Death, Taxes, and the Caregiver To-Do List

[00:00:00] Barry: And there we are. [00:00:02] Bobby: Been a while. [00:00:03] Barry: It has been amazing. [00:00:05] Bobby: As I was telling you before, I had to dust off the equipment and, you know, get some. What do you call it, the dust cloth, and pull it out and rub it down and get all the caked on dust. Because it's been a little while since we've been together, [00:00:31] Barry: So. Yeah, it's been since April. [00:00:33] Bobby: Yeah. [00:00:34] Barry: The last time we recorded. And, you know, maybe we want to tell people why. Yeah. What's going on. [00:00:39] Bobby: And it's mostly me, but I know you had some challenges, too. So for those of you who have not heard, I've been talking about my mom probably for the last year and a half, and she passed away in May and started to have lots of trouble in April. So Barry was gracious enough to sort of say, you know what? Listen, the podcast ain't that important right now. And he wrote a good time. So I spent a lot of time with mom. For those of you who may have not have known, she had Alzheimer's. And so the Alzheimer's support group that I was using quite heavily on talked about a long goodbye, and that's what it felt like. So it took quite a while for her to get to the point she was. But she's in a better place. No pain. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about what's going on, and hopefully can do that and y. And not shed a tear, but, yeah, that's okay. You know, she was grand lady, lived to be 88 and did quite a number of things. [00:01:31] Barry: So she had a good life. [00:01:33] Bobby: She had a good life. [00:01:34] Barry: She had a good life. That's great. But, yeah, so, gosh, yeah, it's been a little while, and, you know, I'm. I'm sorry you had to go through all that, and. [00:01:43] Bobby: Well, we all got to go through it, right? [00:01:44] Barry: We all got to go through it. That's right. [00:01:46] Bobby: Some way or another, you know, sometimes that's what you got to do. [00:01:50] Barry: Yeah. [00:01:50] Bobby: And, yeah, I'm. I'm not making light of it, but I know everybody else got to go through it, too. So, you know, it's. It's one of those things we all got to work through. So I'm blessed to have had a good support system. I will say this without saying other names. She was apparently in a hurry to go with her friends because two other of my aunts passed away on nearly the same day. [00:02:14] Barry: Wow. [00:02:15] Bobby: So that made it a lot more difficult for some reasons and a lot easier in some reasons because we were all sharing the experience. But you know, it's been an interesting couple of months. I'm gonna get my head around it. I'm sure I'm not over my grieving, but, you know, it was time to get back on the horse and start talking, so. [00:02:34] Barry: Well, that's a good thing. And, you know, there's. Somewhere in the universe there's a big party going on with her and all her friends. [00:02:39] Bobby: That's what one of my cousins said. You know, they didn't want to go. They wanted to go together, apparently, so [00:02:44] Barry: there you go, man. So. Yeah, so since we've been gone for a while, I think there's probably a lot of stuff we can talk about. We actually kind of miss doing this. [00:02:51] Bobby: This is. [00:02:52] Barry: This is my own form of therapy, and I know it has been for you, too, and maybe it is for a lot of folks that are out there just to kind of get together and think about it and talk about all this stuff and maybe try to help each other one way or another, [00:03:06] Bobby: you know, and we like each other, so we still hung out, so. So, yeah, we. We. We did a. Quite a. We always have some kind of discussion almost every week, and so it was. Barry really helped me through that. So I want to say publicly to you, man, thank you. Thank you, man. [00:03:20] Barry: I appreciate that. You're quite welcome. I hope. I hope I did you some good, so. [00:03:25] Bobby: You absolutely did well. [00:03:26] Barry: Cool. Cool. All right, so maybe we get some more concrete stuff. What you want to. What you want to talk about? I think you got two things here on the list. [00:03:34] Bobby: You want me to go first? You go first. But one of the things I want to talk about, because my. My family situation, especially moms, she donated her body to science. And. And matter of fact, my. My sister and my father, who have passed a little before that, did try to do the same things, and I was always. I've gotten, you know, reminded how different that is in most people's cases, and I got asked a lot of questions about it. So if you don't mind, I'll just share a couple of things that maybe that will help somebody who's thinking about this, because, like I said, long advice, when you have these kind of dementia issues, you think about all of this. So it would be nice. It would have been nice for me to have some information up front, so I'm happy to share a little bit. We can do that. [00:04:14] Barry: Kind of compiled your frequently asked questions list. Yeah. Yeah. [00:04:17] Bobby: Sort of. Kind of did. [00:04:18] Barry: Yeah. [00:04:19] Bobby: So, of course, most of the time when you're doing this kind of donation you're talking about cremation. So I know there are some places, some people who have religious preference, where cremation is not an option. So for that then you probably want to go to traditional organ donation or maybe just not do it at all because maybe that's offending your. Your principles. So mom was cremated, and we had basically two choices. We decided that whole body donation was the thing she wanted to do. And she was very adamant about wanting to make sure that whatever her body could contribute to the, you know, the collection of science to help things better for this disease. She had, she had Parkinson's, she has Alzheimer's, and she also had a stroke. Okay. So long before that happened, she was very adamant that this is what she wanted. And, and so what is whole body donation? It's also called anatomic donation. It's a voluntary gift of your body after death for medical schools, for medical teaching hospitals and accredited research organizations. Donated bodies are used to train medical staff, they're used to teach new surgical procedures, they're used to advance topical research and medical research. And Alzheimer's is certainly one of those things that they're learning a lot of things about. They develop new medical devices, they improve treatments for disease and injuries. And so unlike organ donation, which is very specific recipients, whole body donation is primarily benefits, education, and research as a whole. I see. So there's a couple things you need [00:05:57] Barry: to know so that your mom. Your mom did the whole body donation. [00:06:01] Bobby: She did the whole body donation. Eligibility varies by program, but there are lots of ways people qualify. The common reason that you're declined is you have an infectious disease like AIDS or Covid or something like that. If you are extremely obese or very low body weight, they won't take you because of the way that the research procedures work if you have significant trauma. So if you've been in an accident, something like that, typically that does not allow you to be do whole body donation. If you have an extensive autopsy, that rules you out as well. Advanced decomposition. So if in my case of my sister, where we didn't find her for a few days, that would rule her out. And some kinds of infectious conditions and circumstances can we out to for safe handling. How the process works is you register. Typically you want to register that this. The donor wants to should register before they die. You can do it afterwards, but it's harder, it's more difficult. You inform your family members and your healthcare workers that this is what you want to do. And she made clear that she was wanting to do that from the Very start. So all her friends, all people know, oh yeah, she's doing body donations. So they didn't. There was no shock or, you know, pushback from anybody. [00:07:14] Barry: Because your mom was a scientist from the start. [00:07:16] Bobby: Right from the start. So yeah, so this was what she wanted to do. You also make sure you have a healthcare power of attorney so that there's something document that says, this is what we're doing. And my mom had that. Those are not difficult to do. You can download them from the web. But basically all they say is, I'm up sound mind and body, and this is what I intend to do. And then upon death, what you do is you contact organizations who will come pick up the body very quickly. They do not want the body to stand, to sit out for a long period of time. So once death is pronounced, you call these companies and they will come and get the body and prepare it. They usually give it to a funeral home to. Not to embalm, because you don't do that, but just to pick it up and put it somewhere where it can stay where it won't decompose. Then they contract somebody who takes it to the research facility. In certain areas, you can say, I don't want it in my area so that nobody who might know her sees her. And I indicated that. So she ended up in Florida somewhere. Okay. Then the program that determines eligibility pre. They do some pre scanning, but they also do it afterwards. So they confirm with a doctor how she died, when she died, what method, how long it's been. They talk to hospice. If you're talking. If you're doing hospice and you know there's a procedure that's pretty well thought through and you have to be. Have to realize that when you're doing these procedures, even in that process, they can say, you know what, sorry, we can't do it or we don't have capacity or we have too many. Something like that. [00:08:56] Barry: I see. Yeah. [00:08:57] Bobby: So you have to have backup plans and things in place just in case things don't work. In mom's case, it did work. We ended up initially talking to two of the companies. And there's really two companies that do this for profit, but something to keep in mind. Okay. One was science cure and I'm pulling up and stuff so I don't lose my place. And the other one was med cure. So they sound kind of similar. Once an S1's an they've both been around for a long time. They are for profit items. They tell you that up front and usually an executor like me or someone talks to them when they get close to a point where you think, okay, the end is near. So I had conversations with them. I went with Science Cure initially because that's the one we did with my father 10 years ago. And it turned out ScienceCare couldn't do it. So they referred me to Medcare and I talked to Medcare about it and they could do it. So don't be discouraged by that. They sunk seem not to. They were in competition, but they're not really, you know, gotcha, gotcha. So that's, that's something to keep aware of. You could have, I could have gone non profit and that would have been like a medical school in the area or something like that. [00:10:11] Barry: Gotcha. [00:10:11] Bobby: But I was informed by the schools I attempted to contact with that they didn't have any room, they didn't have any capacity right now. So Medcare was my only option. So that led me down to say now there are a couple of things about both of these companies. They were both founded in this century size care was 2000 and Medcare was 2005. They don't have any cost to the, to the person except for if you have specific items. So transportation, picking up the body, cremation and returning the body usually don't cost you anything. Okay. If you have other things you have to do, like you're in a remote area and they can't get to you, you might have to do some transportation across to get to a place where they could pick it up. So you have to keep that in mind and make sure that you follow their rules and contact them constantly. Yeah. [00:11:05] Barry: So you said something that made me have to ask a question. So how does cremation fit into this? Because, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm diff, I'm having difficulty there. So you, you, the body would be like say in, in Florida right now. So we're, we're. What's the cremation? [00:11:20] Bobby: So they do a couple of things when they, when they do a whole body donation. So I'm looking at my list on those. So they do things like the traditional tissue removal. So I'm sure with Alzheimer's they wanted to see what her brain was like in order for them to look and see how bad in advance the disease. So that means that's a lot of, that's trauma. That's trauma. If they also do things where they're cadavers for medical professionals to actually do things and see what a body looks like inside and help them train and do things. So normally you don't get those bodies back in a. In a place where you can do anything with burial. Some people do it. It would certainly have to be closed casket. And so I think most people with the option, like I did, to say, when y' all are done, cremate her and send back her remains. [00:12:15] Barry: Okay. [00:12:15] Bobby: All right. [00:12:16] Barry: That makes a lot of sense to me now. I got. Wasn't real sure what was going on there. Okay. [00:12:19] Bobby: Yeah. So, I mean, part of that is that's what she. First of all, that's what she wanted. So honoring her wishes are there. And then also what it does, too, is reduce the cost of the funeral services itself, because cremation is a lower cost item than doing a burial. You might have a coffin. You might have something like a can or something like that. Did you put it in? But all that stuff happens afterwards. They don't pay for that. You have to pay for that when it comes back. And usually what you do is you contract with some of the funeral services in the local area who receives the body. And then there'll be another ceremony that I have once I get her body back. That's the other thing that's out there, too. This process takes time. It doesn't happen in days or weeks or even months. It's like four or five months at a minimum. And so there's a long period of time between when your loved one has passed away and when you get back your body. So we did a memorial service without a body last month, you know, period of this time. And then, you know, we did the normal stuff. We didn't have a body, and we did it without that. Now, that takes a certain amount of pressure off you, too, because normally when you're dealing with a body, you gotta do it in days. [00:13:28] Barry: Yeah, got it. [00:13:30] Bobby: So that hurried can cost you money and time and make it so that Pamela can't get there to see her. Yeah, now we. I was able to do it in, you know, plenty of times that people had a chance to do that, and that made it easier for me. So. [00:13:45] Barry: Yeah, especially when if you got family that are spread out, you know, just to. [00:13:48] Bobby: My family's all over the country flights, [00:13:50] Barry: and just the logistics of it all is kind of tough. So. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that'd be helpful. [00:13:56] Bobby: So mom did that with my father, and she liked it. So she was determined that that's the way she was gonna do it. This way, too. [00:14:03] Barry: Well, that's good. That's really good. [00:14:04] Bobby: Yeah. It worked out. And the fact that we also had, you know, my, my situation was I had three members of my family go out and basically a 12 hour period. So if we had to do that traditionally, that would have been really tough. So. [00:14:18] Barry: Yeah. And this gave everybody a chance who wanted to be there, to be able to be there. And, and didn't, you know, there wasn't a lot of overlap with, with the other folks too, so. Yeah. [00:14:30] Bobby: Yeah. So there's a lot of advantages of why this works. I have a couple of charts I got that tell you the difference between like organ donation and whole body donation and compare the two companies so you could look at it. Like I said, there are not for profit kinds of programs all over the country, but these are the two really prominent nationwide for profit options. [00:14:50] Barry: Yeah. And I guess in the for profit part of it, they're doing this as a way to provide subject matter for medical schools or for scientific research or any of that kind of stuff. And there's cost to that, but that handles the cost and makes them enough profit to keep the business running. [00:15:09] Bobby: So. [00:15:09] Barry: Yep. [00:15:10] Bobby: I mean they're not, certainly not doing it. You know, they're not like it's, it's not a scam because a lot of people look at this and think of that. It's not a scam. [00:15:18] Barry: Yeah. [00:15:18] Bobby: So you, and you have to be serious about it. And they're actually really good companies to talk to, to the family and keep them informed. I call them every a few weeks and say where mom is in the process. I don't want any details, but I also want to know like, is she halfway through, quarter way through. And they can give me that kind of information. So it's kind of nice. [00:15:39] Barry: Well, that's good. That's good all around. [00:15:41] Bobby: Yeah. So I'm going to drop this stuff in the show notes. Okay. To let people know about it. It'll be two charts, one on the two options and one, you know, what whole body donation is. Because I think it's important to have these conversations with your loved ones while they have their faculties among them and they can make sound decisions. Because you don't want to try to do this after, after, you know, somebody's down and there's other members of the family who may not agree. That's not a good situation to do. You want to make sure you're clear about this? [00:16:13] Barry: Sure, sure. You know, it's, it just makes me think we may have talked about this before, but I want to mention this again at some point that there you Know, there's a lot of different ways to go about this. You know, the folks. My families have always been pretty. Pretty traditional about how. Who they handled, you know, funerals and burial and. And coffins and burial plots and all that, everything involved in it. But about 10 years ago, I had a really good friend pass away, and she and her husband had talked about this ahead of time. She had. I think she had a form of like, stomach cancer or something along those lines, but that she wanted a natural burial. And that was interesting. Yeah, it was. There was a. There's a designated place for that, and it's. I think it's like it has to be licensed in a particular way. There are a lot of restrictions around it. But the gist of it was is, you know, normally there's a person passes away, there's the. The funeral home takes the body and there. There's embalming that happens, and then they're put in a casket, and then that casket, at least in her state, is put in a. In a vault, and all that's buried in the ground. And in this case, it's just the body in the ground. And it was. It was actually kind of beautiful. It was the. Instead of a coffin, there was a large basket, A large wicker basket was made that would. That would hold her. She was wrapped up in quilts, like family quilts that had been passed down through her family and some others that were donated and that kind of thing. And we had the funeral. And after the funeral, we all, the group of us that were the pallbearers, we picked up her in the basket and we walked into the woods and there had been a. A place that had been prepared, and we laid her in the. In the hole. And the. The people who run the place provided like a. There was probably 10 shovels there. [00:18:07] Bobby: And so you buried herself. [00:18:09] Barry: We all literally buried her there at the time. [00:18:12] Bobby: Wow. [00:18:13] Barry: And I tell you, there was something super cathartic about that. It was like, this is. You know, you're participating in this. This. This thing that. That all of us are going to go through, and we. We kind of felt like you kind of helped her along the way and. [00:18:28] Bobby: Yeah, I could see how that would be interesting. [00:18:31] Barry: Yeah, it was. I mean, it was. It was. You. You felt like you were. You were involved in closing out the process, if that makes any sense at all. But it was. But it was. It was beautiful and it was touching and I was glad to be part of it. [00:18:44] Bobby: I can imagine that being that way. Unfortunately, we're both of the age now where we're going than we are weddings. [00:18:52] Barry: Yeah, for sure. [00:18:53] Bobby: And so, you know, you get to experience this from when you're in your 50s, you experiencing this in a different way than you might have been with a little kid. A little kid. It was all mysterious, scary. And this is about somebody you knew. Right. That you had some relationship with. And when you see them in their. In their situation, it changes the view of it for me. And it's more like what you're talking about, more cerebral, more cathartic and, and certainly maybe even you feel like you're helping them along. So I. Can I get that about that too. You know, I did feel. And I'm. I'm probably going to feel that way when we do our internment ceremony with mom later. But. But yeah, it's. It's. You're just helping people along, along this journey and that's, that's a different kind of responsibility. So. Yeah, I hear you. [00:19:44] Barry: And you know something I think that, that you should appreciate, and I think you're. I think a lot of folks would appreciate this is that. That your mom knew this was going to happen and she made the right choices up ahead of time. She was a planner. I want to make this as easy on my loved ones as possible. And that's what I'm trying to do too, eventually ferment mine. I wanted. I wanted to be simple for everybody and I don't want it to be [00:20:05] Bobby: a hassle and that it certainly also [00:20:09] Barry: don't want it to cost them. [00:20:10] Bobby: My mother was a planner. [00:20:12] Barry: Yeah. [00:20:12] Bobby: I made some jokes at the service that Barry knows about. She was definitely a planner. So. [00:20:16] Barry: And I got to say that was one of the best talks I'd heard in a long time. You did a great job with that. So. Yeah. Yeah, that was good. My goodness. Let's see here. So where are we here? We've talked about some of our early things on the list. Well, I'm going to make a joke here. We've talked about death. Now we're going to talk about taxes. I think you've got something on there [00:20:40] Bobby: for that because part of this is dealing with her estate. And I was amazed by how much the difference in. I call them instruments, but you know, the things that she used to put money away to save. So my mom did a lot of things and I'll go talk about, you know, what they are. But one of the things I certainly got involved was she had annuities. And I've had some too. But, you know, you'll pay Attention to them, you just put money in them and don't worry about them. Right. So. But there are lots of differences and I am not a tax advisor, I am not an attorney. I am a financial guy, just barely. And what I would tell you is the first thing you got to do is if you have more than one, you need help, go find someone who can talk about the details of your situation and how it applies to you and what state you are and what country are. Because I know we got people in different countries and so I have no idea what, what, what the noities are in Brit, in England, sorry guys, we're American based and I got no idea. But, but I can give those who live in America some a little bit of basis about what an annuity is and how you treat it. And I wanted to talk through that just really quickly. I ain't gonna spend a whole lot of time on this because who wants to learn? Yeah, we just talked about death, now we're talking about taxes. But for those of you who have to deal with a to stay, especially after your loved one has passed, they may have annuities. And an annuity is a contract with an insurance company so that you could put money into it. And when you take it out, depending on what kind of annuity is, you have either avoided taxes or maybe you have some growth opportunities that you might. So there are basically four of them. There are fixed annuities. There are fixed annuities with an index. There's variable annuities and then there's registered link annuities. Now the difference with them is how much risk you have. Fixed annuities are the normal things. You just guaranteed interest rate for a certain, certain amount of time. So you want to put some money in to lower your tax, you want to put something in there, then that's normally the one that most people use. Very conservative. Risk is low, very much like a regular old insurance policy. You can do things like a index which give you some ability to take some of that annuity money that you're doing and put it into the stock market. So when you do that, your risk raises from low to moderate. And then you might want to talk about how much of a risk you want. So you need to talk to somebody about how that annuity is, is put forth. You can be aggressive, you can be non aggressive. So you have one, have this conversation. A variable annuity gives you a mixture of both. It may guarantee a certain growth rate, but allow you to get things that the market does really well. So again, talking to people about that and making sure you do. And the most important thing about either one of these things, and I'm not going to talk about the fixed linked one, because it's really complicated, but you need to know the difference between a qualified annuity and a non qualified annuity. A non qualified annuity is purchased with pre tax money. So before you get your money, you get your money from your paycheck and before you, it's take, given, put in your check, it might be taken out and put into this annuity. That's called qualified. That means when you take it out, you gotta pay taxes on it. [00:24:06] Barry: Qualified is pre tax putting it in, but you have to pay taxes on it when you get the money out. Yeah, yeah. [00:24:11] Bobby: Non qualified is purchased with after tax money. So money you got from your paycheck. You decide I want to put 100 bucks into this. And when you pull it out, there's no taxation on it coming out. [00:24:23] Barry: Okay, gotcha. [00:24:24] Bobby: So gotcha. [00:24:25] Barry: Hey, even for the interest or is that. Or is it just. [00:24:28] Bobby: If the interest is. You get interest from it, that's unearned income. And that could be at a tax rate like a capital gains for whatever you're in. And different annuities handle that differently. But the big problem that I see with a lot of people is they think that pre qualified annuities are money they can spend. Right. You gotta pay taxes on it. [00:24:51] Barry: Yep. Before it comes out. Really? Before you. [00:24:53] Bobby: Well, you should do it. But sometimes depending on the tax year. For like, for me, when I take stuff out of an annuity, if I had one, it wouldn't be due until the next tax year for me, for April. So you could spend. So don't think you got money to spend and then end up with a tax burden in April. That's the story I really want to get across to people is they need to. [00:25:13] Barry: Don't spend it all before you, before you pay taxes on it. [00:25:15] Bobby: Before you figure out what a tax is. [00:25:17] Barry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:25:18] Bobby: So I've got some. I'm not gonna, I could go into it, but we are not a financial show. I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I am gonna drop this, those, those charts in there just to remind people what these things are. And so if you're caught in a situation where, okay, a loved one has passed away and they got three annuities, your first question should be, are they qualified or non qualified? Because that makes a big difference on how you handle that money. So that's the message I want to get across to people is. Got to pay attention. [00:25:48] Barry: Yeah. You're finding some things out these days. Yeah. [00:25:51] Bobby: And, you know, like I said, my mom's a planner, so she kind of let me know. But I've heard and seen other people get caught up in that and think they have a windfall when they really don't have as much of a windfall as they think they do. [00:26:04] Barry: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. [00:26:06] Bobby: So that. That's. That's my talk on taxes. We. We. I'll do the rest later, but then I'll drop these in the show notes too, so people can. Can see. [00:26:14] Barry: Cool. Cool. Well, I got a little. Little annoying story to tell this. Going from taxes to annoying going to annoying. So annoying is. I was talking to my dad the other day and he. He had been thinking about getting some work done on his house. I think he's having some trouble with his siding and a few things like that. But he was. He knew some folks that would. Were probably going to help him out and they were going to come take a look at what he's going to do. But just coincidentally, the week he was getting ready to talk with those folks about it, there was a guy knocked on his door and said, hi, I'm so. And so I had. We're working on a house doing remodeling in your neighborhood, like up street here. And we were going along, just kind of talking to folks and say, you know, if there's anything you need done while we're in the area, we can help you out. And my dad brought him in and I wished he wouldn't have, but he brought him in and said, sure, yeah, we could. We could talk. He said, I've got, you know, a couple people else I'm talking to, but, you know, just tell me what you got going on. And all it really was was to repair some vinyl siding on the side of this house is what he wanted to get done. But within the. In the ensuing 10 to 15 minutes after this, this guy starts talking really fast and he starts walking around the house and he looks at the vinyl siding and he looks at the windows and he looks at all kinds of things and everything that in his mind he would love to be able to do for my dad and put together this great big list and said, we're going to call you back tomorrow with a quote for all the things that you need done to your house. And my dad is like, no, no, no, no, I don't want any of this stuff. He said, but, you know, just call me or whatever. And the guy Left. So my first thing is I wish you would have never let the guy in the house. Second thing is he, he, he just, he wasn't assertive with the guy. Didn't tell him to go, just go away. But anyway, the guy caught search calling back and says, you know, when can I come and talk to you about this, about this repair or all this is remodeling that we're doing here. He's like, no, we're not doing any remodeling but I don't want you to come by at all. We're not going to do this. And I thought, okay, that's cool. I'm glad my dad told him that. Well, not only this guy but like four or five other people with this same company started calling him over and over again wanting to try out and talk to him about it. And I don't know to classify it a full on scam, but it is annoying business practices to do this. So I started looking into the company a little bit and what it turns out to be is kind of like almost a broker of. There's like a sales arm for this remodeling stuff. There's people out there who are trying to sell remodeling and then they, I think they farm out the actual jobs to other contractors and they bring them in to do things. So you'd never really know who you're dealing with. Who you talk to the begin with is not who you're going to end up dealing with. And, and before, when I got up to my dad's house that next week, he had five numbers on his phone that people had called him from that same company after he told them that he didn't want to do it. And I don't know if they just, just prey on people of his age to try to kind of browbeat him into eventually doing something just to get him to go away or whatever. But I ended up calling the company and found the company and I talked with the folks there and I suggested to them, I didn't suggest to them, I basically told us like, do not call my father again. This is. And she repeated his number back to me. I didn't have to tell it said okay, this is the number that, that the calls are coming to. And she agreed to do that. And just right before I got off the phone I thought, well, I hear about, you know, this guy knocked on a door. He didn't call initially. I said, well hey, I also would like you not to ever show up at this house again. And she said, oh, sure. We'll put you on the do not knock list also. And she, she told me the address and I confirmed it. So we haven't heard anything from any of these folks. They actually did what they said, so that was good. But the fact that they do that at the very beginning, they were not doing remodeling in that town. There were no one around there. They were just going door to door trying to get in. Yeah, I mean, it just seems dangerous, you know, this random person walking around your house looking at all the stuff there and you know, they could be cataloging it for, for actual work or they could be cattle cataloging it for another reason, come back later for other reasons and take it away. So anyway, if you run into that thing, that kind of thing, so far this has worked for us is just actually call the company and tell them do not call, do not knock. And you know, get, get your, get your little one added to those lists because that, that's kind of insidious. Really, really was annoying. It's just one of those things. But what are you going to do? [00:30:41] Bobby: Well, you know, I've got people in my neighbor mom's neighborhood who put on their sign no solicitation. [00:30:47] Barry: Yeah, that's probably, honestly that's probably a good idea. I hadn't thought about doing that. Is it pretty effective? [00:30:52] Bobby: From what I, from what I seen, yes. [00:30:55] Barry: Okay, cool. [00:30:56] Bobby: So I think when someone drives down and they see it on the mailbox, I think it deters. Yeah, they know they're going to get in trouble for. [00:31:03] Barry: That's a great idea. I think I will put one of those up in the front. So. Yeah, that's a really good idea. [00:31:08] Bobby: It was actually a sticker he put on that he put on his mailbox, which I thought was really cool, but I've seen signs too. [00:31:14] Barry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, cool. So that, that takes me to the next thing and this is just something I'm sharing that I bet that I know you have experienced this in the past and I am sure that anybody who is helping care for, for anybody right now always has this. It's what I like to call is the to do list that shows up whenever you show up. So I know of at least four people who have this thing like, well, you, you were at one point in time maybe, but, but, but some of these other folks, they'll, they'll know who I'm talking about. But it's the thing like when you show up at your parents house or your, or your loved one's house and before you Walk in the door. Just like, I need you to do this, this, this, and this other thing over here. Not even, hey, how you doing? Hey, come in here. I need you. I want you to do this thing for me. I'm like, can we. Let's just talk for a moment first. Maybe I don't mind doing any of these things. It's all good. And I'm sure most of you out there don't mind doing the things, but it's like, am I a contractor? What? Did I just show up, you know, to take care of these things for you? [00:32:21] Bobby: Yeah, I know. I know you've talked about this, but, you know, I used to, when my mom did that or what. Or other people, too, I would say, okay, I'm gonna put that on the list. But you can't get it now. [00:32:34] Barry: If I can do it within a few minutes, I'll go ahead and do it. If it's not, it's gonna go on the list. And I definitely put used. I don't know. I've talked about this before, definitely. When. When you're in the process of doing those things and then the other things get added to the list while you're at it. That. That's. That. That. That can be a struggle sometimes, too, but I have learned to just say, yep, we'll take care of that. Eventually, it'll go on the list. So anyway, that was just one of my. One of my usual things that bug me kind of things. Yeah. [00:32:59] Bobby: And, you know, caretaking's hard, and, you know, caretakers get annoyed, and it's okay. [00:33:05] Barry: That's all right. You got. You got to learn. [00:33:08] Bobby: Give yourself some grace on that. But. But. But also realize there you're your loved one's trying to do put things in. In their control. And so it's. You know, and you and I have talked about this. Anything that they have control over soothes their soul in a way, because many things they don't have control over anymore, like walking and talking and speaking. And so, you know, you'll have to allow some grace for the. For the cared. For the cared. And you also have to buy yourself some grace for the caretaker. So. [00:33:41] Barry: And it's okay to say, I can't do that right now, but I will do that. [00:33:45] Bobby: But I'll put it on the list. [00:33:46] Barry: Yeah, put it on the list for sure. [00:33:48] Bobby: I said I had to be careful because some of some people I know, if you say, but I'll do it, that's a commitment. And they get answer every day. So now it's on the list. The next step is when I can. [00:33:58] Barry: That. That. That's a. That's a pro tip right there. Don't say you can just say it's on the list, because that way it gives yourself an out if you can't eventually do it and you didn't promise it. That's a pretty good point. So the list makes me think of something we talked about earlier. Maybe you do it now is like a tip of the week or. Or. Or a pick of the week or any of that kind of stuff. So what's on your list? I see a couple of things over here on your. [00:34:22] Bobby: Well, there's a couple of things, and I told you about both. They kind of go hand in hand. So they're two separate apps. I am a person who likes to see time till an event or maybe even time after event. And both of these things do that. They're counters. So if you've seen counters before, someone like, you know, how many more days till I have to retire? Or how many days do I have till my mom's birthday? Or how many days until I have to go get to go on vacation? So I have these. I have a page on my phone, and I have it on other devices, too. And this is a nice thing for. For Macs. And this is an Apple shows, y'. All. So sorry. This can go on every device and it points to the same database. So you can make a counter, something very simple that says Bobby's vacation, 28 days, 2 hours and 3 minutes. And then there's another one of these apps that also lets you add a picture to that. So if there's a soothing picture of the place I want to go on my vacation, I could put it next to it and I could look at that and go, oh, I only have but a few days before I get to go. So one's called Countdown Count Time. Is that that text? One that you can put at. That's nice because we don't have a lot of real estate. You can put something up and then usually what it does is you give it a list and it'll tell you the top three, the three that are closest. So it does that for you automatically. Very nice thing. It's called Count Time. And I will put these links in the show notes. [00:35:42] Barry: Great, great. [00:35:43] Bobby: Countdown is the one that adds a picture that tells you how many days, hours, minutes, seconds until the event happens. And also, if you can set it up, it'll also tell you how long ago something happened. So if I wanted to know how long has it been since mom passed? I could set up a counter to do that too. So that's available too. It's called Countdown. So once called Count Time, that's the one that's a strict line. Countdown is the one that adds the picture to it. [00:36:09] Barry: Very cool. [00:36:10] Bobby: I use both of them because I like to have the one that picks out the top, the latest three that are happening. And then I want to focus on one that I know is happening, like my birthday or the end of the year or Christmas or, you know, Thanksgiving. So I put both of those show notes in it. They're very nice apps. They're single followers. I would encourage you. They are free, but I encourage you to donate to them so they will update them. I have actually spoken to both of the authors and they have maintained their app very well. So. And it actually runs on the latest version of Apple OS like iOS and macrosos, and they're actually working very hard to make sure it runs on the beta if it's coming out soon. So very nice apps have a lot of nice things to say about them and the implementation for them is pretty cool. So I'll put them in the show notes for you. [00:37:03] Barry: Awesome. That's fantastic. Well, I've got, I've got one that is not necessarily a caregiving related thing, but it is a tech thing that I like a lot and I think it might, it might appeal to, you know, there's a lot of folks who are, that are our age that when, when Covid started, you know, every, everybody who was in tech worked at home for the longest time and there's still a lot of people who do that. And over, over Covid, you know, we've got really, really good at doing things like Microsoft Teams and Zoom and Google Meet and all the video, the video meeting software that's out there. And one of the things that was tough for me was trying to figure out sometimes whether or not I was on mute or not. And I know you've, you've probably had that problem too. [00:37:46] Bobby: I love this one. I think I'm gonna have this one down too. [00:37:50] Barry: Well, I have bought a neat little device. Let me see if I can put it up here to the screen. It is a little bitty USB thing that you plug into a port. It's called Mute Me. And. Oh, there's multiple sizes of this thing, but this is the tiniest one that you can, that you can get. They make big buttons. When you have this thing plugged into a USB port, it recognizes that you're in Zoom. Or you're in teams, or you're in any of these things. And it can reflect the state of your mute situation. Yeah. So you can be. If you're off mute, if you're regular talking, it's green. If you're on mute, it's red. Or you can adjust that. You can make those colors be anything you want to, but you can also just reach down and touch it. And when you touch it, it's toggles, the mute. [00:38:38] Bobby: Gotta have it. Gotta have it. [00:38:40] Barry: Oh, yeah, gotta have it. And this one was relatively cheap, I think. I want to say this was 20 bucks or something. Something along those lines. Yeah. But if you look up mute me button on Amazon or Google, you'll find it, but. And again, they have multiple versions of this thing that are bigger. Like a great big old button on your desk that you can just slap if you want to. Don't go in between. But this was just enough to give me a visual indicator where I could tell what was going on. Because I spend a lot of time in those meetings and I even do some classes. That way I like, know when I'm off, off mute and when I'm on mute. So, yeah, I highly recommend it. It's called Mute Me. You can find it at all the online, Online real retailers. [00:39:17] Bobby: I'm downloading immediately. [00:39:19] Barry: There you go. Okay, well, I think that's about all I've got for today. Do you have anything else going on? [00:39:26] Bobby: No, you know, like I said, there's lots to do with mom's estate. I still have one more. Unfortunately, we have one more funeral to go to, so. Yeah, you know, and, you know, it's all. It's August for us, for. For me, that's when I have one of my vacations. So again, I'm looking forward to that kind of thing. So, yeah, it's been one of those summers, very unusual summer. But, you know, I'm trying to make the best of it and take the best. The best of the actions. You know, you can look at things half empty or half full. I'm trying really hard to look at it half full. So sometimes I'm good at that, sometimes I'm not. [00:40:01] Barry: Well, yeah, it's day to day, man. It's day to day. You know, one thing, I wanted to say this too. So I was able to get down to Bobby's mom's memorial service. And afterwards when we were all talking and shaking everybody's hands and we were all having a good thing, I got to meet some listeners. It was pretty cool. It was really Cool. [00:40:23] Bobby: They thought you were famous. [00:40:24] Barry: Podcast famous. That's funny. [00:40:26] Bobby: It was kind of funny. [00:40:27] Barry: But, yeah, they were just incredibly nice and welcoming and I just wanted to give a shout out to say, hey, thank you. Thank you all for being so nice. [00:40:34] Bobby: I know some of them are listening, so, yeah, I'm sure I'll get. I'll hear about it for sure. [00:40:39] Barry: For sure. That's cool. That's cool. All right, man, well, I think we can button it up. What do you think? [00:40:43] Bobby: I think so, too. [00:40:44] Barry: All right, well, we're glad. We're glad you guys took some time to. To listen to us or Watch us on YouTube if you happen to do. And we'd love to hear from you. If you've got any feedback or anything, you'd like to let us know about care tech and [email protected]. yep. [00:40:58] Bobby: And if you all like us on this, especially if you're using on YouTube, please make sure to subscribe and hit the notification so you can hear from us. I know we've been gone for a little while. We promise we're going to get back going. [00:41:09] Barry: We're going to work on that. We're going to. We're going to be back on a more regular basis here pretty soon. [00:41:13] Bobby: Absolutely. [00:41:14] Barry: All right. Take care, brother. [00:41:15] Bobby: Take care of you too, man. [00:41:17] Barry: Bye.