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Best wishes from everyone at Lifespan for a healthy, joy-filled, and prosperous New Year. HCO# 444700020 600 Frederick Street • Santa Cruz, CA 95062 • (831) 469-4900 • www.lifespancare.com Home Care Personalized care up to 24 hours a day by experienced and registered home care aides. Enhancing life and finding joy through activities that increase engagement, fulfillment, and a sense of connection. Well-Being Program Care management promotes peace of mind through professional, person-centered assessment, coordination of personal care, medical, and social needs. Care Management AGING CARE YOU CAN TRUST SINCE 1983 COVID Pandemic is changing family decisions By Donald Dimitruk, RFC ® ,RMA The COVID Pandemic is changing the way family decisions are made about care for elders. Avoiding nurs- ing homes and keeping loved ones in their homes for quality of life, rehabilitation and other care, facilitated by a Reverse Mortgage, is an option that has many advantages. Fearing isolation and infection, the number one desire for seniors is to age in place in a country that has the largest numbers of nursing home residents in the world! Accom- plishing this takes some financial planning and sometimes a bit of remodeling but the reward and satisfaction brought to this stage of life can be priceless! Remember that a home still appreciates at 100% of the going market rate weather it is owned free and clear or carries a mort- gage. Some Good News! The Federal Housing Finance Agency, FHFA, raised the conform- ing loan limit for the fih consecutive year to $822,375 from $765,600, an increase of $56,775. Although FHFA does not have authority over Reverse Mort- gages, the Federal Housing Authority, FHA, does and has typically aligned with the new Fannie and Freddie limits in previ- ous years. This is an important change for the home- owner over 62 consid- ering a Reverse Mort- gage for the first time as well as those con- sidering a refinance of an existing reverse to take advantage of the recent reduction in the PMI annual cost from 1.25% to 0.50%! According to FHFA's Housing Price Index, home prices have increased nationally by an average of 7.42% between the third quarters of 2019 and 2020. Google says that the typical home value in Santa Cruz is $1,033,026 and has gone up 9% in the past year. That's an increase of $92,972 in equity! Zillow predicts home prices to increase by 10.5% next year making financial planning with a Reverse Mortgage an even more interesting opportunity than ever. Having access to some of the built-up equity in your home is a safety net feature that may allow you to deal with life's changes on you own terms, with confidence that you are as prepared as you can be! Donald Dimitruk is a Registered Financial Consultant ® and a Registered Mortgage Advisor and is avail- able for a free con- sultation about how a Reverse Mortgage may benefit you at 831- 464-6464. What have we learned from 2020? by Kristina Kuprina of Sequoia Wealth Advisors We have learned how quickly our life and our plans can change… We have learned how flexible and adaptable we really are… We have learned what is truly important… As a financial planner, I've had the great honor of working with my cli- ents during some of the most significant events in their lives. Different life events change the conversation in different ways. A loss of a loved one, wheth- er it be from divorce or death oen leads to "What's next? who am I now? where will I live? what will my life be life moving forward?" Aer a terminal diagnosis, the conversation chang- es from "How is my portfolio doing?" to having open-hearted discussions about love and the people, places and experiences that means so much to them. Something that has affected me greatly over the years is when I'm listening to people express regret. As if waking from a dream, these dear clients and friends take stock of their lives clearly for the first time and I watch them come to the painful conclusion that they wasted too much time focused on the wrong things. Conversations like these have lit a fire deep in my heart, My purpose became clear. I wanted to be in ser- vice, to help as many people as I can plan their life around their purpose. Americans tend to fill spiritual and emotion- al holes with money, material possession or distractions. They shovel enormous energy in this with the hopes of filling some- thing up. But spiritual vacuums are more like whirlpools than holes. You can toss all the money in the world down a hole and never find its bottom. Humans love to project human characteristics upon money. We my- thologize it. We describe it as good or evil. Some worship money. Others fear it. We vilify those who have a lot as greedy and those who have little as lazy. Money can get wrapped up with our identity, with our sense of self, and that's a very potent cocktail. Here's the good news! Money, and fi- nancial decision-mak- ing is just a tool, one of the many available in your toolbox to assist you in achieving your life's purpose and you don't need to wait until the end of your life to find this. You can begin the journey of financial consciousness and reach a place of true wisdom, content- ment, and prosperity right now. What's financial con- sciousness? A compre- hensive awareness and understanding of your financial decisions and how they connect with nearly every aspect of your life. Think of finan- cial consciousness as a highly customized, but fluid road map to your greater purpose. What is your greater purpose? That's what we aim to find out! Instead of worrying or obsessing about a "retirement number "or if you have enough or are doing "all the right things", I invite you to dive headfirst into the joy and mystery of true self-discovery. Go beyond the numbers to see how to plan for a rich, meaningful, and purposeful life. If purposeful deci- sion-making aligned with your values and intention is something you wish to achieve in 2021 I would love to hear your story! Provided photo of Kristina Kuprina

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