“A lot of people think of financial planning like going to the dentist – I got to have a crown or something. You know, it’s a painful, they think of it as a painful experience. What I like to say is it’s a powerful experience for you.”
Episode 4: How to Make Financial Planning Powerful, Not Painful with Roger Grumdahl
In future planning, we talk about the three-legged stool: legal, financial, & quality of life. In episode 4 of Focus on the Future, we are talking about financial planning. Listen as host Allycia Wolff talks with Roger Grumdahl. Roger is a financial planner and the father of Krista, his adult daughter with special needs. In this episode, he walks us through what financial planning looks like and how it can be a powerful experience and a great gift that you can give your family.
About Roger Grumdahl
Roger has been financial planning for more than 27 years with Eagle Strategies LLC. As a parent of someone with a disability, Roger brings both his personal and professional experiences to the table to help families plan for their financial future. Roger has been featured on Kare 11 TV, WCCO radio, and other print media, and is a longtime friend of The Arc Minnesota.
About Focus on the Future
Focus on the Future is a podcast for caregivers and families supporting people with disabilities. In each episode, a conversation about the journey of discovering our best life and how to achieve it. While exploring legal, financial, and quality of life structures, Focus on the Future aims to get back to what matters most: living a fulfilling and meaningful life that is defined by each individual person. Learn more at arcminnesota.org/podcast.
Episode 4 Transcript
Allycia Wolff:
Welcome to Focus on the Future. A future planning podcast for caregivers and families, according to people with disabilities. Focus on the future is a podcast of The Arc, Minnesota, a nonprofit advocacy organization, supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. My name is Allycia Wolff. I’m an advocate here at The Arc Minnesota, and your host for Focus on the Future. And this week’s episode, we’re going to be talking about financial planning. Thanks for joining us.
Roger Grumdahl:
There’s an interesting thing that I’ve learned in it is that most people spend more time planning their annual vacation than they do planning their financial future. And that’s just because a lot of people think of it like going to the dentist, I got to have a crown or something. You know, it’s a painful, they think of it as a painful experience. What I like to say is it’s a powerful experience for you. And it’s a, it’s a wonderful opportunity for you to get a hold of your financials or reassess where you are for the next phase of your life, whatever that is.
Allycia Wolff:
Financial planning, the last of the three legged stool that we’ve been discussing so far in this podcast. As you recall, the first one we talked about was legal planning and then quality of life planning and now financial planning. And by no means do these three areas create a complete picture of what you need to consider along the lines in future planning, but it’s a really great place to start. So if you were thinking more globally about how to plan for the future, when you have a child with a disability, these three areas tend to be the most important things. And today I wanted to illustrate this by talking with Roger Grumdahl, who is a financial planner here in the greater twin cities area, Minneapolis Saint Paul, Minnesota. Choosing to work with a financial planner can be a really great tool when you’re thinking about your future. You may be an incredibly financially intelligent person, but sometimes getting a different perspective from somebody whose career is centered around financial planning can be really valuable.
Allycia Wolff:
A financial planner can give you a different perspective, can help you organize and coordinate your financial goals and then create a plan and how to move forward. Something that I often experience when working with families that come into The Arc or friends of mine that I’m talking to is that financial planning is a really personal thing. It comes with a lot of emotions and it can be really difficult to lay out your financial picture in front of somebody that you don’t know. As Roger’s going to mention a bit in his interview is that he works with people across the wealth spectrum and people that don’t have very many means to people with a lot of means. And regardless of where you are on that continuum, you can create a really great financial picture to make things more comfortable for your loved one, with a disability in the future.
Allycia Wolff:
And so there are options regardless of where you’re starting. One more note before I dive into the interview with Roger is I want to refer back to the last episode of the podcast. When I sat down and I talked with Tori and we were discussing that one of the core components to living a good life out of those five, one of them is wealth. And Tori said that this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be a billionaire to live a good life. But what it means is that you have the access and the resources to the financial means to do things that make you happy. So if it was important for me to plant flowers in my garden every spring, and that made me happy, then part of my complete future plan would be being able to have the financial means to do that.
Allycia Wolff:
Now this is like personal financial means, but it also includes formal financial means, meaning like, um, County services to support somebody in having access to maybe different waivered services or housing services or employment services. So when you’re thinking about a financial picture for the future, think about those two aspects. Now you never know what’s going to happen with formal services and supports. You don’t know what’s going to happen with the state budget. And even though you want to be able to use those resources moving forward, it’s not something that we can rely on, which makes year by year doing financial planning, even that much more important. And today I wanted to illustrate this by talking with Roger Grumdahl, who is a financial planner here in the greater twin cities area of Minneapolis. Roger is a 27 year veteran financial planner with Eagle strategies, LLC, a registered investment advisor and financial services professional with New York life securities, LLC member FINRASIPC, a licensed insurance agency at 3,600 Minnesota drive suite 100 Edina, Minnesota five five, four, three five. That can be reached at (952) 897-5000. He is the father of Chrissy, a 41 year old daughter with special needs. Early in his career, Roger recognized the need for financial planning for those families with special need family members. He uses state of the art tools in his professional and personal lives to bring a valuable help to the families and community. Roger has been featured on Carol Levin TV and WCCU radio, as well as both local and national print media sources for his expertise. He has presented at many venues, including The Arc Minnesota. Welcome Roger.
Roger Grumdahl:
Thanks Allycia. This is a great honor for me to work with The Arc of Minnesota and to bring some helpful insights to our audience. When I got into financial planning 27 years ago, early on, I realized that there’s a connection between financial planning and what our family had experienced with Kristen. That being, uh, there’s a need for planning for the future for the next week, but also, you know, the end of life and anywhere in between. And that planning is especially important when you have special needs. Like we have in our family with Kristen. Creates a whole additional dynamic.
Allycia Wolff:
Right? Have you, if I could ask the personal question, have you done all the financial planning things that you need to like set up your will?
Roger Grumdahl:
Yes. Uh, the first thing we did is we went to, uh, the, uh, an estate planning firm here in Minnesota, Minneapolis area. And we, uh, met with the lawyer. Uh, this was back in the day before 1992, when the laws changed in Minnesota and much of the nation that provided for special and supplemental needs trust prior to that, basically the plan was, uh, if you have more than one child, you would disinherit that child with special needs is what we did initially, uh, subsequently the laws changed. And by that point, I was just entering the career about the same time the laws, uh, change in 1991, two, three. And so I became aware that there’s other planning that can be done, not just legal planning, uh, the legal planning is what lawyers do. I’m not a lawyer. What I do is help people figure out a financial path that accompanies that legal path, so resources that they can develop over their lifetime for the benefit of not only themselves and other family members, but particularly with regard to someone like my daughter, Krissy, who has special needs and will probably outlive us by some time
Allycia Wolff:
As a New York life employee, you can’t provide any tax or legal or accounting information, um, much in the same way that Jason from episode two, an attorney wouldn’t really be the best person to reach out for a financial planning advice. But we often find here at The Arc that it is important to do financial planning, as well as legal planning at the same time. Would you say that this is true?
Roger Grumdahl:
It’s, it’s really a great idea to do it because you can coordinate everything together. I didn’t actually answer your earlier question. We have all our ducks in a row. We have, we have a trust. We have a special needs trust. I’m sorry, supplemental needs trust, uh, in place. Uh, we have our trustees guardianships in place and, and successor trustees for our trust and for guardianship. So we’ve done all our homework and that was part of my learning. Having going through that personally, I said, this applies to a lot of our client base that is out there. Either people we know are people that we’ll meet. And so having gone through it, uh, it helped prepare me
Allycia Wolff:
When you did your financial plan and you continue to do it and make sure that your supplemental needs trust and your will and everything are all straightaway. How does that make you feel emotionally?
Roger Grumdahl:
Well, uh, for me, um, and I would, I would extend that to my wife and family. We’re, we’re very happy with the fact that we’ve done the planning. And in fact, I have a meeting scheduled for the state elder loss, state planning attorney that deals with our, our information yet, uh, this month to meet and go over a review of that. We do that every couple of years just to make sure everything is in order. So we feel good about it. Um, it’s a, it’s a real eyeopener when you actually do it because it’s one thing to think about, well, what’s going to happen or worry about what’s going to happen. If you have a plan, it’s it solidifies the fact of your own mortality, which takes some emotional readiness. You just have to be willing to admit to yourself and others that, uh, you know, you’re a mortal being, you’re not going to live forever.
Roger Grumdahl:
And I had a, I had a client in a seminar early on, that was 96 years old, lived on the farm had a seven year old, special needs, a son with special needs and, uh, asked her in an interview, um, w what would you like to do first in your financial planning? And she said, I’m not quite ready at age 96. You know, reality is hard for us all, whether we’re 96 or 26, uh, or whatever, uh, to face the facts of life, that this is a fact of life, a generation or two ago, people didn’t live past a certain age, for example, down syndrome, uh, average down syndrome, life expectancy, 1930 was nine years old. Today, it’s 65 to 70 years old. Yeah. And so there’s lots of reasons for that. We won’t go into that in this podcast, but the point is a lot of these people that have special needs will outlive their family, their caregivers, even their siblings. And then who’s there. What plan is in place, who’s there to care for them, what structure, you know, a program like ours goes out of their way to provide resources to the community, to help in those scenarios and lots of scenarios. Uh, but ultimately the family hopefully is gonna do some planning. And that’s where I come in.
Allycia Wolff:
Yeah. And as I say to families all the time, it’s less expensive and less of a headache to do the planning then to not do the planning. It’s the best gift that you can give to your family to do that planning and to face that, even though it’s terrifying sometimes yeah. In 1993, OBRA, the Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act came into play, which allowed special needs on supplemental needs trust. And so while it is a federal act, each state administers trusts differently. And it’s important to check with your attorney for your state’s current policy. We recommend that, um, in these conversations, we’re talking about Minnesota law specifically, and this trust information is usually applicable to other States, but it’s really important to check with your specific, um, financial and legal advisors. But my question to you is how did OBRA change, how people plan for the future?
Roger Grumdahl:
Before 92, when the law changed, you could, you would disinherit your, your family emergency then special needs and supplemental needs trusts came into being, and now you don’t have to disinherit them. Uh, and so it, it gives an opportunity that wasn’t there and you don’t have to worry about losing assets because you put them in a trust. If you trust has done well, uh, and you have good administrator and all the things you handle properly, um, you provided an ongoing stream of support for that person when government supports are always in question and currently, and they’ve always been, it doesn’t matter what the political climate is. They’re always in question, and that’s why places like Arc and other nonprofits are so vital because they provide some safety net, but ultimately depending just on the government is probably not a good thing.
Allycia Wolff:
Yeah. And that’s what you talk to people about is how to use your assets, to make sure that your child has a good life moving forward.
Roger Grumdahl:
Right. And a lot of times people say, I don’t know, um, I don’t have a lot of assets, or my assets are allocated to retirement or this or that. And what I say is, um, you want to start some type of a plan, even if it’s very modest, a few dollars a month or a few dollars a year put aside, uh, and we have vehicles in the financial service industry, things like life insurance annuities, where you can multiply the effect of your, your, uh, contribution to that program over time. And so a lot of my clients recognize that they can have their retirement fund, they can have their other stuff. They can even look for options like a second home or start a small business or all those kinds of things, but they can also then have a fund set aside using life insurance or other products we offer structuring their, their assets that they have now in such a way that it’ll be there for the future, for the future need, which is likely to be there. It’s likely to be a need.
Allycia Wolff:
I find that families often have a hard time getting started with financial and legal planning, even if they know that it’s something they must do.
Roger Grumdahl:
Right. And it’s important to start early because not everyone is insurable as we get older, start having problems with health, or even as a young person. So I encourage people, even if their means are limited, that they start sooner rather than later, get emotionally ready and take those steps. And so I’m looking at my wife across the table. I said, we went to the lawyer and got a will, you know, it’s kind of what got us off square one. So I think it’s important to face the facts that, yeah, something could happen. It could happen anytime. We all know it, but actually accepting that.
Allycia Wolff:
Yeah. Often people need that push to plan. We hear a lot here at The Arc from families saying I’m taking my first trip to Europe in 20 years. There’s a lot up in the air right now, help. And we believe that it’s important though, to plan, regardless of whether you have that retirement trip planned, or if you’re young and have a new baby, you know, I say, I say that the earlier you start to plan the better, but it’s never too late.
Roger Grumdahl:
That’s very good motto to have. And I, I support that same philosophy. Um, and what I, what I mentioned to clients too, is, you know, we, uh, we as human beings, we’re going to do everything we can to make your rock solid in your plan. Uh, but we can only do so much. We’re limited by resources by if you’re healthy or not. All those kinds of things. We, what we will do is we’ll make your situation and the situation for your loved ones, including those with special needs, we’ll make it as good as we can. We’ll take what you have, the resources, the time, the health, all the things that come into play and make it as good a plan as we can as full proof as we can. It might not be perfect, but it’ll be, uh, you know, our best effort. Um, and so I have a lot of people that come in that have done some legal planning, for example, they work with other financial people.
Roger Grumdahl:
Uh, and the first thing I always do is say, let’s do a review of your documents. Let’s do a review of your financial things. We do that. And just about two weeks ago, my last meeting like that, uh, the client, I went through all the planning checklist, they had everything done. And I said, well, let’s just do a review of your legal documents. And they were well prepared. They brought the legal documents, sent it to one of my lawyer, friends. Then, she reviewed it and said, well, they got a couple of issues here, here. The laws have changed since 10 years ago when they did this plan. So it’s kind of confirmation that, yeah, it’s important to get a review, get a second opinion and just update things. Yeah. So,
Allycia Wolff:
So when people come to you, I’m sure that a lot of people are kind of lost in the process of financial planning because money isn’t natural to everybody, right? What do you, how do you talk about those first steps in financial planning? What are, how do you start with people?
Roger Grumdahl:
We get the feelings out as much as possible and the concerns we document it. I do. And then we get all the financials and the financials basically are two parts. One is, let’s talk about your income and what you’re spending your money on. You can say a budget, nobody I know has a budget. Okay. So and our government has a budget and they’re in a deficit. So whatever, right? So not too many people, I know have a budget. There are a few, but we develop a budget. We did actually sit, not, not at that meeting. We just gather information. And then I put together a written budget for them and help them see their financial picture in a clear way. And then the other piece is what assets do you have? So what real estate, you might have houses and second houses, timeshare, whatever it is.
Roger Grumdahl:
And then also, uh, retirement, things like that. Uh, what debts do you bring to the table? Mortgages, credit cards, stuff that everybody has, you know, what are those debts look like? And then I help them create their networks. So they get a clear picture of this is where we are. And then I take that, I put that in a formal plan or written formal plan for them. And, and along with their goals and their concerns and their feelings. And then from that meeting, that initial meeting, then we have an initial draft of a plan, which I say, well, you know, your, um, here’s the five things you were concerned about. Here’s the top three that you said were most important. Um, here’s your feelings about it? Here’s your goals about it? Here’s your worries about it? And here’s the steps you’ve taken. And then here’s the resources you bring, including your income and assets. And, you know, here’s a couple of pathways you could take, you know,
Allycia Wolff:
So you help people create a written plan to see it all out on paper. And then you say there are three or four different options to move forward here. As far as future planning goes, and here they are. And then you let people choose.
Roger Grumdahl:
Yeah. They choose they, the client is always in charge of the process. And I always say the first option is to do nothing,
Allycia Wolff:
But is the first option. And a lot of people choose that for decades.
Roger Grumdahl:
They just choose, Hey, I’m not ready, not ready. So we get that out there. And it’s, it’s an option to do nothing to change nothing. And that’s okay with me. I just want to be the person that provides you with the information, a clear picture. Um,
Allycia Wolff:
It’s the information of what can happen, what the possibilities are, what your choices are.
Roger Grumdahl:
Exactly. Yeah. And so that gives people a chance to see their picture, uh, uh, quite well. And it’s very interesting because I work with people all over the spectrum for wealth. I have people with millions of dollars. That’s a small group of my clients. The majority of my clients are working people that have some means, but they’re not, you know, uh, uh, living, uh, in a 5,000 or $5 million home or something, uh, most of my clients are that way. And I have some clients on the low end where they don’t have a lot of assets, maybe no assets, maybe on public assistance. And I’ve had some examples, most successful cases with people who are very limited in their financial picture, but have a will to do something. And they find a way and I help them find a way so
Allycia Wolff:
Do something. Absolutely. I think that a lot of people feel shame about money that they maybe don’t have or mistakes that they made in the past. And that can be a big deter to go in and talking to somebody about moving forward because it’s such a sensitive subject.
Roger Grumdahl:
Absolutely. And, um, you know, I think it’s, uh, uh, I had a business. I have a business degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth, where I’m from my wife and I are from Duluth. And, um, uh, when I went to my, my own experience with financial people, I had a, I had a, a representative call on us and I was embarrassed at our situation. I was also embarrassed that I didn’t really understand much about this before I get into the field of it. This was before I was in the field. And, uh, he approached me and it took me, my wife was ready day one took me to get emotionally ready. It took a year. I put him on, I kept pushing him off for a year until he was so nice and so persistent. And my wife was like, Roger we’ve gotta do something. And we ended up, uh, doing a very, very important plan and develop some goals and worked on some, putting some money away a little bit at a time.
Roger Grumdahl:
And it deliberately changed my life, our life. I mean, our life is very different than it was back then. And a great deal of that is because of that, uh, persistence of that representative, helping us, uh, come to the face, the reality of life and, and start getting, uh, I w what I’ll say is more emotionally mature about our finances and our situation, and also our goals wanting to identify our goals and what they were. And we actually started clicking them off and checking them off. And it was really fun to see that. I’ll never forget the first trip we took to Europe, which was one of our goals. And when we put it down, it’s like, yeah, right. I can hardly afford to go to Duluth and, uh, got enough gas to get up to Duluth. Anyway, uh, we went, we spent a 10 day trip, took our oldest two boys with us. And my wife was the one who made that, you know, made that plan and helped us. We together, we put money away. We started getting, we got a Euro pass, you know, we’ve got the airline tickets. Next thing you know, we got some money put on us. And we went to Europe, spent 10 days, and we went to London and Paris and Munich, and went on the train. And you know,
Allycia Wolff:
How long did it take you from when you set that goal to when you arrived in Europe?
Roger Grumdahl:
Uh, 10 years, 10 years.
Allycia Wolff:
So it’s, I think that that’s a beautiful story, because it says that even, even if the journey is going to take a bit, it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth right.
Roger Grumdahl:
Starting now. Right. You know, I think having good intentions is fine, but you have to follow that up with the action. You have to take some, and, and it’s little steps. It’s, it’s not giant leaps for most people. There’s exceptions, of course. But for most people taking that next little step is where the action is. That’s where they, the change occurs. And then you, you get a little success. So you take a little bigger step. There’s an interesting thing that I’ve learned, and that is that most people spend more time planning their annual vacation than they do planning their financial future. And that’s just because a lot of people think of it, like going to the dentist, I got to have a crown or something. You know, it’s a painful, they think of it as a painful experience. What I like to say is it’s a powerful experience for you. And it’s a, it’s a wonderful opportunity for you to get ahold of your finances or reassess where you are for the next phase of your life, whatever that is. Yeah. And it’s whatever age you are, again, the sooner the better, but you can do it at any time.
Allycia Wolff:
Roger is offering investment advisory services through Eagle strategies, LLC. A registered investment advisor is an agent with New York life insurance company and registered a representative offering securities through New York life securities, LLC member F I N R a S I P C a licensed insurance agency. The general office address is 3600 Minnesota drive suite 100 and Edina, Minnesota five five four three five. The phone number is (952) 897-5000. Roger does not practice law or provide accounting and tax services. I ended up loving my conversation with Roger. I really had no idea what to expect when I sat down with him, which I’m sure is something that brings a lot of people, anxiety when they first sit down with a financial planner, but I felt like he understood the pain that can come away with talking about money. And he was also really understanding of it’s a different journey for everybody.
Allycia Wolff:
And when it comes down to it, I think that there are two different kinds of financial planners. Some have a product to sell that once a financial planner creates a picture for you and gets all your information together, then they say, okay, this is you’d want for your financial future. You can purchase a life insurance policy or something similar to that to help you acquire that. So there’s some financial planners that also will help you purchase a different program. And then they can get a commission based off of that. Or there are also financial planners that are fiduciaries, where it is their job to help people manage their wealth and understand their options in that. And aren’t necessarily attached to anything that’s, commission-based. Now I’m sharing this information just so that, you know, not to say that there is a value judgment based off of one financial planners job or another.
Allycia Wolff:
Um, but it’s just something to consider a different question that you can ask when you are out searching for financial planners. And overall, when you’re on that search for a financial planner, I would say, trust your gut and work with somebody that you feel comfortable with. Because like Roger said, you are going to be laying out your entire financial situation and talking about a future and what needs to happen to get to your goals, your financial goals, as I’ve also mentioned, that can be a really vulnerable place to be. So working with somebody that you feel comfortable with and feel like you can talk with and have a good relationship, will make that whole process much easier. So as you’re shopping, just try to listen to your gut and consider that as well. If you don’t decide to work with a financial planner and you want to do it on your own, I would recommend that you write down all of the different financial things that you have in your life.
Allycia Wolff:
So if you have a mortgage or a 401k or a life insurance policy and put that all down so that you can see it on paper, and then think about your goals, what you want, and then what needs to change from your current situation to get there. And that is going to be my homework quote unquote, or the takeaway that you can get from this episode is, and that would be helpful, even if you are going to a financial planner or not is to start to put it all down on paper, write it out so that you can see visually where your finances are currently. Doing the combination of the legal planning and the financial planning can be a great resource and a great gift that you’re giving to your loved ones. And you’re saying that I’m going to put all of this work together and coordinate all these different things so that when I pass away, it’s one less thing that you have to worry about. I’ve already set up my financial plans. I know that there’s going to be as much money as I can set aside for that. And it’s going to be set aside in a way that is not going to negatively impact anybody. And that’s a really, really amazing gift that you can give to somebody and why legal and financial planning are two of the three legs of that stool of financial planning.
Allycia Wolff:
Thank you for joining me for this episode of focus on the future. Focused on financial planning. If this episode inspired questions for an advocate at The Arc, please give us a call at (833) 450-1494. Focus on the future brings you interviews with experts in different fields related to future planning. The Arc doesn’t endorse one expert over another. We encourage you to find the right fit for your family and your needs. In next week’s episode, we are going to be talking about able accounts. Able accounts are a great financial resource specifically for people with disabilities to plan for the future. Very basically the able account allows people to save up to $15,000 a year without it affecting any benefits that they’re currently receiving. Tune in to learn more about the able account and how it could be a good resource for you and your family. Focus on the future is a podcast of The Arc, Minnesota. Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite streaming service to stay up to date with all of the newest episodes. If you’re enjoying listening, please support the podcast and our mission by donating@arcminnesota.org/podcast. Our podcast music is composed and recorded by Micah Cadwell. Micah is a talented guitarist from new Brighton, Minnesota, who also has autism. Thank you, Micah. Focus on the future is co-produced and marketed by Chloe Alf and sound engineered by Brent Nelson. Thank you, Chloe and Brent, and thank you for joining us. Have a great day!
