Parents of a Child with Special Needs: Fund Your Child’s Future and Protect Your Own Retirement, in the Same Plan
Without turning your life into paperwork, even if you already have a Special Needs Trust and an advisor, and you don’t have to be wealthy to do it.
A free 90-minute workshop with Michael Ringel, CPA, RICP, ChSNC, author of Planning for Two Lifetimes.
- Date
- Wednesday,October 28, 2026
- Time
- 7:00 PM ET(that’s 6:00 PM CT / 4:00 PM PT)
- Where
- Live on Zoom.100 seats. Replay available for 48 hours; the live-attendance bonus is not.
Hosted by Michael Ringel, CPA, RICP, ChSNC, Founder of Special Needs Wealth Planning and author of Planning for Two Lifetimes
SAVE MY SEATHERE’S JUST A FRACTION OF WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
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Step 1
Get Organized
The problem
Most families’ financial life is a junk drawer. The old 401(k), group life through work, benefit letters, an ABLE account, a trust off to the side. None of it connected, none of it intentional. And nobody can plan from a drawer.
The solution
Get Organized. Five buckets, one place for everything, and the projection that shows you where your family lands if nothing changes.
The result
A family in their early forties with three children, including a daughter with autism, came in overwhelmed. Once their junk drawer was in order, they could see where they stood, and every decision after that got smaller. One parent who finished this step said, “When I finished our binder, I felt lighter, like I finally knew where our life was.”
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Step 2
Identify the Gaps
The problem
The gaps that hurt special needs families are almost never inside the trust document. They’re around it. A beneficiary form that still says “my children equally.” An account that’s been in your child’s name for years. A successor caregiver who’s never actually been asked.
The solution
Identify the Gaps. The Beneficiary Gap, the Benefits Gap, and the Succession Gap, checked one at a time, in that order.
The result
A family whose parents’ will left everything directly to their son, James, saw him lose Medicaid and SSI overnight; his siblings spent years untangling it. That’s the gap this step is built to catch first. As one father put it after his own review: “I thought I had everything squared away, until I found out my daughter’s inheritance was set up in a way that disqualified her from Medicaid. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
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Step 3
Build the Two Lifetimes Strategy
The problem
“Can we retire and still provide for our child?” feels like a fear because most families have never seen both lifetimes on the same page. So they over-save out of fear, or under-plan out of hope.
The solution
Build the Two Lifetimes Strategy. Map your child’s lifetime gap, put both lifetimes on one page, and fund the future out of real cash flow, never out of your retirement.
The result
Both parents were 64, one retired, one part-time, with a son in a group home and a married son. We built a stand-alone third-party trust for their son and funded it with one survivorship policy on both parents, at a premium the analysis showed would not reduce their retirement income. Their other son inherits the home. Everything else, fifty-fifty. They left the meeting confident.
Family situations are drawn from Michael’s book, Planning for Two Lifetimes; names and identifying details have been changed.
Check YES if:
I’m Michael Ringel, and I help parents of a child with special needs plan for two lifetimes: theirs and their child’s.
On paper, I’m a CPA, a Retirement Income Certified Professional, and a Chartered Special Needs Consultant. I’ve been in financial services since 2004, and I founded Special Needs Wealth Planning to spend my time entirely on families like yours. I wrote the book Planning for Two Lifetimes, and I’ve spoken to families through organizations including Autism NJ, Autism Today, the Autism Society, and the Arc of New Jersey.
I didn’t start here. For years I did what most advisors do: retirement plans, investments, insurance, one problem at a time. And I kept watching that approach fail special needs families, because it modeled the parents’ retirement beautifully and never once integrated the child’s lifelong needs, benefits, and trust funding. Or it did the reverse: protected the child and left the parents afraid to spend.
What changed me was the families. My wife Melanie is a speech pathologist who has spent her career in early intervention. My daughter Sydney teaches in an inclusive special education classroom in New York City. There are family members on different ends of the autism spectrum in my own life. And in every school and parent group I spoke to, the questions were the same: “What happens when we’re gone?” “How do we protect benefits?” “Will my other children be okay?”
So I built a process that answers them in order. The Two Lifetimes Blueprint is what my partner Ian and I run with every family: get organized, find the gaps, build the strategy, implement it with your attorney and CPA, and keep it reviewed as life changes.
What I believe: a Special Needs Trust is not a financial plan. It’s a legal container. Families shouldn’t have to guess their way through their child’s financial future, or their own. You’re planning for two lifetimes.
LIVE ATTENDANCE BONUS
A printed copy of Planning for Two Lifetimes, mailed to your home ([VALUE] value)
Show up live and I’ll send you the physical book, along with my Letter of Intent guide and Emergency Caregiver Plan template, so you can start your Family Essentials binder the same week.
Available only to live attendees of Planning for Two Lifetimes for Parents of a Child with Special Needs.
Planning for Two Lifetimes for Parents of a Child with Special Needs
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 · 7:00 PM ET
The trust was the first step. This is the plan. One workshop, 90 minutes, both lifetimes on one page. Show up live.