Make It Last with Victor Medina - Legal & Financial Retirement Planning

Just want the episode title says…these are the top 25 tips from the first 25 shows. It’s like concentrated Make It Last…just bring your notebook, because Victor flies through all 25 tips.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click below to read the full transcript…

Announcer:  Welcome to “Make It Last.” Helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure with your host Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney, and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Make It Last. I am your host Victor Medina. Let me tell you, I’ve got to get right into the show today. This is going to be a good one.

If you haven’t already gotten out a note pad and a pencil, I’m going to vamp for a few seconds and let you go and do that because on this week’s show I am going to talk to you about the top 25 tips from the first 25 shows. We are going to go down rocket style. We’re going to nail through this.

I’m going to give you eight different tips for each segment, segment one, two, and three. We are going to go right into the substance of it. I’m going to encourage you to get a note pad. These are going to be the title of the show and what we talked about. I’m going to give you the top tip from that show. Then we’re going to be able to condense it.

Those of you that didn’t listen to the first 25 shows, [laughs] you’re going to get a chance to catch up and get a crash course on it.

Let’s go through this. Let’s jump right in. We’re going to try to get through as many of these as possible. I’m hoping to get through all 25. If I’ve done this correctly, we’ll give them all equal time. If not, I’ll be rushing through the last ones, so you’ll be able to gauge how well we’re doing on this.

The first show actually, broadcast right before a tax time. It was, I think, April 15th is when it broadcast, or April 16th or something like that. Given all the Mondays, we had extra time to do some taxes.

I was giving you last minute tax tips on that first show. The number one tip, or actually the first tip is keep your shoebox.

If you remember from that show, I talked a little bit about a grandfather who had put together all of the receipts in a shoebox. It turns out that when he got audited, he showed up to the auditors with the shoebox and gave all of the evidence and all of the paperwork and ended up getting more money back from the IRS than he had claimed. [laughs]

Keep your shoebox together. It just might save you.

On the second show, we talked in deep detail about the Department of Labor fiduciary rule. Remember, that’s the rule that requires somebody who deals with your retirement assets to be working in your best interest.

Before this rule, nobody had to do that. They could do whatever they wanted and just give you something that’s suitable. They have to give you something suitable. They didn’t have to look out for your best interest. Often, they get paid their own pockets at your expense.

One of the tips that I shared in that show was to request a fiduciary pledge from your financial advisor. When you meet with this individual, ask them to sign a fiduciary pledge. That’s a statement that you can find online. You can download from the Internet. Basically,

This week on Make It Last, I cover how to protect your assets against nursing home and Medicaid spend-down. Most of you know that we help families every week to maintain flexibility and choice in their long-term care, and this episode will give you a peek under the hood of how that happens.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click below to read the full transcript…

Announcer:  Welcome to “Make It Last,” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure, with your host Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney, and certified financial planner.

Victor Medina:  Hey, everybody, welcome back to Make It Last. I don’t know, what do you think about that new music? I’m enjoying it more and more. I got to tell you it’s a lot of fun to listen to, especially as I think about all my family in Puerto Rico that are struggling with the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria.

They are struggling to get back. I don’t want to start the show on a downer, but I do like to honor my culture and heritage, and I love listening to those Latin beats. I’m hoping that things turn around for them as soon as possible.

I am your host Victor Medina. This is Make it Last. We’re helping to keep your legal ducks in a row and your financial nest egg secure.

I’m excited, celebrating a little bit of a milestone here. This is the 26th show, which means that we have run the end of our first contract with WCTC and enjoying the opportunity to come back for another half year. Want to celebrate a little bit that the show will continue.

Those of you that have enjoyed listening to it and given your high praise for this show [laughs] to the radio station and your listenership on iTunes, I want to thank you very much for all of the nice things that you’ve said. We really enjoyed doing it.

I enjoy the opportunity to come and join you here for about half an hour, share a little bit about what I know, and hopefully make your day a little brighter, a little bit more informed, as we think about how to get through retirement planning and do it from a legal sense, do it from a financial sense, make sure everything is well positioned for you going forward.

I’m excited for this show. First, I want to take the first segment and talk a little bit about some stuff that’s going on personally that maybe you can help me with, educate you a little bit on some of that, and then we’re going to go to the main topic for today’s show, which is, “How we can use trusts to help protect assets from the devastating costs of long‑term care?”

In the past, I have talked a little bit about elder law generally and what long‑term care costs are, but didn’t focus a lot on the strategies. We’re going to take this opportunity as one of the hallmarks of how to make it last, which is how to protect your assets.

We want to make sure that we are really thinking about how to do that in a long‑term care setting as well, and make sure that the specific strategies, the things that we use every day, are things that we’re sharing with you and giving you the opportunity to go and get done on your own, whether with our law firm or someone else.

That’s going to occupy the next two segments. When we come back from the break, we’ll start on that, but I want to share a little bit personally some of the…I don’t know ...

One of the ways you can “make it last” is to make sure that the inheritance you leave behind is protected from threats like divorce or creditors. You also want to make sure that the inheritance follows the bloodline and goes to your grandkids and not that “no-good son-in-law”. Listen to this week’s show as we discuss how to put those protections in place.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click the link below to read the full transcript…

Announcer:  Welcome to “Make It Last.” Helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest eggs secure with your host, Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Everybody welcome back to Make It Last. I’m your host, Victor Medina. I’m so happy you’ve joined us here this Saturday morning if you’re listening live or if you’ve subscribed on our podcast, wherever you are, whenever you’re listening to this show.

I am excited for this show because we’re going to be talking about one of my favorite subject, which is, how can you protect an inheritance when you pass away? Turns out that, most of the time, people come and see me in my day job as an estate planning attorney.

It’s largely to make sure that the inheritance that they leave behind is protected from creditors, from divorce, from other threats like that. We’re going to talk about that in the next couple of segments, in segment two and three.

Before we get there, there actually is some new news that I want to share with you about a new law that has passed. It is one of those modern things that we’ve seen come across in the most archaic area of law [laughs] for different kinds of estate planning. You’ve heard me rant and rave in prior shows about why you’re supposed to have your power of attorney.

Remember, that’s the document that helps you grant somebody the ability to manage your assets. If you become incapacitated, if you can’t manage your stuff, the power of attorney helps that person do that. It’s really important to have one, that’s the first thing. Have a good one. Have one that’s recently signed.

So many people that I encounter come in having signed power of attorney, but it’s from decades ago. It’s not even close to this century. Normally, I ask people, “When’s the last time you’ve updated your estate plan?” If it’s been more than 10 years, that’s still in the 21st century, but it’s been a long time to do that.

These powers of attorney, they’re essential documents because we don’t know when or if we’re going to become incapacitated. We don’t know just what the landscape’s going to be like then. What will we own? What will we need to access? The power of attorney not only should be signed, but it should be regularly updated.

The new law that came in to play is perfect for this whole discussion of where we are today, which is that almost everybody that I meet, from kids to their grandparents, has some form of a social medium account. I have a Facebook account. I have a Twitter account. My son, who’s 13, has three other things that I’ve never heard of.

That’s how he talks to his friends because he’s really not going to talk to…He’s not going to be on the same platform as ...

Typically this show covers retirement planning, which means the key demographic doesn’t include people with minor children. However, planning for these families is super important and many of our retiree and pre-retiree listeners have young grandchildren. So, this show is for them, and their (grand)kids.

Also, a discussion on “retirement income failure”, and what it really means.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click the below to read the full transcript…

Announcer:  Welcome to “Make It Last,” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure, with your host Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney, and certified financial planner.

Victor Medina:  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Make It Last. I’m Victor Medina. I am an estate planning and elder law attorney, and a certified financial planner. Now, I am a retirement income certified professional. Dangerous. I’m dangerous, [laughs] watch out.

Welcome back to the show. I am so happy that you joined us. It is an unusual show for me today in large part because I’ve got my son downstairs as I’m recording this. It is the beginning of his preschool and they don’t have early drop off yet.

It means that I’ve got him downstairs, watching Netflix, and who knows what’s going to happen. He could come bursting in here at any moment and drop his dulcet tones on our show, in any event.

I’m excited also because our contract has been renewed with the radio show. If you are listening on WCTC 1450 AM, I will be on here for at least another half a year. Contract negotiations were pretty tough.

I said, “I’d like to continue.” They said, “We’d like you to continue.” That was the end of the contract negotiations. [laughs] Guess, it wasn’t that difficult after all. I am excited. I’m having a lot of fun doing the radio show and I hope you’re having a lot of fun listening to it.

I do my very best here to really share the knowledge that I’ve gained over years of experience as I’ve gone ahead and worked with clients, helped them put their plans in place, and get in a better spot than where I found them. That’s happened a few thousand times by now.

Part of what I’m trying to do with this show is really share all of that knowledge with you because I just literally can’t see everyone. Even if you were really interested in working with us, there’s a limited number of people that I can see on an annual basis, or in fact over the course of my entire career.

It does make good sense to spread this information around and let people know how they can just improve their financial and legal planning lives. This has been a lot of fun and will continue to be a lot of fun.

If you like what you’re hearing, we do appreciate you being a listener. You can go ahead and subscribe to the podcast by going to iTunes and searching for Make It Last. You’ll see a little blue box that says, “Make It Last with Victor Medina.” Subscribe on there.

In fact, if you could leave a positive review, that would be great too because Apple does tend to rank these shows based on the number of people who like other shows. It could be an interesting way of getting new listeners if they search for the retirement planning stuff, in any event.

As you enter retirement, your strategy for generating retirement income should be deliberate and should match your individual circumstances. In this episode, I discuss three different approaches to retirement income planning, and share which one(s) I recommend.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click below to read the full transcript…

Bert:  Welcome to “Make It Last,” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure, with your host, Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney, and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Everybody, welcome back to Make It Last. I’m your host Victor Medina. Thank you for joining us. I am excited about this show. It’s Make It Last, helping you keep your legal ducks in a row, your financial nest egg secure.

It is a wonderful Saturday morning. If you’re listening here live on the radio and if you are a podcast subscriber, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Don’t forget to leave a great review on iTunes if you like the show.

Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but we have new music. I’m excited about the new [laughs] music. It’s great, we’re going to spice it up a little bit.

I’ve got a good show for you today because one of the biggest questions that people have as they approach retirement is how are they going to generate income from their savings, or how are they going to make it through retirement based on what they have ‑‑ Social security, pensions. We get income from different sources.

How do we generate income from our assets, the things that we’ve saved? I’m going to share with you some more academic research on here. So much of the financial news that is out there is geared towards selling you a particular product. You that have been listening to us long enough understand that we are not about that.

We’re not about any particular product in order to help you get through retirement. I’m going to go with the research that suggests that there are some theories about how to get retirement income going and what they are. From that, I’ll give you what we believe, when we help clients, so that you understand that there is an opinion that we hold out of those three.

It’s going to be really, a really interesting show. I think it’s the first time many of you are going to get an opportunity to hear about this kind of stuff. Before we get going here, a few quick notes on news of the day. The first is just some terrible, terrible news coming from the multiple hurricanes that have been hitting between Harvey and Irma.

Just devastating results on that and, of course, our hearts go out to those folks. I have family in Puerto Rico affected by that. In fact, I had a little personal emergency because I had my mom in Puerto Rico as the hurricane was bearing down on there. She was visiting some of our family and really worked hard to get out there.

I have to give a shout out to my brother’s wife, or fiancÈ’s, mother, so his mother‑in‑law, who was able to secure a flight for her for her to get out of Puerto Rico and into Atlanta, from Atlanta into White Plains, and get out of the harm’s way of the storm.

Big thanks to the family members that helped out with that, but lots of devastation from there and lots of clean up coming up. Hopefully everyone will be, and continue to be, OK.

Most people regard visiting with their estate planning attorney like a trip to the dentist. Something that’s necessary, not enjoyable, and which should be kept to the bare minimum.

The truth is that your estate plan is not a “set-it and forget-it” activity. Things change (like your people/money, and the laws, and your needs), and your estate plan should change with it. In this episode, I’m going to go over how to identify whether you should review and/or update your estate plan and the most cost-effective way of doing it.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click below to read the full transcript…

Bert:  Welcome to “Make It Last.” Helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure with your host, Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Make It Last. It is the show that helps you keep your legal ducks rowing and your financial nest egg secure. I’m your host, Victor Medina.

I want to thank you for joining us this Saturday morning as we talk about things dealing with your retirement ‑‑ your planning, legal planning, financial planning, all that good and fun stuff. I’m happy you joining us here today. We’ve got an exciting show for you. I think it’s exciting anyway because I’m going to be talking about how and when you should update your Estate planning documents.

Too many people go through life thinking that their Estate plan is something that they should put in place once and never touch ever, ever again. That’s not the case, so we’re going to take up segments two and three of today’s show and let you know when and how you should be reviewing your Estate planning documents to make sure that they work when you need them.

Before we get to that, I have been on a search. As many of you fine listeners have been following along, I’ve been on a search for a new car. Part of that is because I have leased my car because it lets me write it off through the company, but I lease my car and my lease is up. It’s now time to look at a new car.

I’ve got different options. I can purchase a car and take a deduction off of that, a Section 179 deduction, or I can lease again. As I’ve been having discussions with my parents about it, I realized that they really didn’t understand how auto leasing works.

I thought, “Well, if they don’t understand how auto leasing works, maybe you don’t understand how auto leasing works, and maybe we ought to talk about how auto leasing works.” It sounds like it’s a big mystery because the pitch is always about a monthly payment.

They’re going to come in and they’re going to pitch you on some monthly payment. You never quite understand how to get to the number that they’re getting at. You don’t know if they’re playing funny games with the calculations.

I know that leasing, [laughs] for some shoppers, can seem like it’s as dark and mysterious as the deepest reaches of outer space, full of confusing language, weird fees, and payments, but you can figure this out without an advanced degree in mathematics, right? Let’s talk a little bit about what leasing is and how it differs from purchasing.

You know that when you lease a car you don’t own it. When you lease a car,

Most people rely on their IRAs to fund some or all of their retirement. However, the research shows that the vast majority of individuals will die leaving a great percentage of their IRA behind.

This week, Victor discusses what happens to that IRA and how to put the best planning in place to avoid the trouble and taxes that can come when leaving an IRA from one generation to the next.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click below to read the full transcript…

Bert:  Welcome to “Make It Last,” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure, with your host, Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Make It Last. I’m your host, Victor Medina. I’m so happy that you’re joining us today on our program. We have some great stuff to talk to you about.

Everybody has IRAs and 401(k)s these days instead of pensions, when somebody worked for a company for a long time and then they would give you a pension when you retire. Well, those days are over. More and more folks are relying on the savings that they have in an IRA or a 401(k).

Now, some people have done a very good job of saving money in there, such that there’s probably going to be stuff left over when they die. What happens to that account and how you can transfer it to minimize the tax and trouble? That’s going to be the focus of today’s show. We’re going to cover that in segments two and three.

In segment number one, though, I did want to talk to you a little bit about something that I’m doing in my professional career in terms of getting another designation and why I’ve been surprised by that process.

It’s interesting, if you look at the business card of any financial advisor, they love to tack on initials at the end of whoever they are. They’ll be CFE, F241, whatever it is. They’ve got a long list [laughs] of initials.

In my experience clients are less impressed with that than the advisor is on it. The advisor’s looking for some way to legitimize what they’re doing, and they go out and they get these credentials. There are a white spectrum of how valuable that credential can be. I give you a comparison.

Let’s say I have two credentials right now that I can put on my card. I could put JD and I can put CFP. JD is for my law degree, so if I wanted to sound really impressive about what it is that I was doing I would say, “Victor J Medina, financial advisor” ‑‑ because that’s on the financial company ‑‑ but JD to let you know I went to law school.

I don’t know what that says other then I went to law school and I graduated. It doesn’t say that I’m a practicing lawyer. Many financial advisors who have JDs are not. I happen to be a practicing lawyer, but you’d only know that if you knew about my law office or if you’ve got to know me through the law site for the estate planning and you came talk to us about financial.

They’ve got a law degree. It says, “I got a law degree.” It doesn’t say anything about my ability to practice in the area. There’s nothing about a law degree that says that you’re going to be a good financial advisor. I happen to have spent 15 years or so in the practice of law and most of it in the area of estate planning an...

Over and over, investors make three mistakes that absolutely kill their ability to see returns in their investments. These three mistakes are common, and avoidable. This week, on Make It Last, Victor discusses what those mistakes are and how to make sure you don’t make them.

Also, Victor discusses the right legal planning recommended for college students…who are all likely returning to school this week.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click below to read the full transcript…

Announcer:  Welcome to “Make It Last,” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure, with your host Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Hi, everybody. It’s Victor Medina. Welcome back to Make It Last. I’m happy you’ve joined this today on the show. I’m pretty excited for today’s show. I’m going to talk to you today about the three most common investing mistakes that we’ve seen.

The reason why I got this show together is I just spent the last workday with another set of investment advisers, folks that do what I do. We were getting together a think tank. There was somebody we brought in from Chicago to talk to us about certain concepts.

The long story short is one of the investment advisors, [laughs] somebody who has experience in the business spoke up and vocalized one of these investment mistakes.

To me, it was crazy because I thought like, “There’s no way. There’s no way.” I can be in a meeting with other investment advisers who’s supposed to know better and they’re taking about this. It just gave rise to how common this issue is.

I’m excited to bring that to you a little bit later in the show. Before we get there, it is the end of August at least by the recording of this show, and that means that it’s time for people to start going back to college.

Whether you’re a grandparent of somebody that is in college or you’re the parent of somebody that’s in college, this is a great opportunity to talk about a little bit of the estate planning for them.

When I do seminars and I’m out doing workshops for people, a very common question is, “When should I start doing estate planning? When should I think about coming in to see you?” People laugh when I say, “When you turn 18, or in the alternative when you start to want to act like an adult.”

Sometimes, they brush that off because it means that until they own a home or they got kids or they got married. They are not really thinking about adulthood in those terms. I’m pretty serious when I talk about the right time to come in and do estate planning is when you turn 18.

One of the ways where this gets highlighted is through college and college planning. One of the things we talk to people about is we talk about putting documents in place when you have an 18‑year‑old or older on their way to college.

Now, here’s the way the situation plays out. Your darling cherub is off at school and I’m sure is doing nothing but studying in the library 24/7. I’m sure they’re not doing anything wrong but their friend likes to go out and party.

Their friend goes out on Friday and Saturday night and has fun, has a lot of fun, sometimes too much fun, and ends up needing medical attention.

Death and Taxes – that’s what they say are life’s only certainty. But..what if they are one in the same. In NJ and PA, you have to worry and plan for both death and taxes, and in this show, I’ll help you understand the distinction between them.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click below to read the full transcript…

Bert:  Welcome to “Make It Last,” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure, with your host Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Everyone, welcome back to Make It Last. I’m your host Victor Medina. Thank you for joining me. This is episode 19. This was broadcast originally on August 19th, 2017.

I have to let you know something, it is my wedding anniversary this date. My wife and I have been married 16 years, which means one important thing, which is, [laughs] I’m not live in studio today. This is all prerecorded.

I’m actually on vocation with my family. I’ve decided to spend the wedding anniversary with my wife, with my wife and our three kids. We’re on a little road trip. We recorded this episode ahead of time but it’s still a good one.

I’m going to talk to you a little bit about the inheritance and estate taxes that are in New Jersey. If you get lucky, I’ll even talk to you a little bit about the taxes in other states such as Pennsylvania, Florida and places like that, where you are going to be when you die, what the trade‑offs are, what the taxes are.

It’s going to be a delightful show. Can’t wait for you to join us.

Before we get started on that though, I got to tell you, I’m worked up. I’m worked up for two reasons. The first reason is that there’s a new report that came out that was conducted by some university professors, really trying to understand what the sophistication of investors are and what their belief system is.

For how advisers are acting and whether or not their acting their best interests? At the same time, there’s another report that was done, that was talking about the fights that are going on with Department of Labor Fiduciary rule.

If you’ve been listening every week, this is old hat. I’ve been hitting on this as often as the news appears for me to be doing that because it’s such an important topic, but now there’s even more. There’s even more. Let me tell you how these two things work together.

The report in “The Wall Street Journal,” I don’t think it’s The Wall Street Journal. Let me just check real quick, yeah. No. It was “The Intercept.”

It came out in July 16th, about a month ago. Anyway, it came out and they basically talked about how the Trump administration and some other senators are fighting against this Department of Labor rule.

In fact, there are new laws being proposed to roll back this fiduciary rule and more importantly, as I’ve told you before, the fiduciary rule doesn’t really even cover all of the situations that we want.

Now, if this is your first time listening, look, I can’t stress the importance of being a fiduciary enough. You need somebody that’s in your corner that is ethically and legally obligated to be putting your best interests first.

The Department of Labor put out this new rule that basical...

Every week, I meet a family that’s struggling with a loved one who has dementia. It can be overwhelming, to say the least. On this week’s show, I discuss how to approach dealing with a loved one that has dementia, including getting their legal, financial, and health planning in order.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and Certified Financial Planner™. Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Private Client Capital Group.

Click below to read the full transcript…

Bert:  Welcome to “Make It Last,” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure with your host, Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Hey, everybody, welcome back to Make It Last. I’m your host, Victor Medina. I am so happy to join you. On this episode I’m going to be talking about something really important. In fact, it’s the core of how I got started as a planner, focusing on estate planning and elder law.

We’re going to talk a little bit today about the difference between what’s estate planning, what’s elder law, why elder law is important, and, moreover, as we see the incidents of Alzheimer’s and dementia rise and rise, why it’s so important to pre‑plan for your long‑term care, both on the legal and the financial side.

We’re going to be covering that later in the show. I think it’s going to answer a lot of questions. In fact, if you’re listening to this show, one of the things you can do is…Almost everybody that I know knows somebody that is dealing with the consequences of dementia or Alzheimer’s. They’ve got that as an issue in their life, or friends of theirs, somebody like that.

If you’re listening to this, one of the best things you might be able to do today is go ahead and send a copy of this or point people out to this episode because this is going to help clarify a lot of questions for them, help them answer questions about how to navigate this. It might be one of the more important shows that we do, so I’m really excited to tackle that today.

Before I get started, I wanted to talk a little bit about my little journey that I have been going [laughs] on, personally, in terms of my search for new car. I leased a car for the last three years now. Just to explain the whole leasing versus purchasing thing.

As a financial planner, I’m also often asked, “Which is the right thing to do?” For me, leasing makes a lot of sense. Now, the reason for that is that I’m able to largely cover the cost of the lease as an operating expense of the company. I’m able to use that as a write‑off in a way that I can’t do if I purchased a vehicle.

If I just purchased a vehicle, I’d have to depreciate it, and it’s not as beneficial. We go ahead and we lease. The truth of the matter is that I don’t use a lot of miles whatsoever. I’m able to get by on about 10,000 miles a year and that’s that I take trips to the airport. I really don’t even watch the mileage.

I go driving all over the state in the car for one or more of my children’s athlete activities. It seems like the most miles [laughs] that I put on the car are going to swim meets and going to soccer tournaments. Otherwise, driving to the office and back. For what I do, I don’t travel that much. Anyway, I lease the car, low mileage and able to get by with it.

I know that for the car that I have now,