You Might Also Like: A Better Way to Money

**Candace Dellacona** (0:00)
You cannot help other people if you are in a crisis. You know, that old expression, being on an airplane and putting the oxygen mask on yourself first, because you will not be helpful to anyone else if you can't keep your head above water.

**Jennifer Borget** (0:17)
Welcome back to A Better Way to Money. I'm Jennifer Borget. You know that feeling when you're doing something really hard and then another really hard thing gets thrown your way? That's the situation half of middle-aged Americans find themselves in, as they care for their own children while taking on more responsibility for their aging parents. If that sounds familiar, if you're paying for daycare while also trying to figure out your mom's memory care, you might be part of what's called The Sandwich Generation. The financial pressure alone can be crushing and it can feel like there's no roadmap. Today's guest, Candace Dellacona, has made it her life's work to create that roadmap. She's an attorney at Offit Kerman, who works with families in exactly this situation. She documented all as the host of The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide podcast. We're going to talk about the steps to take before a crisis hits, the financial blind spots that cost people the most, and how to protect your own future, even when you're focused on taking care of everyone else's. If you're ready to get ahead of this or if you're already in the thick of it, download our free Family Finances Workbook at northwesternmutual.com/podcast.
We'll put a link in the description. All right, let's dig in.
So, okay, you've given yourself a pretty specific title, I know. Sandwich Generation Lawyer. So for people who don't understand this or have any idea what this means, can you give us an idea?

**Candace Dellacona** (1:38)
So, you know, as many of us kind of in the sandwich generation, we're trying to raise our children into good, responsible, productive humans. And we find ourselves in kind of a role reversal with our parents and our aging loved ones.
And in a position to have to advocate for them too, and sort of keep them on track as they age. And I think there's a lot of pressure that kind of goes along with it, which is why the moniker of the sandwich generation came to fruition, because we're sort of stuck in the middle. We're trying to manage two factions of people while not losing ourselves in the interim.

**Jennifer Borget** (2:18)
And that's like a lot of pressure for us that are in the middle of that. I mean, I feel like I'm not quite there yet. My mom's mom is still alive, my grandmother. So I feel like she's like right in the middle of that sandwich generation probably, because her youngest, my youngest sister is just going to college and things like that. So would you say that's kind of like the age?

**Candace Dellacona** (2:39)
Definitely. And you know, it's really not the actual age, Jen. I think it's more the feeling of being in the middle.
I represent a lot of different types of clients, including professional athletes, for example, who are quite young, and they are in the middle of the sandwich generation. Oftentimes, in their own families, they are the ones with resources and are able to help other family members, so they're relied upon. So I don't really like to sort of exclude it by age. It really is sort of what your family makeup is. And I say family, too, in the loosest definition as well, because family can look like different things to different people.

**Jennifer Borget** (3:19)
And you started a podcast to tackle this topic head on. What were you hearing from people that made you think like, okay, this was a real need that people need to listen to?

**Candace Dellacona** (3:29)
It came from my taking care of my uncle, who lived here in Manhattan in the West Village, and he was gay without children. He was diagnosed with cancer, and I became his sort of sole caregiver slash care organizer slash everything else related to keeping him safe and comfortable in his apartment that he had lived in for 40 plus years. And I really sort of felt overwhelmed and I guess in some ways alone in that struggle and not feeling like I was doing a great job caring for him and then trying to raise my kids and run my own law practice. So I felt like once he passed away, I wanted to figure out a way to provide resources to other people to make it a little easier for them.
And podcasts are free. And for those of us in our generation and younger, it's where we receive a lot of information, where we learn about different topics. So I thought it could be a great opportunity to provide those particularly free resources to people like me that were just trying to figure it out and do our best.