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• Ed, I hope so too, for your sake. It has been awful. We are hoping the worst is over. She will lose money on her house, since she only bought it 2 years ago, before we knew things were as bad as they were. Luckily Spouse and brother were able to intervene before she lost all her money like her sister did. C

  Post: Guardianship

  Link to comment from March 18, 2026

• Mark, thank you for your kind words. C

  Post: Guardianship

  Link to comment from March 18, 2026

• I would like to update everyone on what we went through, maybe it will help someone: Spouse and their brother reluctantly filed for guardianship for mother in December, about the time she moved into assisted living. She had told Spouse she wanted to sell her home, but then told another family member she did not want to sell. In her state, her wishes trump POA. She needed to sell the home to pay for care. She was also having many problems with paying bills and someone needed to take over. They went through an elder care lawyer and had to list her assets. Temporary emergency guardianship took a couple of weeks to grant. When they sold her home and car it had to have approval from the court. Final guardianship was granted last week. They had 2 doctors notes saying she needed to be in assisted living and was unable to do her finances anymore. We thought Spouse was going to have to post a bond since we are out of her state, but it was waived. The cost of the elder care lawyer was about $4k and mother will have to pay it. Spouse and brother will have to make a report to the court every 2 years. It has been a time. Chris

  Post: Guardianship

  Link to comment from March 18, 2026

• Thank you for bringing this up, Bogdan. Spouse’s father just passed and they had a trust that is supposed to become an irrevocable trust after his death. Spouse is supposed to be a trustee. We haven’t gotten any paperwork yet to see what being a trustee will entail. We were also wondering why they would do this for Medicaid planning purposes when they have plenty of income and wouldn’t need a Medicaid nursing home? And is it moral? Chris

  Post: Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts (MAPTs)

  Link to comment from March 18, 2026

• Dick, I agree with what you wrote. It is important that our kids have some kind of skill to make a living. It doesn’t have to be college. I feel it is our responsibility as parents to make sure they can support themselves as adults. We are doing them no favors if 18 is the cut off for support, unless they were in some kind of good vocational program in high school. In our kids’ case, we also helped them as the programs they were in needed more than a BS. We also didn’t understand parents who cut the kids off after 4 years if their program was a good one and beneficial. Daughter had MAcc program and Son got into a PhD program for food science. Both good programs and it was worth helping them with what their stipends didn’t cover. Chris

  Post: Is there any point when a child needs financial help that you feel comfortable saying “not my problem?” 

  Link to comment from March 14, 2026

• I agree with this. You have a generous heart, Mark. Chris

  Post: Opinions Wanted: Please Reply Freely (I’m used to being called an idiot)

  Link to comment from March 10, 2026

• Thank you for answering, Dan. I thought this was the case but wasn’t totally sure. I asked b/c MIL will be in this situation. But at least they got the house sold. Chris

  Post: Home Tax Tips

  Link to comment from March 9, 2026

• Bogdan, what if you have a loss on your home when you sell it? You only talked about gains. Chris

  Post: Home Tax Tips

  Link to comment from March 7, 2026

• I just read DavidS’s helpful article about DAF. We don’t have one of those, but after reading his article, I am going to research to see if it might be something we would want to do. We are not old enough to take QCD. So, we just write checks. Chris

  Post: What is the best way to donate to charity in 2026?

  Link to comment from March 4, 2026

• Dick, I always wondered what the catch was for the 9.95 policies. I appreciate your explanation and am sure you helped people with it. We never know who is reading HD that might need to hear what you said. We did what most have done here about the term insurance until our kids were gone/house paid off. I have read before about older people who have a lot of assets keeping their life insurance so that it can pay the taxes on the estate. That makes sense to me. We don’t have enough assets to do this so we will self insure for burial. Chris

  Post: The $9.95 scam…

  Link to comment from March 4, 2026