus is being able to provide for your mother financially, should you pass away, then that is a good topic to discuss with that individual.

15:43Hold on, sorry. Erin, do you have somebody to help you with that? Not, well, one of my questions to you was part of our retirement savings and a non-qualified account we have with a franchise brokerage or wealth advisor, but that was something I was considering moving. Veronica, your firm doesn't handle that. No, the life expectancy and all those financial projections, that is squarely within the wheelhouse of a financial advisor. And when you're dealing with somebody like Aaron who has a life limiting condition, you can often find estate planning attorneys working together with accountants and with financial advisors to craft the best estate plan for that person considering their current medical situation.

16:26So if Erin does not make a will, let's start with the house. What would happen to the house, Veronica? If the house is held as joint tenants with right of survivorship, which is how most real estate is held between married couples, then upon Erin's passing, should she pass, the house automatically goes to her husband. So then the husband has to consider what his estate plan will look like now that he is a widower. So if the house is held as joint tenants with right of survivorship, you don't really need to address it. However, if Erin wanted to perhaps allow her mother to live in the house indefinitely, she may want to include provisions in her will and in her trust that allows her mother to live there indefinitely.

17:09Something akin to a tenancy agreement. I don't know the dynamic between your husband and your mother, and I won't ask that on this podcast. But if you have concerns privately about your mother being able to remain there for as long as possible, then your will, but particularly your trust, has to have a clause that allows your mother to remain there indefinitely. And indefinitely for me means until she has to leave, if she has to, if she passes or if she can't be taken care of adequately within your home. But other than those circumstances, she does not have to leave because you don't want her to leave.

17:51And I would also recommend that you have that conversation with your husband before you even talk to an attorney. And that's another point is you need to write these things down and have them memorialized in a will because those are legally enforceable documents. But it's equally and I think more important to have these actual conversations with your loved ones face to face because it's one thing to see it in black and white. It's another to remember having that conversation with a person that you love and care about. So I always, always emphasize open and honest communication, especially about hard things.

18:31And this is definitely one of those life hard things. But does Erin need a trust in addition to her will? I mean, could a trust help make sure that the home goes to her husband first and then her mom if something were to happen to both of them? Exactly. So if, let's say, her husband does not outlive her mother, then you would want to make provision in the trust not only for your mother to be able to live there, but to have the house passed to your mother should your husband predecease you. but you would also have to have your husband execute his documents alongside you at the same time so that your documents and his documents are identical or almost identical as possible.

19:19So in simple terms, that means you have to make provision for your mother in your estate planning documents and your husband simultaneously should be making plans for you, even though you have this diagnosis, but also making provision for his mother-in-law with respect to the house. If your mother does not have sufficient funds to privately fund her long-term care, then at some point, the possibility of having the house placed in what's called a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust, which is an irrevocable trust for the sole purpose of protecting an asset for Medicaid eligibility, that's a different conversation.

19:58And that's a conversation that can happen down the road, but it's not something that is of immediate concern to you. It's more of a concern to your mother than it is to you right now. But if the intent is that you want the house to go to your mother should something happen to your husband as well, then having a trust absolutely preserves that desire and that wish. But more importantly, you're avoiding probate, and you're also avoiding having to go to surrogate's court. And if you know anything about surrogate court in New York City, the five boroughs or outside of New York City, not only do they have a tremendous backlog, they don't have sufficient employees and there's a lot of bureaucracy.

20:38And that basically induces a large expenditure of money, as well as agita. People become very, very frustrated at having to wait for a court to issue letters, for a court to decide a legal issue. And I think there's a lot of power in executing a trust and addressing these things outside of the court's eyes. We're definitely not letting Erin and her loved ones go to probate. Hell no, absolutely not. I just also want to acknowledge the obvious. This is a hard conversation. This is weird. When I did my trust in Will, it's weird. There are a lot of these types of questions. We're talking about death.

21:18We're talking about family. We're talking about relationships between them if the worst case scenario happens. But in the context of paperwork and process, I mean, we're trying to be adults here, but it's hard and weird. So I just want to check in with you, Erin. How are you feeling right now? I feel good. Yes. Like I said, I'm so to the point. So my husband and I have had these very to the point conversations and he's like, oh dear. I'm like, we have to talk about these things. It's just, sorry, we've got a plan. And in my mind, these are the kinds of conversations that I have with people every single day.

21:49This to me is normal. But I also recognize that different families have different communication styles and that's influenced by multiple factors. But I think talking about the hard things opens the door to talk about other things within a family unit. So as hard as it may be, as emotionally difficult or as triggering as it may be to you or to your husband, it's something that I absolutely recommend. And you can start little by little. But the important thing is to start. Yes. She's not only started, but she's putting this out there for everyone else. It's truly incredible. So to get back to probate and the hell of that, we don't want her family involved in that at all.

22:32Is a will enough to bypass probate or she really needs a trust? No, a will by its very definition is a probate document. So if you only execute a will, your estate has to go through probate and it has to go through what we call in New York state surrogates court. So what I recommend to clients of mine is not only executing a will, but also executing a trust. because if you have a trust that handles more, most of your, if not all of your assets, whether they're property or liquid or liquid equivalent assets, you have a will that is there as a safety net of sorts because oftentimes what can happen is you may forget to add title of an asset to the trust.

23:18You may take an asset out for some reason and not reintroduce it into the trust. Things can happen, especially when you're dealing with a difficult diagnosis and life happens. So in the event that an asset is not accounted for in the trust or it's not made a beneficiary or the, excuse me, the trust is not made beneficiary of that asset, the will is there to act as a safety net so that it does not fall into intestacy. And intestacy is when you do not have a will or when the asset itself is not accounted for in a will. So a will always, but always with the objective of avoiding probate at every cost.

24:02So your recommendation is that Erin create a trust, put the house, so the beneficiary would basically be the trust. So the co-trustees would be Erin and her spouse, the beneficiary of the house and any other assets would be the husband. A contingent or successor beneficiary would be her mother only under the condition that her husband predeceases her specifically. But when we're addressing the specific issue of her mom, you also need her husband to address it in his estate planning documents because the likelihood of him predeceasing Aaron is small. It's never zero, but it's small. And if that were to happen, he has to have documents that also protect Aaron and his mother-in-law.

24:52So even though our conversation is really geared towards Aaron addressing her assets and protecting her husband and her mom, it's equally as important for her husband to protect Aaron and his mother-in-law at the same time. How does that sound, Erin? I get it.

25:14Hold onto your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. And now for some more Money Rehab.

25:27So basically, the trust is a wrapper. You put a bunch of stuff, all the assets. So your brokerage would be in the trust. The retirement accounts would change the beneficiary to be the trust. Yes. Right, Veronica, what else? Yes. You can also place liquid assets like regular checking accounts, money markets as the beneficiaries or the trust being the beneficiary of those accounts. Obviously, that would mean opening up new bank accounts at your local financial institution, wherein the trust is named as the title holder of those monies so that when the time comes, all of your assets are now part of the trust and those assets are distributed pursuant to the terms of the trust.