Planning for Care Before Crisis Hits, with Lindsay Jurist-Rosner

Cammie Doder (00:05):
Welcome to Money Tales, where Money Gets Personal. I’m Cammie Doer

Sandi Bragar (00:09):
And I’m Sandi Bragar

Cammie Doder (00:12):
Lindsay Jurist-Rosner was still a child when her mother was diagnosed with ms. What followed was nearly three decades of caregiving, hospital visits, financial stress, difficult decisions, and countless moments where Lindsay realized just how unprepared most families are for the realities of long-term care. That experience eventually led Lindsay to found wealthy, a digital care concierge platform that connects families with dedicated experts to handle the administrative and logistical burdens of caregiving.

Sandi Bragar (00:46):
Here are three money conversations. This episode will help you navigate first, why caregiving can be both an emotional challenge and a financial one. Lindsay shares the hidden costs. Families often do not anticipate from in-home care to travel expenses to the income and energy caregivers sacrifice along the way. Second, how to start difficult conversations with aging parents before a crisis happens. Talking about money, healthcare wishes and future care plans can feel uncomfortable, but waiting too long could create even more stress and confusion for families. And third, how to handle the financial uncertainty that comes with building a business. Lindsay shares what it takes to raise money, navigate acceptance and rejection from investors, and stay grounded while turning a deeply personal idea into a growing company. Now it’s our pleasure to bring you Lindsay’s money Tales.

Cammie Doder (01:47):
Welcome Lindsay Jurist, Rosner to the Money Tales podcast. We’re really excited to be talking with you today.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (01:54):
Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Cammie Doder (01:56):
Before we bring you in and let you tell your story, I have to share, and this will be pertinent to what you do right now. I’m currently at a rehab facility for my mom who unfortunately broke her leg, her femur, and she’s an older person. She’s got a bit of Alzheimer’s and really brutal. However, these care facilities are incredible, these rehab, were at a rehab center and I’m just really thankful my mom and dad were very intentional with their money to be able to set aside funds for the future for the unknown. And so my brothers and I are able to take care of mom in the manner in which she had hoped to be taken care of. And thank goodness for these sin. I’m just blown away at the skill level that also comes with the empathy level that’s needed as someone’s in a lot of pain.

Sandi Bragar (02:57):
Cammie, I’m glad that she’s getting good care and I’m so glad that she and your father planned for different possibilities and it sounds like they’ve really done a good job through their lifetime allowing you and your siblings to care for your mom and focus on her needs as opposed to having all those challenging money, conversations and decisions that can come along when someone unexpectedly or even expectedly needs care at some point.

Cammie Doder (03:25):
No, it’s so important. I’m really thankful. Obviously we’re grateful for the ability to do this, that they were able to do this, but also grateful that they had the intentional conversations

Sandi Bragar (03:37):
And presumably with you guys too,

Cammie Doder (03:39):
So

Sandi Bragar (03:39):
That you know what you need to do. You have all the correct powers of attorney in place, the passwords to the accounts and can pay the bills. And

Cammie Doder (03:48):
So Sandi, this is where one of the siblings has to be really, really organized. And my one brother and I are very thankful for our older brother who walks into the hospital and now the rehab center with a three ring binder with everything. It’s incredible. It’s an inspiration. I’m going to get more organized myself.

Sandi Bragar (04:08):
Great tips for listeners out there too. These can be hard conversations in advance. You never know what’s going to happen, but if you can put together time, attention, and energy toward getting organized when you have a loved one who might need your assistance at some point in time and making sure that you’re looped into their financial picture, that can certainly reduce stress and create all kinds of good things.

Cammie Doder (04:30):
It does, Sandi. It definitely reduces stress. Well, Lindsay, would you briefly introduce yourself and share a couple of pivotal moments that really made you who you are today?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (04:43):
Yeah, I’m happy to, and thanks for sharing the story about your mom and I hope rehab is going smoothly. It sounds like she’s in a great place. My story, I founded my company Wellthy, W-E-L-L-T-H-Y in 2014, and we solely focus on family care. So we focus on helping folks who are a lot like you as they’re navigating all different types of care challenges and that could be for loved ones from childcare all the way through senior care. The genesis of the business, which is probably the other pivotal moment, is my role that I played in taking care of my mom. So my mom got diagnosed with MS when I was a kid. She had the primary progressive kind of ms. It was a very long journey of declining mobility for her. She was my world. She was my best friend, and so I was very involved in her care and that took a lot of shapes and forms over the years. My twenties, I lived at home and took care of her, but we took care of her more from afar throughout my later twenties and thirties and she passed away about eight years ago. I’m also a mom now. I’ve started a family. I have a beautiful child and three amazing step kiddos. And so no shortage of care journeys and challenges.

Cammie Doder (06:04):
It’s a lot, Lindsay. Oh my gosh, we’re both moms as well, my gosh. And daughters of parents who are aging. It’s incredible. And what a journey,

Sandi Bragar (06:15):
Lindsay, what was the financial impact of your mom’s illness when you were young and caring for her? How involved with the money aspects of that were you?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (06:26):
Yeah, my eyeopening realization over the years in caring for my mom was just how much wasn’t covered by insurance she needed in-home care for a very long time. And the kind of hiring and firing of those in-home care individuals was a role that I took on very early in my twenties. And a big part of the finances for me was just trying to be by her side, especially when I moved away and I was pursuing my career. I was flying home at the drop of a dime if she needed me, if she was in the hospital and when you’re in your early twenties and still trying to find your way, paying for a last minute flight, trying to figure out kind of transportation was thousands of dollars a month on just that piece just to try to be with her in many cases. And so that was a major financial impact piece for me.

(07:21):
Over the later years, I got very involved in the actual financials around paying for the caregivers and thinking through savings and making sure we were doing it on the books and paying taxes and all those pieces and understanding my mom’s stepdad’s financial wellbeing and putting some of my savings towards supporting them in various ways. But the thing that I realized, and it wasn’t until we started wealthy, is we got into the business with building wealthy to help people with their care. What we pretty quickly figured out is it’s as much about the care as it is about the finances. You can’t decouple family care from family finances. Every family that comes to us is saying, what is the right care for my loved one and how do we pay for that care? It’s a constant.

Sandi Bragar (08:12):
Yeah, it creates all kinds of puzzles, doesn’t it?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (08:16):
Can the weird thing is that as a society, and maybe you all do a better job of this, but we don’t talk enough about what is actually covered with healthcare. A lot of people come to us saying, my mom is getting older, she needs more support in the home. I want to hire someone. What does Medicare cover? Medicare does not cover in home care. It doesn’t cover long-term care.

Sandi Bragar (08:42):
Very limited. Yes.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (08:43):
And so that’s the big missing piece. And so when you think about your financial future, a lot of people aren’t planning for what if I need care in the future or what if a loved one needs care in the future? Am I paying for it, which is very expensive or are we going to access Medicaid or other programs to help cover the cost? And so we do a lot of education just even around what is covered and what isn’t.

Sandi Bragar (09:09):
Glad you are highlighting this because when we work with clients and we’re putting together their long-term plan, it’s always based on achieving their goal, what they would like to happen, all the things that they want to achieve. And once we put that baseline plan together, we do then do some what if scenario planning, what if there is an unexpected death? What if there is a health event where there is a need for care? So we do look at that and we are asking clients to think about who else in their lives they might provide financial support for so that we can plan for that. But there is, I’ve noticed sometimes a tension between expecting yes, if something happened to my parent, I think they would need me to help assist them financially as well as emotionally and maybe even physically and in coordinating things. But there seems to be sometimes a reluctance to actually have the conversation with mom and dad to find out, is my assumption correct? What have you planned for yourselves? What are we working with? And I think that can be a very effective conversation to open up and just coming at it from curiosity,

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (10:28):
I think that’s a great point. I mean, we encourage people to have the conversation and it’s not just about having the conversation about finances is incredibly important, what do savings look like? But it’s also what are your wishes in terms of where do you want to age and what does that setting look like? A lot of people do want to remain in their home, and that’s a choice, but remaining in the home if you have progressing care needs or if there is anything related to dementia or Alzheimer’s down the road typically means you need somebody coming into the home to support with activities of daily living. And if you do have somebody coming into the home that’s 40 to $60,000 and after tax spend that’s not covered by insurance and dimensional Alzheimer’s could be a 10 year journey, so let’s call it a million dollars. That’s going to go toward in-home care if you stay in your home and if you do need that level of care, those are the financial, I think, considerations that are just pretty significant to plan for and get your head around.

Cammie Doder (11:40):
I also think having a third party to ask questions, even if the third party is your children or if it’s more your parents or whomever or an advisor, because there’s the emotional side too. What do you want to do today? If you’re in your seventies and you’re thinking, what do you want? If you live to your nineties, your life is very different when you get to your nineties and it can be very lonesome. So there’s the emotional questions that maybe there’s the financial questions, but also how are you going to interact and have company and relationships and community that’s different than when you’re driving around in your seventies? So you envision this life, oh, I want to be in my home. What does that look like? So anyway, I think we’re underscoring the importance of having the conversation, tapping into the resources that are out there that can ask questions that you don’t even know to think or ask yourself. You’re envisioning a life that is from today’s standpoint, but it’s going to be very different in the future.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (12:39):
Listen, the conversation sucks. It’s daunting. I think a lot of people feel like and listen, a lot of times it feels very private. You’re prying into It’s very private

Sandi Bragar (12:49):
Personal. Yeah, it’s very private.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (12:50):
I don’t think we want to diminish the gravity or bigness of these conversations, but my one recommendation is the extent that you can just have little conversations rather than some big sit down type. It never goes that well when you do some sort of big family confrontation type, let’s talk about these big meaty topics that nobody’s comfortable talking about. We find that it goes a little easier when it’s drips and drabs, bringing it up in casual settings and over holiday dinner. And as you’re in the kitchen cleaning up like, mom, we never talked about it. What would you want if you and dad needed? Would you want to stay in the home and would you want people coming into the house to help you? And it’s just a little bit more free flowing potentially than I think the way we all envision sort of having these big conversations.

Cammie Doder (13:41):
It’s great, important advice there.

Sandi Bragar (13:43):
Yeah, you got to build the muscles, you got to build them up. So Lindsay, you sound like someone who has had a very busy life, and I’m curious about your road to entrepreneurship because that’s a risky road and it takes a lot of time and energy. How did you decide that you wanted to start wealthy and how’d you go about doing that?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (14:04):
I had this burning desire to solve this problem. It was deeply personal. I was living the caregiving journey and caring for my mom. It was so hard. It was the hardest thing I was doing. Nobody was talking about their own versions of my story, and yet I kept figuring out that almost everybody is or will go through some sort of caregiving journey. And so I started obsessing about wanting to start wealthy. I got the domain name five years before I started the business. I got wealthy.com in 2009. I didn’t start the company until 2014, but

Sandi Bragar (14:36):
You knew I

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (14:37):
Illuminated on it for a while. I think the interesting thing that we see with women founders and I definitely fell into this, was I felt like I wasn’t ready. I don’t know why I think we do this as women sometimes maybe a little bit more than men, but I kept feeling like I wasn’t ready. I needed just a little bit more experience with this or that or this. So actually it was helpful. I went to work for a serial successful entrepreneur, an incredible leader. This guy Dave Morgan, who’s still a mentor and dear friend, he’s here in New York City. I went to be his head of marketing and sort of was acting a little bit like a chief of staff and got to see all the different kind of areas of the business and how he acted as a CEO and I felt like I could do the job. I saw it up close and I was like, I can do that. I got it, built up my nerve to go quit my job and start wealthy and started the company in 2014 and found my co-founder in 2015. And we started building and going and we raised a little bit of money and we built a little bit and we raised some more money and build a little bit more. Now we’re a scaled company. We’ve raised 85 million. We have hundreds of clients, hundreds of employees. It’s pretty, pretty awesome.

Cammie Doder (15:46):
Lindsay, this is incredible and I’m hoping you’ll describe a little bit more about raising a little bit more money going along your financial path. It’s really hard to do. That’s incredible. Obviously it’s a testament to what you’re building, but describe the steps and your approach to raising money to build this vision.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (16:07):
I think network and resilience is probably the two pieces I went out to people who knew me because in those early days before there’s revenue or customers are a big business, people are investing in the founder. And so you’re better off going to people who kind of already know and trust you or feel like they get it. Yeah, early investors were angel investors who I had some connection to or had some connection to the business and just believed in it. And then the resilience, I mean it’s like you just get a lot of rejection, lots of nos to get to the yeses and that’s okay. I mean, that’s how you refine the story. That’s how you get better at telling the story. It’s how you identify the investors and partners that are the right fit for the business. There are probably a lot of people who said no, who would’ve been wrong investors, and it’s probably the best thing that they didn’t invest. And so it’s network and resilience. And then what ends up happening is then it becomes all about the metrics. And so what’s kind of nice is you go from having to convince people that they should believe in you to delivering the numbers and the

Cammie Doder (17:20):
Results,

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (17:21):
The results. And honestly, that part is easier. You have to be performing and delivering and it has to be an exciting story with growth and all of the financial components, but that is more black and white than the earliest days when you’re just trying to pitch a dream.

Sandi Bragar (17:39):
Lindsay, going along with the money tales, themes of getting more people encouraging more people to talk about money, where are the money conversations coming up in your life today?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (17:50):
Professionally, the money conversations are varied. So we are having daily money conversations with the families we support, so it’s every conversation, every day. Families come to us talking about care and how to cover the cost of care, and we’re trying to gain access to different financial aid programs for families. So it’s just integrated into the business overall. And then just building the business. We talk about money every day, where’s revenue and gross margins and cash and how do we capitalize the business for the next phase? And so we’re always talking about money in terms of the sustainability and long-term plan for the business. Personally, I talk about money with my husband and there are some interesting complexities with having a blended family and thinking about setting up wills and that sort of thing. That’s kind of a current priority. My husband and I are focused on updating our wills.

Sandi Bragar (18:49):
Oh, good for you.

Cammie Doder (18:51):
Hard to do. So important.

Sandi Bragar (18:52):
Those blended family conversations can be tricky. Are you guys navigating those conversations yourselves or do you find that your estate planning attorney or other advisors are helping out there

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (19:04):
Helping out? Well, we are in the market for advisors, so we’ve been spending some time with advisors and then yes, the tax attorney helps. And then I got to tell you, honestly, what we’ve been doing is we’ve been talking to Claude, so a little bit easier than booking an appointment with an expert where it’s 10 o’clock at night, we’re lying in bed. We’re like, let’s ask Claude if this situation, this situation, this situation. You know what I mean? And so that’s been really fun for us as well.

Cammie Doder (19:34):
I like that example because what you’re possibly looking for from Claude, I’m guessing here are the prompts that then allow you and your husband to have a conversation, right? So let’s ask Claude this. It’s almost like you were talking about it’s a softer way of then you having the opportunity to discuss what are your questions, what are your concerns, and I think that’s another great example of how to leverage. We talked about leveraging friends, family, but also technology out there that can help us navigate. I’m curious, you talked about a mentor. I love mentors, I love coaches. I think they’re so important for all of us. Tell us about how Dave mentored you, coached you, encouraged you to step out into starting your own business and navigating a leap. That’s a financial decision. That can be quite scary.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (20:27):
I would love to. He was incredible. Yeah, I went to quit. I went into quit, Dave, and I was sweating.

Sandi Bragar (20:34):
Sweating. How are you feeling when you went into quit? Because you said before that you were ready, but what did that feel like?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (20:41):
I thought that he would talk me out of it because we were in a busy moment. There was a lot going on. I had a lot on my plate and I thought, oh, if I leave, he’s going to have to replace me or it’s going to be a lot and he’s going to probably tuck me into staying or tuck me into staying for a period of time. And he did the opposite. He really pushed me out the door in the best way possible. He said, you have to do this. This is you. This is what you’re meant to do and I’m here to support you and go for it. He didn’t try to talk me out of it at all. In fact, he said he would keep me on the payroll

Cammie Doder (21:18):
For

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (21:19):
A period of time just to get me a little headstart, and he made me promise one thing, which I think was the best possible advice. He made me promise to him that I wouldn’t start anything right away. He said, I’m going to keep you on the payroll. You’re going to stop working here and then you got to go just do research. You got to talk to people, you got to read books, you got to go deep on topics. Don’t start building until you’ve done the real legwork, do the work. And so I took that advice to heart. I took six months where I and I worked full days. It wasn’t like I was hanging out wondering what to do. My schedule was packed. I had meetings with all these people I wanted to meet. I was reading textbooks on case management. I would reach out to the author of the case management book to try to meet with them to understand how their thinking had evolved since writing the textbook. I made it my full-time job to go so deep on the area that I was really focused on, and his point was, you’ll never get that time

Cammie Doder (22:33):
Once you

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (22:33):
Start the business, once you start rolling, you’re focused on finding the colleagues to work with and customers and investors and it’s business building, and he’s right. I mean from the second I started actually working in the business as opposed to on the business, in the business, it was literally like there’s not been a spare moment since. And so those six months truly building the foundation and getting my head around things, I mean, it was just invaluable time and that was the promise I made him that I would go do that.

Cammie Doder (23:08):
What a gift. I can’t imagine you have your star employee and to have that human, wonderful mentor mindset to then encourage you to go pursue your dream versus invite you back to see, no, no, no. Look at this. Look at what we’re building here. I am super inspired as well from that story.

Sandi Bragar (23:28):
Lindsay, as you think about the work that wealthy is doing with your clients and the important conversations you’re having about care, the cost of care, the affordability of the care, are there any insights and tricks and tips that you have for our listeners who might be going through a situation with a loved one and might be facing some of these decisions that you could provide around financial insight there?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (23:54):
I have lots of random tips. I mean, first is for all the caregivers out there, put the oxygen mask on yourself first, as they say, when you fly. So often we see caregivers reach a point of pretty extreme burnout because they’re taking care of everybody else and neglecting their own wellbeing. I know it’s easier said than done when you’re the responsible party and you have kids and parents and trying to juggle a job, but to the best of your ability to try to get the sleep and get the workout and eat nutritiously and do the things you need to do for yourself. Have the conversations, understand your loved one’s wishes. What are their care wishes? What’s their financial situation? Delegate? We see a lot of similar family dynamics where there can be one adult child who takes on more of the work and reaches more of the point of burnout, and we encourage that caregiver to delegate, find the activities that they can invite their siblings or their parent or whoever to take and run with and really involve others.

(25:00):
I’d say the other piece is get out there and find ways to connect with others Going through similar journeys. I think one of the things we see is caregiving is just so lonely and you get so wrapped up in your own situation. It’s kind of hard to know, can I be doing something differently without kind lifting up and whether it’s a support group or working with an organization like Wealthy or finding other folks in your community where you can gain perspective, just have community feel a little less alone and then get your basic legal documents in place, attorney or healthcare proxy, your will and probably a living will are kind of some of the basic ones, and you don’t have to pay a lot of money for those. You can use state-based documents for some of those forms, but it does ease some issues later on if you have some basic documents in place. And then I would say practice what you preach. We see a lot of folks who look like us who are going through challenging situations with their parents, and so pay forward the gift where you’re proactively bringing up the conversations with your kids, talking about your wishes, your finances, and opening those lines of communication for your kids so that they don’t have to struggle to have the same conversations that we’re all having with our parents.

Cammie Doder (26:17):
I

Sandi Bragar (26:17):
Love that. Chip away at them over time.

Cammie Doder (26:19):
Practice what you preach. Beautiful.

Sandi Bragar (26:21):
Build these muscles. Lindsay, what’s your next money conversation going to be and who will it be with?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (26:28):
Probably with my husband and probably about trying to figure out the will stuff. And I have some really interesting and cool financial opportunities that I need to sort out with QSBS, if you all know anything about

Sandi Bragar (26:42):
That. Oh yeah. Qualified small business stock, really exciting. A lot of ways to plan around that, especially in the context of family planning,

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (26:51):
Family financial planning. That’s a big topic for us at the moment. Lindsay,

Cammie Doder (26:56):
It’s so exciting and really congratulations on this success with Wealthy, but also just the work that’s giving back to those of us who are going through it. I really appreciate it. I’m sitting in this seat right now and your advice, I literally took down notes to apply, so thank you. Before we let you go, would you share with our listeners where they could find you digitally?

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (27:20):
Well, my company is wealthy.com. W-E-L-L-T-H y.com. And then I’m not really active on social media if I’m honest, but if people want to get in touch, please reach out via email. I’m lindsay@wealthy.com. Pretty easy to find.

Cammie Doder (27:36):
Thank you so much for joining us on Money Tales.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (27:39):
Thank you so much for having me. Such a good conversation.

Sandi Bragar (27:49):
What an inspiring conversation with Lindsay Juris. Rosner,

Cammie Doder (27:53):
Very timely. For me personally. She just really gave us a lot of good tips and her life experiences were inspiring.

Sandi Bragar (28:04):
That happens with many entrepreneurs, that they have a life experience, they see a need,

Cammie Doder (28:11):
A need, and

Sandi Bragar (28:12):
They create a business to help meet that need. And when it comes to caregiving, there is a huge need. Everything from childcare all the way up, as she said, through adult care. That’s something that we see with our clients all the time. Finding the right caregiver for the right moment is important, and having sound planning around that to make sure the necessary legal documents are in place to make sure that there is a funding source, whether it’s savings or investment and or insurance.

Cammie Doder (28:46):
And Sandi, I’m really happy you asked her about her top recommendations, and it’s something that when it came out, it might seem like, of course, of course, put on your oxygen mask, delegate your material, get your documents in order. But it is, what is this saying? It’s so simple, but it’s not easy or it’s easy and not simple. It because it’s so important and I’m living it right now, watching my family, one of our family members really doing too much, and we’ve got to figure out a way to help him out. In particular, it really resonated with me.

Sandi Bragar (29:24):
Good luck to you and your family. Thank

Cammie Doder (29:26):
You,

Sandi Bragar (29:26):
Sandi. As you guys continue to navigate the situation with your mom, and I’m sending her my best love and well wishes for a strong recovery.

Cammie Doder (29:34):
Thank you, Sandi.

Sandi Bragar (29:36):
And thank you again to Lindsay for joining us on Money Tales.

Cammie Doder (29:40):
Absolutely. And if you enjoyed this episode and you think this would benefit someone, please share it with them. And if you could rate money tales and help us spread the word.

Sandi Bragar (29:51):
See you next time.

Cammie Doder (29:57):
Thanks for listening to the Money Tales podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, share it with someone you think would benefit from listening and leave us a review on your favorite podcasting platform. Your ratings and reviews help more people find our podcast. If you’re inspired to gain clarity and peace of mind about financial matters, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at aspirant. Go to Aspiriant.com/start a dialogue. Or you can email Sandi and me at podcasts@aspirant.com. See you next time.