Dog food is replenished.

The field trip is paid for, the form is signed, and of course, it’s still sitting on the counter.

Lunches are packed for tomorrow, soccer jerseys are spinning in the washer for this weekend’s tournament, and groceries are being delivered in about an hour (you hope that the shopper didn’t buy Lactaid instead of whole milk again).  

You spend countless hours every day taking care of your family. You know their schedules like the back of your hand, or better than your hand, considering it’s been months since your last manicure. (And honestly, when do we look at our hands if our nails aren’t done?)

You pour everything you have into your family and manage their every need.

But who is taking care of you?

You made it through school by juggling work and responsibilities. 

You grinded your way into a leadership role, one that didn’t come easily and certainly didn’t come cheaply. 

Student loans were repaid. Kids’ college funds were started. But somewhere along the way, your own financial protection slipped to the bottom of the priority list.

You’ve thought, more than once, about revisiting the life insurance policies you set up ten years ago. But who even knows where the paperwork is? And the cash flow just isn’t there to coverage right now anyway. So once again, it stays on the to-do list as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve.

“Surround yourself with professionals who can help” sounds nice in theory. 

However, in reality, you’re overstimulated and exhausted.  The last thing you want to do is deal with another professional service team with another set of paperwork to complete. There will be new fees and, worse, another meeting to schedule on your already chaotic calendar.

Believe me, I get it. I am living this lifestyle. The difference is, I am also a professional service provider.

So, I want to break down the mystery of future planning into digestible, practical nuggets of information you can hopefully use. No pressure. No jargon. 

Just a way for you to start thinking about this.

Because mama, if something happens to you, you want to know there’s a plan in place and money there to protect your family. Money to hire that nanny and keep the routines intact. Because let’s be honest.  There’s no way anyone else in your house knows which kids in the classroom have allergies or what time the piano teacher shows up for lessons.

And that peace of mind is worth understanding and digging into. You want to be confident your family’s routine and lifestyle won’t be upended if you are suddenly injured and unable to work tomorrow. 

First Up, Life Insurance: What If Something Happens to You?

At its most basic level, life insurance comes in two forms: term and permanent.

Term life insurance covers you for a specific window of time, often somewhere between 5 and 30 years. If something happens to you during that period, your family gets the payout. If the term ends and you’re still here, you will be required to pay higher premiums if you still want to keep the same coverage.

It’s usually the cheapest option and often makes sense when the risk you’re protecting against is temporary –  young kids, income replacement, and a mortgage that won’t last forever. 

Having a trusted, competent advisor will help guide you and determine that you have the right protection and insurance policy in place for the right reasons –  whether that’s to replace income or to pay for college tuition. They will also help to make sure the costs are appropriate for current net worth. This means you have to be vulnerable and honest to permit the advisor to shop through the various policies with you.

Then there’s permanent life insurance, which is designed to stay in place for your entire life. These policies don’t expire after a set number of years and many of them accrue some form of cash value along the way. 

These policies are more expensive and they’re not for everyone. But they exist for a reason Usually, it’s when the need for protection doesn’t have a clear end date or when long-term certainty matters more than the cost.

Neither option is inherently better. They just do different things. However, one thing is clear. You need an advisor that you have a good relationship with and that will maintain the policy and make changes to it as your life evolves. 

A common mistake is thinking this is about picking the “right” policy. It’s not. 

It’s about clearly understanding what you’re trying to protect and for how long. It’s about collaborating with teams that you are already working with (again, we don’t need more meetings or teams to manage) to help you navigate these questions to determine which products are right for the various seasons of your life. 

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself.

If you couldn’t work tomorrow, what would your family need? How long would they need it? What decisions would suddenly be forced if money became tight?

You don’t have to answer these all at once. You don’t have to overhaul your finances. And you definitely don’t need to turn this into another item that needs to be carried forward indefinitely on your to-do list.

But you do deserve to know whether you’re comfortable with the current plan or lack thereof. It is important that your wealth advisors or your accounting team, whom you probably collaborate with at least once a year, ask you these questions, prompt these uncomfortable discussions, and then help you navigate these decisions.  

Next Up, Long-Term Care: Planning for Aging Parents

Because we take care of everyone else, there are often our parents to consider.

Maybe nothing is wrong yet. Or maybe something is, but it’s manageable. A fall that “wasn’t serious.” A medication change you keep a mental note of. A doctor’s appointment you start going to, not because anyone asked you to, but because it felt easier to just be there.

Caring for aging parents rarely shows up all at once. It creeps in slowly and quietly. In small shifts you don’t even think of as caregiving until you’re already doing it.

Who will drive them when driving isn’t an option anymore?
Who will take time off work when appointments multiply?
Who can flexibility, physically, emotionally, logistically step in if someone can’t care for themselves?

These aren’t questions anyone wants to ask out loud and so we don’t. We tell ourselves we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We assume it will work itself out. We assume it won’t land squarely on us. Until it does. But why wouldn’t it land on us?

What most people don’t realize, until they’re already involved with it, is how much long-term care touches everything. Not just finances, but relationships with siblings, marriages, and careers. All of it tests the carefully balanced lives you’ve already built.

Health insurance doesn’t really cover it. Medicare helps briefly, under specific circumstances, and then stops. Medicaid may be an option, but only after a lot of rules and limitations and tough decisions that no one enjoys learning about in real time. Qualifying for Medicaid coverage is usually only successful for those who have minimal assets and income.

So, the conversations shift from if care will be needed to how it will be paid for. And who will absorb the cost when money isn’t the only thing being spent.

These situations strain families not because people don’t love each other, but because expectations were never said out loud. That’s the part we all tend to avoid.

We put off the conversation because it’s uncomfortable and it forces us to look ahead. It raises questions about fairness, limits, and responsibility while everyone is still healthy enough to pretend none of this will ever apply to them.

But not talking about it doesn’t prevent it. It just leaves fewer options when the time comes.

As my colleague, John Dugan, likes to say, usually it’s ‘the kid that lives the farthest away, that has the most to say’. This will definitely be the case with my family. 

Just like life insurance, long-term care planning isn’t about expecting the worst. It’s about easing the burden on the people you love if things don’t go as planned.

And if you’re already the person carrying the mental load – for your kids, your work, your household – the idea that one day you may also be carrying this load for aging parents can be overwhelming.  That’s why it deserves space now to have open and honest conversations. 

Finally, The Legal Layer 

And while we’re having these difficult conversations, there’s one more layer that often gets pushed aside involving the legal basics for you and your parents. 

It sounds heavy, but having the right documents in place isn’t about planning for the worst. It’s about providing that peace of mind for you and your family. 

A will makes sure your assets are handled the way you intend when you are no longer here to have a say. Think of all those collectible Barbies still in their boxes or Beanie Babies that are sitting on a shelf in the closet. They definitely need to be accounted for in your will. 

Meanwhile, a Power of Attorney and an advance medical directive spell out who can step in and speak for you if you’re unable to speak for yourself. Your siblings can't play rock/paper/scissors to determine your fate. The real gift here isn’t the paperwork. It’s removing the burden from the people you love so they’re not left guessing, second-guessing, or carrying the weight of making impossible choices during already emotional moments.

Therefore, I want to encourage you to make the space now to have these meaningful conversations with your advisors, family, and close friends. It will ease the burden later and will help lighten the mental load that can bear down on all of us at all hours of the day. 

And honestly, I get it.  It might feel like you just don’t have time to be proactive and tackle all of this. However, that’s precisely why you should. 

Taking care of these things provides the security blanket you can wrap around your family if, for some reason, super mom is no longer able to manage the chaos. 

You have poured yourself into becoming the powerhouse you are from both a career and a parenting perspective. Make sure you have taken the steps to protect all your hard work.