TPP 505: What Happens When We’re No Longer Here? Financial Planning for Differently Wired Families
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
39 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 3 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is financial planning for children with disabilities and why does it matter?
I'm Debbie Rever, and you're listening to Full Tilled Parenting. Today we're talking about something many families kind of know they need to think about, but they often don't know where to begin. And so they might be pushing it off to the side instead of taking the next steps. I'm talking about financial planning for children with disabilities. My guest is Mary McDermott, a chartered special needs consultant and the co-founder and COO of all. Needs Planning, a nationwide firm built by caregivers for caregivers. As both the professional and a parent navigating the journey herself, Mary brings a real-world perspective to the conversation. She's also the co-author of the new book Care, Protect, Grow: A Guide to Building Lasting Security for Your Loved One with Special Needs.
So today, Mary will walk us through why proactive planning. Matters so much and what it can actually look like in practice. We'll talk about creating comprehensive care plans, protecting essential benefits, and building a long-term vision that supports not just financial security, but overall well-being. As I said in this conversation, you're about to listen to, I'm just so grateful that people like Mary are out there who translate what for many of us can feel completely overwhelming and confusing and daunting. So I really hope this episode helps you feel more prepared, more informed, and more confident about the future. So here's Mary McDermott. Hey Mary, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you for joining me to have yet another fresh conversation. I get very excited when after this many episodes I bring a new topic to the show. But I heard about your new book, which is called Care, Protect, Grow. Empower Your Family Through Special Needs Financial Planning. And I was like This comes up in my community a lot, especially as longtime listeners of the show have kids who are getting older and there's a lot of considerations for a lot of families. who are listening to this. I'm very excited to explore your book and your work. So would you take a few minutes and kind of talk about, you know, I read your formal bio and I know you co-wrote this with the two other women, but I'd love to hear a little bit about you specifically and how you came to be doing this work.
Yeah, I would love to. So about ten years ago exactly, I came into the financial planning world. I always wanted to own my own business or run my own business or have some control over my income and life and hours. I just can't make cupcakes, right? I'm not a crafty person. I can't produce something, right? And so I could always really people well. So I'm a really good communicator. I am like the first I translator, I think I can take really complex situations and try and say it back to people in crayon and bite-sized pieces and that's my big goal to do with families. But when I started this job, I had a two-year-old impregnant with my second, Ruth, who has a rare disease. I really was like four months in.
I was a baby advisor at Ruth, came back and realized this planning is so different. It's such a longer, different puzzle to solve for families. And I was like, what a cool thing that. I get to have this background of finance and accounting all the way from college to bumping through a bunch of jobs like a true ex-millennial to finally finding my like, oh my gosh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing to match my finance accounting background with my emotional IQ of being able to sit with people in hard things and give them something that is actionable and hopefully. Hopefully in crayon. It's not always perfect. There are technical things. It is a technical type of thing, but I am really trying to simple it down in the most English way possible, I would say.
We weren't secret about our story with Ruth. And so I knew when I was pregnant, which is a gift in the rare disease world, that we were gonna be in the NICU, that she was ninety-nine percent chance have this rare disease. So we knew our path and we weren't secret about it.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is financial planning for children with disabilities and why does it matter?
0:03–5:23
2
How did Mary’s personal journey shape her approach to special‑needs financial planning?
5:23–11:25
3
What are the essential components of a comprehensive care plan?
11:25–16:19
4
How can families protect essential benefits and use special‑needs trusts?
16:19–21:13
5
What role should siblings play in long‑term care planning?
21:13–25:23
6
How does the Care, Protect, Grow framework guide long‑term planning?
25:23–29:35
7
How can families foster self‑advocacy and build a supportive micro‑board?
29:35–34:48
8
What practical next steps should listeners take after this episode?
34:48–39:35
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids