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Summary
In this Care Lab episode, hosts Emily and Brandy, along with Retirement Planning Counselor Tom Kaminsky, explore the importance of proactive healthcare, emphasizing why individuals need to take charge of their well-being before issues arise. It highlights the benefits of preventive medicine, personalized care, and the role of technology in enhancing patient outcomes. The discussion also covers common misconceptions about health monitoring and how small, consistent actions lead to long-term well-being.
Key Takeaway
- Prevention is Better than Cure – Regular health check-ups and monitoring can help detect issues early, reducing risks and healthcare costs.
- Personalized Healthcare Matters – Tailored treatments and lifestyle recommendations improve overall health and effectiveness of care.
- Technology Enhances Well-being – Wearable devices, AI diagnostics, and telemedicine play a crucial role in modern healthcare.
- Small Habits Create Big Impacts – Daily routines like exercise, hydration, and proper nutrition have lasting health benefits.
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Empowerment Through Education – Understanding one's health metrics and risks allows for better decision-making and proactive care.
Transcript
Emilia Bourland
Welcome to Care Lab.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Welcome to Care Lab, everybody. I'm super excited. I know I'm excited.
stuff that can be helpful to you. And so that is genuine. And so today we have Tom Kaminsky here and he is passionate about helping families that are navigating the financial stresses of the sandwich generation. And so he strives to help individuals and families that he serves get organized and make efficient, personalized, well-informed decisions with their money. So he is a certified financial planner and also chartered
Emilia Bourland
Yeah
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Retirement Planning Counselor and those designations help him provide even better service to his clients and he founded Twin Robins both with clients and family in mind and he's been married since 2010 to his wonderful wife and We've talked to paths here in Kansas City, but we also are both from Craig University. So go Jays and He's really intentional about making sure to
be a resource and provide the right education and assistance for people to manage their money, whether they have a little bit or a lot of it, right? You can't get a lot of it until you start with a little bit. and so much of what happens with aging and aging in place and being a family caregiver completely connects to your money, right? Like how much money you have and impact what kind of care you get. If you have to start providing care at...
younger age than you expected, you might decrease how much money you're able to generate for yourself. so money is a topic that we most definitely need to talk about in regards to family caregiving. So thank you, Tom, for being on.
Tom Kaminski
That's awesome. Amazing introduction. Very good. So much to work with.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Yes, also, I gotta make sure we don't have too much to work with because this content of this podcast is not considered financial, legal, or tax advice, just so you know, and you should consult a professional as needed for your specific circumstances, but we're really happy to have Tom and Twin Robbins Capital as a registered investment advisor, but not yours, unless you call him. So this information is specifically, this is not specific for you, but something for you to think about.
Tom Kaminski
Hmm.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
use a financial planner to actually get to the specifics of your situation.
Tom Kaminski
Good. Well done.
Emilia Bourland
Yes, well said, well said. Okay, before we start talking about all that, you know, fun, good stuff though, I think we have an icebreaker that we need to dig down into here. Tom, you have to go first. Today our question is, what is your biggest pet peeve at work?
Tom Kaminski
boy, because I own my own business, so this is going to be a self-criticism, I think. Because if I'm annoyed at work, it's 100 % my fault. I can't go, colleague, this is your fault. Let's see. Number one pet peeve at work. I guess email. mean, emails, it's inevitable. It's all day, every day. It's coming at me, ping, ping, ping in my inbox.
Emilia Bourland
Mm.
Tom Kaminski
You know, and so I maybe AI will solve for email in the not too distant future, but I love it because I'm engaging with my clients, but I hate it because I'd rather be doing deep work. You know, I'd rather be deep in work. So we'll say email. Is that all right?
Emilia Bourland
Sure, whatever you say is all right. There are no rules here on CareLab.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
No rules on CareLab. Nope. The only rule is do what you want.
Tom Kaminski
Do what you want. As long as you're within the constraints of the disclosure language we gave at the beginning, right?
Emilia Bourland
Do what you want. Brandy?
Emilia Bourland
Absolutely, 100%. Yes.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Fair. Let's see. Okay, this is also like self-driven, right? Because I do work for myself and my team is distributed. So they can't really come and be here and get on my nerves or something. So I think my biggest pet peeve is my butt hurts from sitting down. I am a therapist who is used to walking around the hospital standing up.
Tom Kaminski
What about you guys? Happy Eves!
Tom Kaminski
Yeah
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
being on my feet all the time. And then as I've transitioned into this like tech focused role, everything's on my computer. And so my butt gets tired of sitting. So I do have a walking treadmill and a little thing for my laptop. And so that helps me. But yeah, I don't like sitting this long, but you kind of have to.
Emilia Bourland
my gosh, that's not what I was thinking, I, okay, I will still stay what I was gonna say, but I'm taking yours as my top pet peeve. I cannot stand sitting all day or even like, and I do think that like standing desks are great to get like a change of position, but it's not the same as moving your body. And I think one of the wonderful things about being a therapist is you just get to move your body.
all day long. And that's, by the way, what bodies are supposed to do. They're not supposed to just stand or just sit statically. They're supposed to be up and moving. That's what we're built for. That's why I feel so good, people. So, so that is, I'm stealing that, but I'll still say what my other one was going to be, which is I don't like doing the same task over and over again, or I don't, I don't like doing things repetitively. I'm not.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
I'm not built for that. I have literally set up my business in a way that reduces that as much as is humanly possible because I like, I always need, I need new stuff coming in and like new problems to solve all the time. I always need a new problem. I need a new project. I need a new focus to like keep like my creative.
juices flowing and it just makes me happy. like doing the same thing over and over again, that's, not for me. So I try to manage everything that I do in a way that prevents repetitiveness of, of like my lift tasks. So there we go.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
You know, that's why I became OT actually.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
because you get bored easy.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Yeah, because I didn't want to do the same thing for the same person all the time. You know what mean? if you have a diet, if you have two people with a hip fracture, they both have the same diagnosis, but in OT you do two totally different things because they have two totally different lives. And like, I love that level of variability. And so, so I totally understand what you're saying about your business. So I'm stealing that back as one of mine too.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, totally.
Tom Kaminski
Thank you.
Emilia Bourland
Same.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah, I experienced that a lot. mean, it's like if you're doing planning the right way, financial planning, you're trying to like really focus on the person, not the numbers. And I give very different advice for two foundationally pretty similar financial plans because I'm trying to tailor to the person. You know, you got to be obviously prudent and diligent, make sure you're checking all the right boxes, but
Emilia Bourland
Okay, all right, well, we'll just.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Tom Kaminski
I give different advice depending on the need of the individual. Also clients email me stuff and I'm like, what the heck? like, should I move to XYZ or should I transfer my assets here? And I'm like, it takes me down rabbit holes. I mean, you know, there's often nothing at the end of those rabbit holes, but at least it's a rabbit hole. You know, there's always something being thrown at you. So keeps it interesting.
Emilia Bourland
an opportunity for new learning. think, by the way, I think also like that's one of the distinctions between doing something that really requires an expert and a higher high level of expertise versus something that can just be done. Rotely is if someone comes to you with what is ostensibly the same issue or the same problem, is there a playbook for that? Certainly. But being able to recognize the nuances and really take an individual's goals and make specific recommendations based around that individual.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
requires a really high level of expertise no matter what field you're talking about. And certainly finances are obviously incredibly important for everyone. So it's probably a good segue into like about working with financial advisor. Maybe we should just start by you telling folks a little bit about like, what is a financial advisor? What should a financial advisor do for you?
Tom Kaminski
Yeah, yeah, good question. A financial advisor, you know, also known as a financial planner, there's a million names for it. There's a lot of issues with our industry. One is that there's not a clear legal distinction on the name. You know, there's all kinds of things advisors can call themselves. I tend to go with financial planner, but that name can be misleading, unfortunately, to consumers.
Emilia Bourland
Mmm.
Tom Kaminski
So you have to be really careful about the business model behind the name and the credentials. We can kind of get into that a little bit too. But financial planner, and in my case, certified financial planner, sits in the middle of a lot of different important areas of your life, be it estate planning, retirement planning, insurance planning, investments. There's sort of this hub and spoke.
situation that forms where you've got all these different things with dollar signs attached to them, but there's no one really sitting in the middle and coordinating to make sure they're all speaking appropriately to each other. That's why our job basically exists. It's to try to create cohesiveness between an estate plan. Your estate plan attorney might be incredible, but they're not necessarily seeing your full balance sheet the right way.
or they're not considering other dynamics of your financial planner where your insurance policies are structured. An insurance broker that wants to sell you insurance.
And that's fine. That's a really important role and function, but they're not always considering all the pieces of your plan. My clients will get pitched insurance policies. I'm like, they aren't even considering, they don't know how many kids you have. They're like, what are you doing here? And my role is to sit in the middle, ideally acting as a fiduciary at all times. That's what I do for my clients, not all financial planners act as fiduciaries at all time. That's another challenging topic that we can delve into a little bit. But my role is to sit.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Wait, explanatory comma, you gotta tell us what a fiduciary is.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, tell it what's a fiduciary.
Tom Kaminski
So a fiduciary is an advisor who puts your interests before their own. And so when they make a recommendation, they are putting your interests at all times, or in the context of how they're delivering the advice before their own. So that's not meaning that they're acting in your best interest, which can be sort of transactional and case by case. It's putting you, it's elevating your importance and your role in the engagement.
to being superseding their own. And you'll have advisors tell you they're a fiduciary. And that can be true in the context of a very specific part of your engagement with them, but not all aspects of their engagement with you. And it's very unfair and very complicated for the consumer.
So how I kind of, and I act as a fiduciary in all capacities, how I say, consumer should, can I handle this situation is to get in writing from the advisor that they'll act as a fiduciary in all capacities at all times. I haven't put that in writing for you. Was that helpful from a definition standpoint? Okay.
Emilia Bourland
Super. Yes, perfect.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah. so back to the question about what is a financial planner, we sit in the middle of all these important financial pieces and we try our best to bring it together and give you advice that is there's always going to be a conflict of interest, but you try to reduce those conflicts as much as possible. And then you disclose what those conflicts are so that the consumer feels empowered and they feel well informed about the financial decisions that they're making.
So we just kind of were this like agent master of none, but agent of many pieces where we, we, we want to say we pull in the professionals, accountants, insurance professionals, attorneys, for their own expertise, but you're trying to kind of sit in the middle and make sure you're getting the very most out of your plan. And then to the human side of it, I'm really working to like figure out what makes them tick, what your values are, what your goals are. And my job really is to translate all these pieces and align it.
create alignment with that. So big answer. I hope that kind of summarizes it reasonably well.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense. And that leads me to my next question, is when I had the first time I encountered a financial planner or heard that term, I assumed it had to do with protecting or making more money. And while that is part of it, what you have described more succinctly is that you are trying to reduce financial stress. And so I think it's a different kind of way to
Picture that, so can you dive into that a little bit more? Why do you have that particular bend or angle to it? And what does that mean?
Tom Kaminski
Great question. Yeah, I kind of measure myself by how much easier I'm helping clients arrive to the best answer for them. My clients engage me because it's complicated and they don't have time. My clients are very smart. They're they're Ivy League educated and they're incredibly accomplished in their own field.
They just don't have the time or the energy to try to navigate these financial decisions. It's a better use of their time to outsource that. And so I measure myself in my ability to really understand what they want and then give them efficiently the best answer possible to their question. That's my goal. Yeah, you're right, Brandy. Like on the investment side, you know, it's that's really important to what I do, but most people think financial plan, they think, they pick the stocks, right? And
I build portfolios, I manage the investments, but I look at my job and I communicate my job on that front with my clients more as I try to grow portfolios, but there's a big element of preservation. I try to help them thrive in their careers because that's where most of the wealth creation will occur. My job is to manage, build a line to the extent, grow if I can, but-
I'm trying to free up their time and energy so they can really kick butt in their professional careers. Because that's where the wealth creation most often occurs.
Emilia Bourland
question though, does someone have to have a lot of money in order to benefit from potentially working with a financial planner?
Tom Kaminski
Great question. No, I think folks of all income levels and wealth levels can benefit from a financial planner. That's a big challenge in our industry is creating access to folks at lower income levels or lower net worths to professional advice. Financial planning for folks of lower income levels or lower net worths is every bit as complicated, if not more than upper net worth.
upper income level individuals. So there's this very challenging gap to fill between access, efficient access to good advice, where the financial planner can be compensated fairly for their expertise, and then people's ability to pay for that. And that's a tough nut to crack. There are wonderful organizations that do pro bono work. CFP pushes a lot of pro bono work for folks that cannot afford a financial planner.
And technology is certainly helping make it more accessible. And so we see financial planners doing one-time engagements, whereas it used to be $5,000, maybe it's a couple thousand dollars. Or you set up a retainer or a subscription approach to financial planning. So no, you don't need a ton of money and a ton of net worth to need financial planning advice.
Access is still a challenge, but it's getting easier But there are lots of different fee models designed to try to kind of close that gap to the extent possible Yeah, so it's a that's a it's a good good question a good challenge that I think a lot of advisors particularly if only advisors are struggling with like I encounter families where
I have to like try to connect them with somebody who I think can serve them just because my business struggles to adequately find the time to meet their needs. It's tricky.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
I think that's also like just true across the board, right? If you are going to try to engage an expert, the expert is worth a certain amount of money. And so then you have to pay for that personalized service. what technology has done for us and all these platforms has made it a little bit easier to try to get some of those nuggets. It just might not be as directly personalized. You got to do the work of like, how can that concept apply to my life and how will I add it? And so you're about to do something to help with that, right? You're going to start a podcast. Tell us about it.
Tom Kaminski
Good plug. Good plug. Yeah, good setup. know, lobbing the underhand pitch for me to hopefully swing and hit. Yeah, yeah. And real quick, another comment on Amelia's question. I'll get to the, I'm whiffing at the first underhand pitch right now. but Amelia's question, you know, who doesn't need financial planning? Cause that's an important kind of reframing.
Emilia Bourland
Welcome to CareLab.
Tom Kaminski
I think folks that have, I kind of frame it time, talent, temperament, meaning, you know, if you have the temperament to navigate your finances unemotionally, because it can be very difficult. If you have the time, that's what I encounter with my family. They are so busy and I'm here to smooth things out for their finances, make it easier. They want to offload these really critical decisions because they don't have the time to spend doing it.
And then the talent, you there is a lot you you plug into Google and chat GBT you get a lot of really wrong answers and So you have to have the talent to comb through all that noise get to good sources reliable sources Make sure you're not missing one line that could exclude your family from taking advantage of whatever that is So if you've got those three things mastered time talent temperament
you can certainly do it yourself and do reasonably well. And so I would say anybody at any income or net worth level who has those characteristics can likely manage their finances themselves. So they would be the ones not in need of financial planning.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Tom Kaminski
But yes podcast I am in the process of launching a podcast and I will likely hound Brandi and Amelia to be on on it for me Called the sandwich bread and sandwich alludes to the sandwich generation which is navigating aging parents and young kids and yeah, your own finances god forbid you help yourself a little bit too, so you're
These are my clients in most cases. They've got aging, retired parents, their own finances they're concerned about, and then growing their own family or nieces, nephews. So you've got this multi-generational stress and strain. Those are a lot of the folks I serve. I serve folks in other demographic groups, but that's kind of core. And I'm launching a podcast to just have conversations around all those unique stressors.
You know, it's maybe a support group of sorts because there are no perfect answers, but try to provide advice, ideas, places to look to kind of address all those unique categories, be it kids, your own finances, your aging parents and helping them, you know, have a wonderful retirement of their own. So that's what led me to Brandy in the first place. You know, when you have clients that have unique needs as, as, or their parents' unique needs as they age.
I'm not supposed to be the expert in everything, but I'm supposed to really help my clients get to good resources, good third party experts when appropriate. So that'll be the focus of the podcast. So stay tuned, sandwich bread.
Emilia Bourland
That is sandwich bread. That's going to be really exciting. Obviously, we would be delighted to be guests on sandwich bread. Just you just let us know and we will be there. I want to redirect the conversation a little bit to talking about this idea of reducing financial stress. What are some tips that you can offer people or some kind of just like general education that you might offer about ways that anyone could start to reduce their financial stress?
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Sandwich bread.
Tom Kaminski
Awesome.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah, you bet. First I'll say caregivers who are helping their aging parents are in a really challenging spot. So I'll start with some empathy, you know, do your best. Give yourself some grace if everything's a hot mess on the financial side. Cause it's tough. It's, you know, just try to make like little progress is like, you know, you're navigating so many challenges. I don't want to throw like, Hey, do these 50 things and you'll be in great shape. Right.
Who has time for that? Usually where I start is awareness. So there are some wonderful apps to just kind of get your balance sheet organized. And by balance sheet, mean your assets, which would be like your home, your investment accounts, retirement accounts, your liabilities, which would be mortgage, student loans, car loans. Just try to get all your finances in one place. Most people have never seen that.
They don't know where everything is. And it's such a good exercise to just get it all on a piece of paper, just so you know where everything is. Usually in that process, you're like, this debt right here, I can totally pay that off. Let's just do that. And so it uncovers opportunities. And then there's amazing budgeting apps that, again, I don't like to harp on my clients for not.
Managing their budget each month like I don't like to be that guy. That's like Hey, you need to cut that subscription. I don't know one needs that right but Getting all this all the spending into one app So you can actually see it and know how much you're spending each month plus your income you get a sense of your cash flows and just that exercise is so powerful because You'll uncover things. There's no doubt. There's a subscription in your feed that you
totally don't get value out of it and you'll click a button and you've saved yourself 200 bucks just by doing the exercise. So that would be step one, just awareness. Like get everything together for yourself. I'm speaking to the caregiver. Like, I like this analogy, like put on your air mask before helping others, right? so do that first, get your own finances in order, try to have it all in one place, try to get a sense of your monthly cash flows in and out. And that is illuminating.
Tom Kaminski
It just starts the journey of really taking ownership of your finances. That exercise, when I bring clients on board, I take them through that and they go, you know, there's always an moment that emerges, good or bad from that. And we work through that. So that would be kind of step one. That's sort of the easy step one. Like these apps are pretty good. They scrape, they pull in your data really efficiently. It's really not that painful, maybe even 20 minutes.
if the interface is clean enough to do that. Step two is where it gets a little harder is trying to set goals. And I take clients through like a values exercise, like try to figure out what's most important to you, describe for me in your perfect day is kind of where I began. For people our age, they don't want to think about retirement. So it's like, let's try to pull out of you like what you enjoy. And this is where it gets a little harder because you have to try to budget and save money.
for the future, which as human beings, we do not want to do. Putting money away for the long term is just not ingrained in who we are. We want to consume and spend. So that's where it gets little trickier. But these apps, again, can help you say, all right, if I save 10%, 5%, 8 % each year, we're building toward at least a secure retirement. And so the next piece of goal is retirement in college.
are usually the two huge expenses folks are grappling with. And just make small little baby steps toward that. Then when you get those kind of settled, then you can have more of the fun conversations like European trip and trip to Florida, whatever, like kids camps and things like that, like the more near term enriching your life today type goals.
So that would be kind of the next step is the goals based conversation or exercise to take you through. I usually recommend like smart goals, like make them very specific, assign a date to it, actionable, don't make it too vague. Totally cool if you change the goal, but like make it a real thing to the extent that you can. Yep, and then the third would be actions, like trying to actually design.
Tom Kaminski
actions and movements and steps toward those goals. that's, ideas are easy, activity is hard, actions are hard. But if you have real goals and tangible goals, it's a little easier to say, all right, we'll put this much into this account until we get there. So that'd be like step one is like, worry about yourself, be a little selfish, get your own finances in order, feel a little more settled with that, and then start to kind of think about the other generations that you need to support.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
That makes sense, so I feel like I hear you saying like, understand what's going on first, get you an app, do something and put it all in one place, think about what your goals are in order to what you're trying to achieve, and then create some actual action steps that you can achieve. Not like, not that you can have big goals, but like start with the small things and low hanging fruit first. And then that way entropy keeps helping you. You like you already started doing one thing, so that just thing keeps going, now you add a second thing and that thing keeps going. And then once you've gotten that down for yourself,
Now think about that for the people that you are also in care of and how to help manage that. So I am curious just in general about two things, I have two questions. One, are you mostly helping people who are caring for a parent and kids or are you helping people who are the older adults themselves? And then in that...
If you're like helping the kids or the people in middle, then...
What are all the different spokes? You talked a little bit about hub and spokes. Like you're in the center of this. Like sure, you might need to know how much money is in the bank and how much retirement you might have in some assets. But you also mentioned insurance and then like how does the paying for other people's things like college or your parents' caregiving impact in there and like, how are you helping them understand all of those spokes?
Tom Kaminski
Yeah, good questions. First part, I work, would say probably two thirds of my clients are rough. I'm 40, just turned 40. But I will tell you a little aside, I just installed a basketball hoop. So I'm not giving up on my hoop dreams. Just got a new hoop at our house. So I know, I know. I have a lot of friends that are giving up on basketball for those reasons. I'm like, I'm not giving up. I'm not, I'm going to make the league.
Emilia Bourland
Just watch that AC, watch those ACLs. Watch those ACLs.
Tom Kaminski
But I just turned 40 and so a lot of my like about two-thirds my clients are roughly in my age bracket plus or minus ten years, know from late 20s to up to 50 that's about two-thirds but I starting years ago I'd started to really grow a retiree segment to my business and often those were referrals from clients to help their parents and
Emilia Bourland
Good for you!
Tom Kaminski
is sort of a light bulb moment a few years ago where I was like, you know, I find a great joy out of serving clients that are my age because I'm very in tune with the friction points they're feeling. There's so many and I just I'm going through all of it right with them. So it was a natural place to start. But I started to realize like aging parents, it's just a very meaningful part of my clients lives is
And it just started to kind of pick up and it started to pick up where they would disclose that they health event or some type of health issue. I'm not sure my parents are ready to retire and or the plan for this. And I kind of realized I can't detangle like the parent stressors from the kids stressors necessarily. So I just decided to just start diving into it and build out a resource set for
for folks grappling with this. So I serve both generations, to answer your question, Randy. And obviously, the younger generation typically doesn't hire advisors. They're being saved for, they're usually under the age of whatever, 18. And then examples of the different ways, like different hub and spoke kind of set up. Insurance.
would include, I typically do an annual insurance review with my clients, but it would include health, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, dental and vision through their employer plan, usually, life insurance. And we go through every year and review all those major categories and ensure that they're aligned properly with where people's finances are at. And so that there's a lot to that.
And there's a lot of areas for error in that particular area. So I have a meeting annually, usually during open enrollment season in the fall, where we run through all those categories and make sure the policies we have in place make sense. Where since I'm not licensed to sell insurance, I'll include a third party broker. And so I'll help design the policies to my liking or
Tom Kaminski
make adjustments, then we pull in the third party professional, get their opinion, get their advice. They help quote the policies and we do a group meeting to ensure the final quotes make sense.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Okay, but I got a question on this for a second real quick. You're not just meaning that they can afford the insurances that they buy. You're meaning that the insurances, because I just want you to dive a little bit deeper into like, what do you mean by the insurances they've chosen align with their income or their finances?
Tom Kaminski
Yeah. So let's take life insurance. That's kind of the easy one. Well, it's not easy, but that's an easy one to start with. You have another child and you want to make sure every child, we have enough life insurance in place that each child could go to college. Creighton's not cheap. like making sure you got enough money in that insurance policy and then the time horizon makes sense for that insurance policy so that if something tragically happened to one parent,
that there would be money available for that. If you have a lot of debts on your balance sheet, one parent passes away and the other income can't support all the financial obligations, right? A well-structured insurance policy would hopefully cover that need, plus replace their income. That's the other big piece is trying to develop an income replacement calculation. So that's like one kind of very small specific example, but every year,
we look at their financial situation and maybe they've saved enough money where we're like, I don't know if we need this life insurance policy anymore. I think we funded college, we paid off these debts, maybe we reduce it or maybe we eliminate the policy or you have another child or you bought a new house, we increase the life insurance. So it's not like a set it and forget it.
calculation. Same with disability insurance. Sometimes your employer provided disability insurance is adequate. Sometimes it's not. And so we have to like go and I look at each, if it's a couple, got to look at each party individually because incomes are often not the same. And so you have to try to gauge the replacement cost as terrible as that sounds. But that's, that's, that's an example of it.
Emilia Bourland
I want to go back to you talking a little bit about people referring their parents essentially to you to be clients as well. This is not at all about the mechanics of that. I'm just curious, do you feel like you get, is that easy? Do you get pushback from parents?
I don't know that everyone would necessarily feel comfortable having their kids being like, mom and dad, you better get it together. Right. And, know, making that referral or, but then on the other hand, suppose probably having them referred to someone like you is in some ways a lot less fraught than saying, mom and dad, let me look at your finances. I need to help you get this together. Right.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah, yeah, it's a very touchy subject, often way easier than done. it's yeah, sometimes it is easy because trust is so huge with financial planners. Even for clients that meet, you know, I have a criteria if they're not going to use me, I say, hey, consider these things when you go go find one. But the last piece I usually put on there is like, I hope you like
Do you trust them? Have you built trust in this? If they check all these boxes, do you trust them? Is the last one like get referrals from other clients or maybe if you're lucky, you know somebody who works with them. So there is kind of an easier process of referring in that sense. If you're doing great work for their children and you're trustworthy and ethical, that can make it easier but.
often parents are really guarded with their finances and it can be quite difficult. So I just look for opportunities to help. know, like if there's a small thing their parents need help with, and I don't often worry about my own compensation in the process. I just kind of like give, give, give and hope it works out. And so I just look for areas, little areas to help add value.
I put together a little checklist of like, here's things your parents should think about, shoot it over their way, and hopefully they open it and give it a shot. So, and I'm always receptive to family meetings and things like that too. And whatever kind of venue or setup makes it most comfortable. But good point, Amelia. It's just, sometimes it doesn't work.
Emilia Bourland
It's messy. Money is so emotional and it can be so messy. But like I said, I think, you know, I feel like if you could have a financial planner in the process, at least that takes some of the emotional messiness out of it rather than just being, you know, hey mom, hey dad, I need to look through your books. I don't feel like that's going to go over super well in a lot of families.
Tom Kaminski
third party.
Emilia Bourland
I don't know that it would go over well in mine.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah, yeah, it's very difficult subject. think if you have siblings, I think encouraging a family meeting, just to crack open the door a little bit about what your parents' wishes are can be really great for everybody. And it's tricky. mean, parents are very guarded about money. There's also a generational element to it where...
I I see people are more open the younger they work with generally. There's sort of a generational piece there where you just keep everything close to the vest and don't share. So it's tricky, but if you have a family meeting and just have your parents air out what they want, what their wishes are in a group setting, it can be really powerful. It can really be a baby step toward better conversations and better dialogues.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Tom Kaminski
Yeah, it's tricky. I'm not going to say like, it's easy. They just, we all get together and everyone's happy and there's no friction. Yeah.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Said no one ever. It's, you know, one small thing that I think is useful, like on that being the meeting part is like if the meeting is convened in regards to like, are your wishes for your health care? It invariably ties to in like, okay, now we now think about a financial power of attorney and then, and then it gets into the money. But if you start with the health care piece, everybody
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
like that's prescient, everybody knows that like, I'm not gonna be here forever. And yes, my kids should probably know what my wishes are. And yes, we probably should write it down. Yeah, no, I should do this. And then as you get started with that, it kind of leads into the money piece too. And then hopefully can like have some clarity about like, what do you wanna do with that? And then hopefully find some way to work, either do it or refer to somebody else to do it. So it needs to be dealt, so it can be dealt with. Do you have any like...
Tom Kaminski
Yeah.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
suggestions for, let's say this has not happened and a parent passes away and that child is like left with one, the grief and two, like all of the financial things that go with that. after the fact, they maybe don't have access, are there any tips or hints or tricks besides like plan ahead that people can make things a little bit easier to deal with?
Tom Kaminski
Yeah, man, that's tough. That's very tough because a lot of what I'm trying to do is get out in front of that. Sharing those examples with the parents of like, this is what you left behind. I know death is the worst thing to think about, but it can be a small way of honoring your family to just like, let's get out in front of this a little bit and at least get an estate plan together and have everything listed out.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
Mm-hmm.
Tom Kaminski
I don't know after the fact that I have necessarily tips other than, you know, it's going to be a tough journey of running down statements and looking through file folders and trying to piece it all together. There are folks, know, crisis, like attorneys that specialize in elder care and, you can engage them and they can help kind of clean up the pieces from a legal standpoint and help from that perspective.
But it can be quite difficult, honestly, just to just run down all the statements, all the documents. Sometimes they're scattered all over the place. And that's why with family meetings, I encourage like, it's a similar process to getting your own finances in order. I have like a checklist and like, you can put all these financial documents in a folder, in a safe, tell your kids that it's there. And then it just makes everything, everything immensely better for your family when you pass.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Tom Kaminski
Reviewing it every couple years is like bonus points, but just having it in one place one time is puts you in the top 10 % of people who are considering You know what what happens next with their family? So I wish I had a secret thing, you know, I've encountered enough clients Being the reactive cleaner upper and there's no they're like we're in their house We're uncovering old stock certificates from the 1960s that are
We don't know if it's worth a million dollars or one dollar, you know, it's just like... But, yeah, I don't have a magic bullet for that one, unfortunately.
Emilia Bourland
Okay. I have a couple more questions before we wrap up here. the first is if you can give just like your top tips for how someone can make sure that they are working with a reputable financial planner, as you mentioned, like early in the episode, think that there is, as you said, I think it's not necessarily super clean and, and, easy to figure out. So maybe some tips for how to know if you're working with a reputable.
financial planner, and then second, where can people find you in your services?
Tom Kaminski
Sure, awesome. Yeah, so a couple things I jotted down, and these are like, I get that question often, like, where to find an advisor? What should I look out for? This person emailed me. First thing I do, like the easy stuff, or the I think foundational stuff is the SEC website lists advisors on there if they're a registered investment advisor or an advisor of an RIA, not that you need more like abbreviations.
but they have a nice public site where you can plug in an individual's name and you can look up their history. So you can see if there's client complaints or a felony record, anything else, financial specific. They're supposed to keep those numbers, that information relatively current.
And so that's a great starting point. Like you can see a history if there's issues. often advisors who have a clean history will just say, nothing to disclose. That doesn't guarantee that they haven't been on the up and up. a quick Google search isn't a terrible idea either as you try to look at the individual's background, unfortunately. That's one consideration. So that's like ground rule. That's the starting point.
I look at people's credentials. I'm a CFP certified financial planner. I went through a pretty rigorous training and an exam process, and then I had an experience requirement to get that credential. It's not the be all end all. By any means, there are wonderful advisors who don't have it, but it at least tells you there's been quite a bit of commitment to the trade. But again, I'm not saying if you don't have it.
It means you're a worse advisor. just, it's an indication of effort and experience. There's also, we all know CPA, Certified Public Accountant. You know, if you have a CFP and a CPA, that can be a powerful combo because they have a tax background, an extra tax experience. And then there's a CFA, Chartered Financial Analyst, which is deep in the investments world and another very rigorous exam process. So those are kind of like the kind of
Tom Kaminski
creme de la creme credentials, then there's like hundreds of other credentials. And I always say like, make sure they've got like ideally a CFP, those other credentials can be specializations or niche focuses that can really like layer on top of the CFP and create a really powerful combination if that niche kind of fits your needs. So that's a little bit about the credentialing side of things. then compensation is huge. Know the advisor's compensation.
So there's all kinds of compensation models. I'm not going to really get into what I believe ethically should be done. But just know it. And know if you're buying an insurance product, who's getting that commission? Or if you're purchasing a mutual fund in your investment account, what commission is relayed as a result of that? Or if there's no commission, there's a fee-only model where you can pay a flat annual fee or
a quarterly fee or more of a subscription type fee, then there are fees based on percentage of assets that you have. it's very, there's net worth fees, there's income based fees. So it's like, it's the whole, there's a lot of different fee structures. My big push is just know, know what you're paying your advisor, know how they're compensated. Be real clear on that. I'm not going to get into right or wrong, but just really as a consumer, know that.
And then as we talked about earlier, are they a fiduciary at all times? The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, NAPFA, has a really nice link that I can provide to you guys that has a fiduciary oath and it's very comprehensive. It's a page you can print off as a consumer and have your advisor sign it. You want them to be always putting your interests before their own. And then the last piece is
the trust piece, try to work through your network. If they check all those other boxes and you've got like a friend or a family member utilizing them, that's a wonderful way to validate their work, not in place of those other things, but on top of those other things. Yeah, so that's a lot. It's tough for consumers. I wish it were super easy for consumers to find great advisors, but there are wonderful advisors everywhere in every business model.
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Tom Kaminski
So this puts you on a path to having a good chance of success.
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
And then where can people find you?
Tom Kaminski
yeah. You can find me in a few different places. I work with clients all over the country. I'm here based in Kansas City. I love having local folks, I work with, most of my clients are virtual. You can find me on that, a lot of the major search sites. NAPFA is the other one I referenced. If you search through the CFP, Certified Financial Planner website, you can find me there.
The only network you can find me there. So I'm very findable online. If you Google Tom Kaminsky financial planner, there's plenty of sources there. And I can provide contact information as well, but a lot of different places or twinrobbins.com.
Emilia Bourland
Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being on this episode of CareLab. We really appreciate you coming on today.
Tom Kaminski
Thanks so much for having me. This was awesome. And now I get to pull you onto my show and ask you a million questions.
Emilia Bourland
YAY!
Brandy Archie, OTD, OTR/L
So listeners, if you made it to the end of this episode, we appreciate you greatly and we love having you here. So make sure you're liking and subscribing, download a couple of episodes, share it with a friend. All of that helps make sure that we show up when people search for help with caregiving. So if you enjoyed this content, let's help other people find it too. And we look forward to seeing you next week on the Care Lab. Thanks everybody.
Tom Kaminski
Thank you.
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