In this episode of ThimbleberryU, we dive into the growing challenge facing healthcare professionals—the balancing act of caring for aging parents while still preparing for their own retirement. We’re talking directly to those in the “sandwich generation,” especially nurses, physicians, and hospital leaders who are used to caregiving professionally and now find themselves extending that care to family.
We explore how this dual role adds emotional and financial weight. Many healthcare professionals become the “go-to” child in the family, shouldering time off work, travel, coordination, and often direct financial support. But as Amy reminds us, we can’t pour from an empty cup. Our ability to help others long-term depends on preserving our own financial health first.
We talk through the major financial decisions that come up—care settings for aging parents, sibling coordination, insurance gaps, and legal documents. There’s often an assumption that Medicare will cover long-term care, but it doesn’t, which leads to unexpected financial strain. Amy also highlights the importance of separating finances, documenting contributions, and maintaining clear records to protect relationships and ensure fairness.
A major theme we come back to is boundaries. Just like in an emergency on an airplane, we must put on our own oxygen mask first. For financial health, that means building a plan for ourselves before helping our parents. That clarity allows us to make better decisions, communicate expectations with siblings, and avoid jeopardizing our own retirement.
We also recognize the strengths healthcare professionals already bring—assessment, planning, communication, and monitoring. These are the same skills needed to manage a family’s financial and care responsibilities. Amy urges listeners to apply their professional mindset to this personal challenge.
Finally, we lay out five concrete next steps: gain financial clarity for both generations, start those tough conversations early, prioritize your own retirement, coordinate insurance and estate planning, and build a team of advisors, including financial planners and elder law attorneys. Sustainable care means both generations are supported—and planning ahead is the only way to get there.
00:00 - Intro
00:14 - The Sandwich Generation in Healthcare
00:49 - Emotional and Financial Weight of Caregiving
02:24 - Financial Decisions When Parents Need Support
04:59 - Sibling Dynamics and Hidden Costs
05:48 - Helping Without Sacrificing Your Retirement
08:33 - Applying Professional Skills to Family Finances
10:42 - Five Concrete Next Steps
12:21 - Sustainable Care Across Generations
12:42 - How to Contact Thimbleberry Financial
ThimbleberryU 148 - Caring for Aging Parents While Planning Your Own Retirement
Speakers: Jon Gay & Amy Walls
[Music Playing]
Jon Gay (00:07):
Welcome back to ThimbleberryU, I'm Jon Jag Gay. Amy Walls from Thimbleberry Financial joins me as always. Hello, Amy.
Amy Walls (00:13):
Hi Jag.
Jon Gay (00:14):
Today, we're talking about a situation that so many healthcare professionals find themselves in, taking care of aging parents while still trying to prepare for their own retirement, the sandwich generation.
We see this especially with people in caregiving roles, nurses, physicians, hospital leaders. They're used to helping others, but now, they find that responsibility extending into their own families. Amy's here to help us think through how to balance it all, both emotionally and financially.
Amy Walls (00:38):
Yeah, Jag, this is one of the hardest balancing acts out there, especially for people who are caregivers by nature and by profession. It's just so weighty.
Jon Gay (00:49):
It is, and this is hard for so many people, but what makes this stage so financially challenging for healthcare professionals specifically?
Amy Walls (00:55):
I think we can agree that healthcare professionals naturally are pretty responsible people, to have gotten through medical school and to the positions they're in. That also correlates to often being the go-to child or sibling in the family. The one family will call first when a health or financial issue comes up.
Being in that role brings emotional weight and practical costs. If you're in that role and family needs help and you've been raised to feel and fill maybe that role, you've got time off, travel, coordination, or even direct financial help. So, there's a lot that goes into that.
Many of the healthcare professionals that we know that experience this are still working long shifts or managing hospital teams. They don't have extra bandwidth to land both their parents and their own financial futures. They just don't have the time or energy.
The other thing about this is they also tend to delay their own retirement planning out of guilt to focus on immediate family needs. So, it's almost like it's a boundary question.
If we think about the airplane analogy, do I put my own air mask on me first, or do I help my kids get it on? It's better to take care of yourselves before you take care of them, but that's a really hard thing to say for a natural caregiver.
So, Jag, I think the point is all of these things are draining, and you can't pour from an empty cup. Caring for others long-term in any of these ways requires protecting your own financial health too.
Jon Gay (02:24):
What are the biggest financial decisions people face when parents start needing more support?
Amy Walls (02:30):
Good question. So, care setting choices, I'm going to say is a big one. Do they need home care versus assisted living versus skilled nursing? Each of these options has drastically and dramatically different costs and levels of coverage.
Coordination with siblings. Who pays for what? Who manages the logistics? How do you keep the relationship with parents healthy? But how do you keep the relationship with the siblings healthy through all of this also?
And that can be extra hard to navigate depending on all the family dynamics. It can be in healthcare – we see this with clients sometimes. Well, we're in a better financial position, so the whole family, meaning all the siblings think when mom runs out of money, or mom did run out of money, that we are just the ones that need to step in and pay that, and no one else is helping.
And in fact, one of the siblings actually financially needs help and has been borrowing from mom. So, now, if we give money to mom, she's passing our money on to the sibling. How do you navigate that dynamic? That's hard.
Health insurance gaps: Medicare covers some costs; it doesn't cover other costs. Many assume it will cover long-term care costs. It does not. So, understanding that, and there's learning involved in that, how do you navigate that?
And then cashflow. How do you balance your own mortgage, your own college savings for your kids, your retirement contributions while your parents' needs are increasing, both in terms of time. Are you getting behind on bills just because you don't have the weekends to sit down and take care of your normal like household checklists, and so you're missing things that way, or is it because you're needing to give so much money there or feeling you need to give so much money there that you don't leave yourself enough for surprises?
I think there's a couple others too- legal documents. We've run into this recently, how do you get their powers of attorney healthcare proxies, advanced directives, all in order if they aren't, or figuring out what they are, especially if parents are still in a place where they want to be very private.
And if we think generationally, the generation that's helping right now tends to be a little bit more open with these things, but their parents tend to still be very private. So, at what point will things be shared? Will it be an open door, et cetera?
Jon Gay (04:59):
At the risk of sharing something too personal, because my parents don't listen to this podcast – I've gotten the line from my dad of, “Stop trying to run our life.” Okay, alright, I get it.
Amy Walls (05:09):
Yeah, it's hard for sure. We hear a lot of that. We recently just had a very big example like that happen to a client that hadn't been ready to share. And just two weeks before a major health issue finally said, “It's time.” And it was challenging for everybody.
Jon Gay (05:27):
I bet.
Amy Walls (05:28):
So, Jag, the thing for our listeners to take away is decisions made under stress usually aren't the best decisions. So, being preventative, just like in medicine, is really important here. Getting as much as you can in those dynamics ironed out before it's an issue is really helpful.
Jon Gay (05:48):
Yeah, decisions made under stress are rarely optimal. How can someone help their parents financially without sabotaging their own retirement?
Amy Walls (05:56):
Obviously, I am a financial planner. My first answer is really start with a plan, not an assumption. For you personally, know what your own retirement target looks like. Not looks like in your mind, but looks like when it's mapped out so that you know what your wiggle room is and can set some realistic expectations around what can happen.
For example, maybe you're looking at different types of care, and you know are going to help fund these, and you've got siblings who aren't thinking they're going to contribute and it's falling on you. You can draw some lines or say, “Here's what we're willing to do, or I'm willing to do these three things to this level, because without that, I won't meet my own retirement goals. So, siblings, this is what can happen for me, how are you going to fill in an addition?” And so, that really ties to setting boundaries. Having that clarity allows you to do that.
This one that has come to mind is big: having separate accounts. And what I mean by that is don't blend family finances between your own accounts, your siblings, and your parents. Keep everything clearly delineated, so that transfers of who's contributing what are there so that you know the accounting makes sense.
Jon Gay (07:21):
Paper trail.
Amy Walls (07:22):
Yes, exactly. That was great simplification (laughs) that I could not come up with in the moment. There's lots of resources to use too. Use help to evaluate long-term care insurance if it's still available, and if it might make sense in this situation.
Perhaps there's veterans benefits or Medicaid planning or local programs available for aging parents. Perhaps it's time to revisit contributions to your own plan. Maybe there's a period where you could decrease your contributions for a time and still be okay.
It doesn't mean that your goals have to be made up by doing exactly what you're doing now indefinitely. So, this is where I call it the puzzle. Putting a financial plan together is a puzzle. What pieces can be swapped out for five years to have something else added back in later.
So, by knowing that, what we're really getting at is that support of others doesn't mean sacrificing your own situation. And good planning will protect both generations rather than really harming both generations.
Jon Gay (08:33):
We talked about the financial piece of it, but many in healthcare are natural advocates. How do they apply that same advocacy mindset to family financial decisions, the more personal ones?
Amy Walls (08:43):
Well, Jag, healthcare professionals are taught, and healthcare professionals who are listening, to assess, plan, communicate, and monitor. They can use that same process for this. So, assessing is gathering the facts: parents’ income, assets, expenses, insurance, health status.
That might be to just get a lay of the land for them. It might also be that they take their parents' situation to a financial planner. Maybe the parents are already incapacitated, but they're stepping in as power of attorney and they're like, “How long will these assets last?”
Guess what? A financial planner can make a plan for those parents also to help the child or power of attorney, whoever it is that is trying to help know how to allocate assets, and keep invested, what not to invest, et cetera. So, that was also the planning part.
Communicate. Bring other parties, the siblings, the partners into the conversation early. The more you get people on board, the better it's going to be. My experience in life is the sooner you start communicating around those things, the more likely they are to get on board.
And then monitor; revisit these things every 6 to 12 months. Did the care cost a lot more than was expected over the last six months? Oh, it did? What does this mean? And how do we adjust now and again, keep communicating about that as you go.
So, really Jag, and for our listeners, if you're experiencing this, it's about bringing the professional calm that you already are so used to doing on a day-to-day basis to your personal chaos. You've got this strength, use it for your family.
Jon Gay (10:34):
Absolutely. What are a few concrete next steps for someone listening who's in this caregiver sandwich generation right now?
Amy Walls (10:42):
I think step one is to get some clarity. Figure out that data, maybe make a one-page snapshot of both your financial situation and your parents so you can just kind of keep track easier. Because the more that ends up on our minds, the easier it is to forget what the reality was just a few months ago.
Step two, have the talk. Obviously, I'm alluding to a lot of conversations here. Have these talks early about healthcare preferences, about finances and about the documents. It can be awkward, but as healthcare professionals, you have awkward conversations very frequently. It's just about having them with the people that you have a very strong relationship with.
Jon Gay (11:21):
It's a little bit of a role reversal. When you have kids, you have to have “The Talk.” And then when your parents get old, you have to have a different kind of, “The Talk.”
Amy Walls (11:28):
Yes, absolutely (chuckles). Step three is: really prioritize your own retirement plan first. And that is not selfish. It's putting on the air mask before you help someone else put theirs on.
Step four is: look at insurance and estate coordination. This is the durable powers of attorney, the updated beneficiaries, the long-term care options – they all go together, and they all have consequences. So, that's important.
And then step five, build a team. As a medical professional, you are used to working in teams, have those same teams, your financial planner, your elder law attorney, possibly a care manager, whatever you need that team to look like based on the situation you're facing.
So, what our goal is here is sustainable care, and that means you, and it means the parents you're helping care for.
Jon Gay (12:21):
My key takeaways here are: information is key and planning so you're not figuring this out under duress. So, if I'm hearing you right, the big theme is to take the same diligence you use at work as a healthcare professional and apply it to your own family's care and finances.
Amy Walls (12:35):
That is absolutely what I’d say.
Jon Gay (12:37):
Amy, if somebody listening wants to come talk to you and your team at Thimbleberry Financial, what are the best ways to find you?
Amy Walls (12:42):
They can reach us on the phone at (503) 610-6510 or online at thimbleberryfinancial.com.
[Music Playing]
Jon Gay (12:50):
Fantastic stuff, Amy. We'll talk again soon.
Amy Walls (12:52):
Sounds great, Jag
Voiceover (12:53):
Securities offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker, dealer, member of FINRA, SIPC. Advisory services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a registered investment advisor.
Cambridge and Thimbleberry Financial are not affiliated. Discussions in this show should not be construed as specific recommendations or investment advice. Always consult with your investment professional before making important investment decisions.
Securities offered through registered representatives of Cambridge Investment Research Inc., a broker, dealer, member FINRA, SIPC. Advisory services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc, a registered investment advisor. Cambridge and Thimbleberry Financial are not affiliated.