November 27, 2019 • 20 mins
Families living with Autism will tell you: there are a lot of great therapies out there to help your child grow, develop, and overcome challenges. They'll also tell you that therapy is expensive and that government funding -- while helpful -- doesn't go far enough in covering the costs. How can families balance their general household finances with their Autism-related expenses in a way that lets everyone eat out at a restaurant occasionally? Katie speaks with Frank Danielson, one of the parents on our Autism Parents Roundtable, who is also a senior financial planner at Assante Wealth Management, to get some tips.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
The funding is so limited, the whole thing in our
home goes to Orton- Gillingham. It's a kind of therapy,
but for [inaudible 00:00
comprehension and reading and learning. So it helped him a
lot, but it's $ 85 per session and he goes twice
a week. So that's done.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Primarily, that $6, 000 goes to the social skills groups that
he attends. We are also in the process right now
of just doing an intake with a child and family
psychologist, so he is going to start to do some
individual therapy as well. But again, it's $ 250 an hour.
It doesn't go that far. We're looking at a fairly
limited amount of sessions.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
But then the social group at ABLE Clinic and, like
music therapy, they are all things that we have to
pay, so we can't do anything. We have to even
think about, okay, should we go out for dinner? So
there is a problem here. It affects us a lot.
We struggle.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It's not enough if you're doing a lot of different
therapies, but I feel very lucky I had friends who
went through the same thing, but in the States, and they
were in LA and they had to pay for everything
out of their own pocket, and it was really expensive.
They had to take their kids to all of these
private places to get their diagnosis and then to get
therapy, and they didn't get any support and it was
(01:25):
hugely expensive for them.
Katie B. (01:27):
Money pressure. It's something that nearly every family faces, but
when you're raising a child with autism, it adds a
whole other layer of complexity. Hi. I'm Katie Bennison and
this is Life on the Spectrum, The Autism Family Podcast.
There are a lot of great therapies and services out
(01:48):
there to help kids with autism grow, develop and overcome
challenges. There are behavioral experts, speech therapists, psychologists, occupational therapists,
social groups, summer camps, speech generating devices, sensory equipment, the
list is endless, but ask any family and they will
tell you, these options are expensive. Government funding is helpful.
(02:14):
In British Columbia, families get $ 22,000 a year, until their
child turns six, from the Autism Funding Unit. From six
to 18 years old, you get $6, 000 a year. But
most of the time, the funding doesn't go far enough
to cover the basic cost of therapy, let alone any
extras. So today, on the podcast, we're talking about money
(02:38):
and how families can balance their finances so they can
get the therapies they need and still go out for
dinner once in a while. To get some advice, I
met with Frank Danielson. You've heard from Frank before. He's
part of our autism parents round table, a panel of
parents we check in with every episode. He's a senior
financial planner at Assante Wealth Management where he helps families
(03:02):
build, preserve and manage their money. He's also the father
of a teen with autism. So I started by asking
Frank what are some expenses that a family living with
autism can expect.
Frank D. (03:15):
I think there's the components that are on the therapy
sort of side of things and then there's things that
are not on the therapy. So with respect to the
therapy side of things, can be anything from behavior interventionalists,
OTs, speech therapists, there's kind of a wide range of
things that families can fit in, in that $ 22,000 per
(03:36):
year if they're under age six, and there's all the
other things that don't fit in there, like could we
please have somebody clean the house? Could we please have
things that just give us our sanity because we're spending
so much of our time and so much of our
energy to sort of try and to take care of
our family and our son or daughter on the spectrum?
Katie B. (03:54):
Exactly. And some of those things aren't necessarily covered by the
funding from the AFU, the Autism Funding Unit. But because
it can be really expensive, I know from my own
experience with my daughter, who now gets $ 6, 000 versus $
22,000, and even though I'm very grateful, it adds up and
(04:15):
get spent very quickly. Why don't we talk about RDSPs?
Can you first explain what they are and why you
think parents of kids with autism should think about getting one?
Frank D. (04:26):
First of all, an RDSP is a Registered Disability Savings
Plan to help families specifically with prolonged and sustainable disabilities
to help them save money for their future as adults.
So depending upon your income level, there's a threshold. And
if your income is above $ 95,000 as a family, then
(04:47):
you get a matching dollar for dollar up to $1, 000.
If your family income is below a threshold, and I
think it's around $50, 000, there's various tiers where you can
get additional dollars up to various ranges per year to
a maximum of $70, 000 over the lifetime of the child
(05:07):
up to age 49 years old.
Katie B. (05:10):
So when, I guess, should they start contributing to an
RDSP and why?
Frank D. (05:15):
I think it's very important for families that have kids
on the spectrum or any disability because it's free money.
And the sooner you start, the sooner the money could
start compounding for the future of your child. And if
it is a later diagnosis your age four or five, you
can go all the way back to age zero. So,
say, for example, your child is five and you're diagnosed
(05:36):
and you contribute $ 5, 000, depending upon your income level,
the Canadian government could put up to another $ 18,000 or $20,
000 depending upon your income level. So if you do
that over five, six, 10, 12 years, it can add up
to hundreds of thousands of dollars, which can have a
huge impact in the lives of families or kids, as
(05:57):
they get older, paying for additional expenses.
Katie B. (05:59):
What do you think is a reasonable amount of someone's income
to aim for as a contribution monthly to an RDSP?
Frank D. (06:08):
In my opinion, if you have a dollar matching and
if you are in a lower threshold of income and
you're in that area where, if you put in a
dollar and the government puts in $ 3, you should maximize
every single dollar you possibly can. So to the extent
families have some funding or even minimal fundings, I think
they should try and maximize these contribution dollars and create
(06:30):
that sort of forced savings program for their child when
they're older.
Katie B. (06:34):
And when do you think that people should start contributing?
Frank D. (06:38):
I think people should start contributing once they've kind of
got over the shock of the diagnosis because a Registered Disability
Savings Plan requires a sign- off by your doctor or
someone that can identify that this is a sustainable and
prolonged developmental disability. And once that's done, you should get
it set up right away so you can contact your
(06:59):
financial institution, you can contact your financial advisor to get
more information and to learn more about the pros and cons.
Katie B. (07:07):
So there are some families of kids with autism, they face
a considerable drop in funding after their child turns six
because the share that they get in BC is $ 22,000
a year while their child is young. But once they
cross that age of six, that amount of funding drops
considerably, $ 6, 000 a year is a big difference. How
do you recommend families deal with that offset, that sudden
(07:30):
loss of funding? Because it's a huge drop in income
with that people rely upon for therapy.
Frank D. (07:36):
Yes. I think it's a very difficult hard knock. It's
like losing a paycheck. And in situations like that, there's
only a few levers that you can push and pull.
You can try and add additional income to your family,
if you have any spare time, which is probably hard
to do. The other side is you can take a
sober look at all your expenses, so do you have
(07:57):
an idea on where all of your money does go every
month? All the money that does come in. I think
it forces families to make some really hard choices. Is
this something where we do a family trip this year?
Is this something where we can not update our vehicle that's
15 years old and we're putting a lot of money
into? Are there other services we can get in the
(08:18):
community that are for free that we're not aware of? Or
can we work together with other families and kind of
create little cohorts or areas of specialization where we can
support each other? So I think it requires a lot
of creativity. It requires a lot of courage, and at
the same time, you also have to try, if you
can, find some money to set aside for your future
(08:38):
and your family and the things that are important for
you as well.
Katie B. (08:42):
Frank Danielson is a senior financial planner at Assante Wealth
Management. In a moment, he's going to give us a
few financial tips and tricks to help families balance a
budget that includes autism. He'll also share some of the
tech tools he uses to stay on track and on
budget. But first, here are a few more parents talking
(09:03):
about the things they worry about when it comes to
money and life on the spectrum.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Just because you get the diagnosis, the government's not then
sending you a check every year. You have to have
the receipts and everything. You have to kind of pay
for it upfront and then they reimburse you. So that's something to
be aware of I think.
Speaker 7 (09:24):
I love him very much, but I don't want him
to live with me forever. So I would really like
it if at some point in his future, he was
able to get a job and move out.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Sometimes, I look at him and I'm like, " You're okay.
You can do it. You will move out. You'll have
a job. You will manage yourself." And some days, I'm like, "
No, that will never happen."
Speaker 2 (09:49):
We live in a really expensive city where it's very
difficult for even, quote, unquote, normal kids to move out
and get their own place without living with a hundred
roommates because rent is just really, really expensive in this city.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And my big fear in life is that what happens
when I'm not living? Like I am gone? So I
think about that a lot.
Katie B. (10:17):
Those are a few more thoughts from our autism parents
round table. This is Life on the Spectrum, The Autism
Family Podcast. I'm Katie Bennison, your host. I'm also the
mom of a teenager with autism and an education assistant.
And today, we're talking about the financial challenges of autism.
If you like what you're hearing, please like, subscribe and
(10:39):
share us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And
for more content, check out our website, lifeonthespectrumpodcast. com. You'll
also find links to some of the financial resources we're
talking about today. That brings me back to our discussion
with financial planner, Frank Danielson. Earlier, we talked about the
expenses that families living with autism face. We also talked
(11:03):
about government funding and the importance of RDSPs, or Registered
Disability Savings Plans. Of course, saving can be hard, especially
when you're facing all kinds of extra expenses, not to
mention that sudden drop in funding at age six from $
22,000 a year to $6, 000. So what are some of
(11:24):
Frank's financial tips?
Frank D. (11:26):
I think there's two or three tips I'd recommend for
families. First of all, start right away. Don't wait until
the last minute and you see your paycheck six months
later being reduced. So you want to get in front
of this, you want to take inventory of all your income,
your expenses, the things that are really, really important. And this
can lead to some very difficult conversations because in my
(11:47):
experience with families, you will have both spouses that have
similar values but also very different values. One spouse might
want to put an additional $ 10,000, $12,000, $15,000 into an additional therapy
that was not being covered before and another spouse might
want to put that into their RRSP or they might
want to have a trip or something else. So I
(12:08):
think this really, I would recommend that people sit down
with a professional and probably someone that they pay by
the hour that does not manage assets, that really provides
objective advice to help you build these very important skills
that were not taught in school and we don't get
as we're older. And I think what it also does
(12:28):
is it provides objectivity and independence. So if you can
find a fee- for- service financial planner that charges by
the hour to work through a lot of these things,
I think it will make life so much easier.
Katie B. (12:42):
You're very busy, busy financial advisor and a dad who
looks after the family budget, including managing Dylan's autism funding.
How do you use technology to help you track or
plan your family's financial future? Is there an app or
something that you find helpful?
Frank D. (13:00):
Good question, Katie. I have a couple that have been
extraordinarily helpful for me. One's called Evernote, and I call
it my virtual memory. It is a cloud- based software
program that allows me to store all my documents, receipts,
video recordings, anything you can think about, recipes, ideas, and
it will source just by a word link. So if
(13:21):
I put in autism funding 1998, it'll pull up the
record. Or if I pull up Sony TV Vega, it'll
pull up the receipt. So I literally have 15,000 or 20,
000 pieces of information in there that I can find
at a moment's notice. So all of Dylan's reports, assessments
at any point in time where I don't have to
worry about which folder it's in, where it's stored, how
(13:43):
it's stored, you just take a picture of it and
you put it in. If you have something like an
email, you directly forward the email to your Evernote application,
so there's a link and in the link in the
subject line, you put what it's about and it will
auto categorize it for you.
Katie B. (13:59):
It's like having a second brain.
Frank D. (14:00):
It's a virtual memory. So there's another app called Trello.
And for families that have a lot of things going
on, it's a list- based visual board system that allows
people to track and collaborate back between professionals, create chats,
(14:20):
store all your documents, prioritize things, put all your to-
do's, task management, all in a visual board, and I'm
a visual learner, so it's just an incredible way for
me to organize my life to bring other professionals that
are in our life into certain parts of our life
so everybody sees the whole picture. It's been a lifesaver.
Katie B. (14:42):
Yeah, those are really great tips. In terms of budgeting,
if you wanted to do a budget, is there a
favorite app that you have? You know when you're saying
to people, don't wait until it's their sixth birthday and
you're like, uh- oh, what would you say when they're four?
Frank D. (14:57):
I would say, even if listeners do not have a
diagnosis for someone, this is an app that would work
for everyone. So Mint is a cloud- based service from
Quicken originally that auto categorizes all your expenses. So once
you've memorized all your transactions, it'll show you where all
your money goes, where all your income is, and provide
visual dashboard reports that you can look at whenever you want.
(15:20):
And it literally takes five to 10 minutes a month
and you have all this information on your phone, on
your computer or wherever you're at.
Katie B. (15:28):
So one final question is do you have any tips
for parents on how to tuck money away for a
vacation or respite?
Frank D. (15:37):
I think I only have one tip, and the tip is
you have to set a fixed dollar amount into some
type of automatic savings account where it just gets taken
out every month. If you do not, you'll be like
every person, $ 100 comes in, in the month, $ 100 goes
out. So if you don't sort of set it and
forget it and put in a different type of account,
(15:59):
like a high interest savings account or a money market
mutual fund at your bank, and you could set up
multiple ones of these, so you could have one for
a trip fund, you can have ones for your long-
term savings, like RSPs, you can have one for, I'll
call it a sabbatical or a respite trip or whatever
you want to do, and you just put money into
these specific accounts, so it could be $ 50 a month
(16:21):
into account A, $ 100 a month into account B, $ 200
a month in account C. So now, you have $300. At the end of the year, you have $ 3,
600. If you did not do that automatically at the
end of the year, unless you're one of the 5% of
people that are disciplined and you are part of the 95%
like myself, you won't have the money.
Katie B. (16:39):
So let's do a family living with autism, one kid
on the spectrum, both parents full- time working, what percentage
of their salaries would you say would be a smart
amount to tuck away?
Frank D. (16:53):
It depends on every family and their circumstances, and it's
about starting small. So if you start with 5% and
you see how that goes for three or four months,
and if you don't notice it, you can just gradually
increase it. It's about setting up small wins of success.
It's not about beating yourself up and trying to do
a goal that's just so hard to implement that you
(17:13):
feel like a failure. So I think if you just
start with 5% or $ 250 a month or if $ 100
a month is your number, and then just every year,
you reset that. And then I would recommend that if
you can set up in different accounts and different amounts,
you can set those up for specific goals. So one
might be for your long- term savings for RSP, one
might be for a vacation, one might be when shit
(17:36):
happens, you've got some money there and the car breaks
down and it costs $ 2, 700 to fix, you've actually
got it in an account versus going to your credit
card, which charges 19% interest. And if I were to
add one thing, it might be, money is a very
difficult subject for most families. In my years of experience,
(17:57):
you have a wide range of values and everybody has
their own relationship with money, their own identity with money,
whether they're scarcity, whether they're a spender. So depending upon
your DNA and relationship with money, that can cause a
lot of stress on families. So when you add a
diagnosis or you add a child on the spectrum and
(18:18):
you have different values, it's really important to be kind
to each other and just sort of sit down and
listen and not judge each other around this or that.
So I think this is a time to really, when
you're talking about money, is to really just be kind
to each other and really be open- minded to the
extent you can and really try and work on this together and
(18:44):
have a coordinated approach.
Katie B. (18:45):
Very wise words from Frank Danielson. He's a senior financial
planner at Assante Wealth Management. We hope you're enjoying our
podcast. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
and give us a review and please, share with your
friends so you can help us reach more people. Our
website is lifeonthespectrumpodcast. com. You can also find us on
(19:07):
Facebook. In our next episode, we're looking at those tricky
teen years. Speaking of teenagers, we're going to leave you
with a few words from our autism teen round table.
For the record, we asked how they would spend their
autism funding money if they got to choose.
Speaker 8 (19:27):
I would spend it on a car. I would get
a fancy Cadillac.
Speaker 9 (19:33):
We'd get a boat and we'd also buy a cabin to go with
the boat of course, because we don't live right by
the ocean and I'm not sure where we're putting the boat.
Thomas (19:40):
I would go to a concert live at Rogers Arena,
an Ariana Grande one.
Speaker 11 (19:44):
A huge computer, and it would be one of those
huge ones, not just a penial laptop.
Speaker 12 (19:50):
I might use it to travel places or, like Thomas
was saying, maybe go to an Ariana Grande day concert, yeah.
Katie B. (20:01):
Some teens from our autism round table talking about what
they would spend their autism funding on if it was
up to them. And it sure sounds like Ariana Grande's going
to clean up. On that note, however you plan to
spend your funding money, I hope you found this episode
useful and got some ideas that will help make things
a bit easier for you and your family. Until next
(20:23):
time. I'm Katie Bennison. This is Life on the Spectrum.
Thanks for listening.
The funding is so limited, the whole thing in our
home goes to Orton- Gillingham. It's a kind of therapy,
but for [inaudible 00:00
comprehension and reading and learning. So it helped him a
lot, but it's $ 85 per session and he goes twice
a week. So that's done.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Primarily, that $6, 000 goes to the social skills groups that
he attends. We are also in the process right now
of just doing an intake with a child and family
psychologist, so he is going to start to do some
individual therapy as well. But again, it's $ 250 an hour.
It doesn't go that far. We're looking at a fairly
limited amount of sessions.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
But then the social group at ABLE Clinic and, like
music therapy, they are all things that we have to
pay, so we can't do anything. We have to even
think about, okay, should we go out for dinner? So
there is a problem here. It affects us a lot.
We struggle.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It's not enough if you're doing a lot of different
therapies, but I feel very lucky I had friends who
went through the same thing, but in the States, and they
were in LA and they had to pay for everything
out of their own pocket, and it was really expensive.
They had to take their kids to all of these
private places to get their diagnosis and then to get
therapy, and they didn't get any support and it was
(01:25):
hugely expensive for them.
Katie B. (01:27):
Money pressure. It's something that nearly every family faces, but
when you're raising a child with autism, it adds a
whole other layer of complexity. Hi. I'm Katie Bennison and
this is Life on the Spectrum, The Autism Family Podcast.
There are a lot of great therapies and services out
(01:48):
there to help kids with autism grow, develop and overcome
challenges. There are behavioral experts, speech therapists, psychologists, occupational therapists,
social groups, summer camps, speech generating devices, sensory equipment, the
list is endless, but ask any family and they will
tell you, these options are expensive. Government funding is helpful.
(02:14):
In British Columbia, families get $ 22,000 a year, until their
child turns six, from the Autism Funding Unit. From six
to 18 years old, you get $6, 000 a year. But
most of the time, the funding doesn't go far enough
to cover the basic cost of therapy, let alone any
extras. So today, on the podcast, we're talking about money
(02:38):
and how families can balance their finances so they can
get the therapies they need and still go out for
dinner once in a while. To get some advice, I
met with Frank Danielson. You've heard from Frank before. He's
part of our autism parents round table, a panel of
parents we check in with every episode. He's a senior
financial planner at Assante Wealth Management where he helps families
(03:02):
build, preserve and manage their money. He's also the father
of a teen with autism. So I started by asking
Frank what are some expenses that a family living with
autism can expect.
Frank D. (03:15):
I think there's the components that are on the therapy
sort of side of things and then there's things that
are not on the therapy. So with respect to the
therapy side of things, can be anything from behavior interventionalists,
OTs, speech therapists, there's kind of a wide range of
things that families can fit in, in that $ 22,000 per
(03:36):
year if they're under age six, and there's all the
other things that don't fit in there, like could we
please have somebody clean the house? Could we please have
things that just give us our sanity because we're spending
so much of our time and so much of our
energy to sort of try and to take care of
our family and our son or daughter on the spectrum?
Katie B. (03:54):
Exactly. And some of those things aren't necessarily covered by the
funding from the AFU, the Autism Funding Unit. But because
it can be really expensive, I know from my own
experience with my daughter, who now gets $ 6, 000 versus $
22,000, and even though I'm very grateful, it adds up and
(04:15):
get spent very quickly. Why don't we talk about RDSPs?
Can you first explain what they are and why you
think parents of kids with autism should think about getting one?
Frank D. (04:26):
First of all, an RDSP is a Registered Disability Savings
Plan to help families specifically with prolonged and sustainable disabilities
to help them save money for their future as adults.
So depending upon your income level, there's a threshold. And
if your income is above $ 95,000 as a family, then
(04:47):
you get a matching dollar for dollar up to $1, 000.
If your family income is below a threshold, and I
think it's around $50, 000, there's various tiers where you can
get additional dollars up to various ranges per year to
a maximum of $70, 000 over the lifetime of the child
(05:07):
up to age 49 years old.
Katie B. (05:10):
So when, I guess, should they start contributing to an
RDSP and why?
Frank D. (05:15):
I think it's very important for families that have kids
on the spectrum or any disability because it's free money.
And the sooner you start, the sooner the money could
start compounding for the future of your child. And if
it is a later diagnosis your age four or five, you
can go all the way back to age zero. So,
say, for example, your child is five and you're diagnosed
(05:36):
and you contribute $ 5, 000, depending upon your income level,
the Canadian government could put up to another $ 18,000 or $20,
000 depending upon your income level. So if you do
that over five, six, 10, 12 years, it can add up
to hundreds of thousands of dollars, which can have a
huge impact in the lives of families or kids, as
(05:57):
they get older, paying for additional expenses.
Katie B. (05:59):
What do you think is a reasonable amount of someone's income
to aim for as a contribution monthly to an RDSP?
Frank D. (06:08):
In my opinion, if you have a dollar matching and
if you are in a lower threshold of income and
you're in that area where, if you put in a
dollar and the government puts in $ 3, you should maximize
every single dollar you possibly can. So to the extent
families have some funding or even minimal fundings, I think
they should try and maximize these contribution dollars and create
(06:30):
that sort of forced savings program for their child when
they're older.
Katie B. (06:34):
And when do you think that people should start contributing?
Frank D. (06:38):
I think people should start contributing once they've kind of
got over the shock of the diagnosis because a Registered Disability
Savings Plan requires a sign- off by your doctor or
someone that can identify that this is a sustainable and
prolonged developmental disability. And once that's done, you should get
it set up right away so you can contact your
(06:59):
financial institution, you can contact your financial advisor to get
more information and to learn more about the pros and cons.
Katie B. (07:07):
So there are some families of kids with autism, they face
a considerable drop in funding after their child turns six
because the share that they get in BC is $ 22,000
a year while their child is young. But once they
cross that age of six, that amount of funding drops
considerably, $ 6, 000 a year is a big difference. How
do you recommend families deal with that offset, that sudden
(07:30):
loss of funding? Because it's a huge drop in income
with that people rely upon for therapy.
Frank D. (07:36):
Yes. I think it's a very difficult hard knock. It's
like losing a paycheck. And in situations like that, there's
only a few levers that you can push and pull.
You can try and add additional income to your family,
if you have any spare time, which is probably hard
to do. The other side is you can take a
sober look at all your expenses, so do you have
(07:57):
an idea on where all of your money does go every
month? All the money that does come in. I think
it forces families to make some really hard choices. Is
this something where we do a family trip this year?
Is this something where we can not update our vehicle that's
15 years old and we're putting a lot of money
into? Are there other services we can get in the
(08:18):
community that are for free that we're not aware of? Or
can we work together with other families and kind of
create little cohorts or areas of specialization where we can
support each other? So I think it requires a lot
of creativity. It requires a lot of courage, and at
the same time, you also have to try, if you
can, find some money to set aside for your future
(08:38):
and your family and the things that are important for
you as well.
Katie B. (08:42):
Frank Danielson is a senior financial planner at Assante Wealth
Management. In a moment, he's going to give us a
few financial tips and tricks to help families balance a
budget that includes autism. He'll also share some of the
tech tools he uses to stay on track and on
budget. But first, here are a few more parents talking
(09:03):
about the things they worry about when it comes to
money and life on the spectrum.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
Just because you get the diagnosis, the government's not then
sending you a check every year. You have to have
the receipts and everything. You have to kind of pay
for it upfront and then they reimburse you. So that's something to
be aware of I think.
Speaker 7 (09:24):
I love him very much, but I don't want him
to live with me forever. So I would really like
it if at some point in his future, he was
able to get a job and move out.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Sometimes, I look at him and I'm like, " You're okay.
You can do it. You will move out. You'll have
a job. You will manage yourself." And some days, I'm like, "
No, that will never happen."
Speaker 2 (09:49):
We live in a really expensive city where it's very
difficult for even, quote, unquote, normal kids to move out
and get their own place without living with a hundred
roommates because rent is just really, really expensive in this city.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And my big fear in life is that what happens
when I'm not living? Like I am gone? So I
think about that a lot.
Katie B. (10:17):
Those are a few more thoughts from our autism parents
round table. This is Life on the Spectrum, The Autism
Family Podcast. I'm Katie Bennison, your host. I'm also the
mom of a teenager with autism and an education assistant.
And today, we're talking about the financial challenges of autism.
If you like what you're hearing, please like, subscribe and
(10:39):
share us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And
for more content, check out our website, lifeonthespectrumpodcast. com. You'll
also find links to some of the financial resources we're
talking about today. That brings me back to our discussion
with financial planner, Frank Danielson. Earlier, we talked about the
expenses that families living with autism face. We also talked
(11:03):
about government funding and the importance of RDSPs, or Registered
Disability Savings Plans. Of course, saving can be hard, especially
when you're facing all kinds of extra expenses, not to
mention that sudden drop in funding at age six from $
22,000 a year to $6, 000. So what are some of
(11:24):
Frank's financial tips?
Frank D. (11:26):
I think there's two or three tips I'd recommend for
families. First of all, start right away. Don't wait until
the last minute and you see your paycheck six months
later being reduced. So you want to get in front
of this, you want to take inventory of all your income,
your expenses, the things that are really, really important. And this
can lead to some very difficult conversations because in my
(11:47):
experience with families, you will have both spouses that have
similar values but also very different values. One spouse might
want to put an additional $ 10,000, $12,000, $15,000 into an additional therapy
that was not being covered before and another spouse might
want to put that into their RRSP or they might
want to have a trip or something else. So I
(12:08):
think this really, I would recommend that people sit down
with a professional and probably someone that they pay by
the hour that does not manage assets, that really provides
objective advice to help you build these very important skills
that were not taught in school and we don't get
as we're older. And I think what it also does
(12:28):
is it provides objectivity and independence. So if you can
find a fee- for- service financial planner that charges by
the hour to work through a lot of these things,
I think it will make life so much easier.
Katie B. (12:42):
You're very busy, busy financial advisor and a dad who
looks after the family budget, including managing Dylan's autism funding.
How do you use technology to help you track or
plan your family's financial future? Is there an app or
something that you find helpful?
Frank D. (13:00):
Good question, Katie. I have a couple that have been
extraordinarily helpful for me. One's called Evernote, and I call
it my virtual memory. It is a cloud- based software
program that allows me to store all my documents, receipts,
video recordings, anything you can think about, recipes, ideas, and
it will source just by a word link. So if
(13:21):
I put in autism funding 1998, it'll pull up the
record. Or if I pull up Sony TV Vega, it'll
pull up the receipt. So I literally have 15,000 or 20,
000 pieces of information in there that I can find
at a moment's notice. So all of Dylan's reports, assessments
at any point in time where I don't have to
worry about which folder it's in, where it's stored, how
(13:43):
it's stored, you just take a picture of it and
you put it in. If you have something like an
email, you directly forward the email to your Evernote application,
so there's a link and in the link in the
subject line, you put what it's about and it will
auto categorize it for you.
Katie B. (13:59):
It's like having a second brain.
Frank D. (14:00):
It's a virtual memory. So there's another app called Trello.
And for families that have a lot of things going
on, it's a list- based visual board system that allows
people to track and collaborate back between professionals, create chats,
(14:20):
store all your documents, prioritize things, put all your to-
do's, task management, all in a visual board, and I'm
a visual learner, so it's just an incredible way for
me to organize my life to bring other professionals that
are in our life into certain parts of our life
so everybody sees the whole picture. It's been a lifesaver.
Katie B. (14:42):
Yeah, those are really great tips. In terms of budgeting,
if you wanted to do a budget, is there a
favorite app that you have? You know when you're saying
to people, don't wait until it's their sixth birthday and
you're like, uh- oh, what would you say when they're four?
Frank D. (14:57):
I would say, even if listeners do not have a
diagnosis for someone, this is an app that would work
for everyone. So Mint is a cloud- based service from
Quicken originally that auto categorizes all your expenses. So once
you've memorized all your transactions, it'll show you where all
your money goes, where all your income is, and provide
visual dashboard reports that you can look at whenever you want.
(15:20):
And it literally takes five to 10 minutes a month
and you have all this information on your phone, on
your computer or wherever you're at.
Katie B. (15:28):
So one final question is do you have any tips
for parents on how to tuck money away for a
vacation or respite?
Frank D. (15:37):
I think I only have one tip, and the tip is
you have to set a fixed dollar amount into some
type of automatic savings account where it just gets taken
out every month. If you do not, you'll be like
every person, $ 100 comes in, in the month, $ 100 goes
out. So if you don't sort of set it and
forget it and put in a different type of account,
(15:59):
like a high interest savings account or a money market
mutual fund at your bank, and you could set up
multiple ones of these, so you could have one for
a trip fund, you can have ones for your long-
term savings, like RSPs, you can have one for, I'll
call it a sabbatical or a respite trip or whatever
you want to do, and you just put money into
these specific accounts, so it could be $ 50 a month
(16:21):
into account A, $ 100 a month into account B, $ 200
a month in account C. So now, you have $300. At the end of the year, you have $ 3,
600. If you did not do that automatically at the
end of the year, unless you're one of the 5% of
people that are disciplined and you are part of the 95%
like myself, you won't have the money.
Katie B. (16:39):
So let's do a family living with autism, one kid
on the spectrum, both parents full- time working, what percentage
of their salaries would you say would be a smart
amount to tuck away?
Frank D. (16:53):
It depends on every family and their circumstances, and it's
about starting small. So if you start with 5% and
you see how that goes for three or four months,
and if you don't notice it, you can just gradually
increase it. It's about setting up small wins of success.
It's not about beating yourself up and trying to do
a goal that's just so hard to implement that you
(17:13):
feel like a failure. So I think if you just
start with 5% or $ 250 a month or if $ 100
a month is your number, and then just every year,
you reset that. And then I would recommend that if
you can set up in different accounts and different amounts,
you can set those up for specific goals. So one
might be for your long- term savings for RSP, one
might be for a vacation, one might be when shit
(17:36):
happens, you've got some money there and the car breaks
down and it costs $ 2, 700 to fix, you've actually
got it in an account versus going to your credit
card, which charges 19% interest. And if I were to
add one thing, it might be, money is a very
difficult subject for most families. In my years of experience,
(17:57):
you have a wide range of values and everybody has
their own relationship with money, their own identity with money,
whether they're scarcity, whether they're a spender. So depending upon
your DNA and relationship with money, that can cause a
lot of stress on families. So when you add a
diagnosis or you add a child on the spectrum and
(18:18):
you have different values, it's really important to be kind
to each other and just sort of sit down and
listen and not judge each other around this or that.
So I think this is a time to really, when
you're talking about money, is to really just be kind
to each other and really be open- minded to the
extent you can and really try and work on this together and
(18:44):
have a coordinated approach.
Katie B. (18:45):
Very wise words from Frank Danielson. He's a senior financial
planner at Assante Wealth Management. We hope you're enjoying our
podcast. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
and give us a review and please, share with your
friends so you can help us reach more people. Our
website is lifeonthespectrumpodcast. com. You can also find us on
(19:07):
Facebook. In our next episode, we're looking at those tricky
teen years. Speaking of teenagers, we're going to leave you
with a few words from our autism teen round table.
For the record, we asked how they would spend their
autism funding money if they got to choose.
Speaker 8 (19:27):
I would spend it on a car. I would get
a fancy Cadillac.
Speaker 9 (19:33):
We'd get a boat and we'd also buy a cabin to go with
the boat of course, because we don't live right by
the ocean and I'm not sure where we're putting the boat.
Thomas (19:40):
I would go to a concert live at Rogers Arena,
an Ariana Grande one.
Speaker 11 (19:44):
A huge computer, and it would be one of those
huge ones, not just a penial laptop.
Speaker 12 (19:50):
I might use it to travel places or, like Thomas
was saying, maybe go to an Ariana Grande day concert, yeah.
Katie B. (20:01):
Some teens from our autism round table talking about what
they would spend their autism funding on if it was
up to them. And it sure sounds like Ariana Grande's going
to clean up. On that note, however you plan to
spend your funding money, I hope you found this episode
useful and got some ideas that will help make things
a bit easier for you and your family. Until next
(20:23):
time. I'm Katie Bennison. This is Life on the Spectrum.
Thanks for listening.
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