Financial help for aging parents

[janegold]

deleted.

[Cappy]

I'm sorry! We are sort of on the cusp of this with my family. I'm an only child with young kids of my own so I feel you on that sandwich feeling hitting fast. I'm thinking your best success would be to put effort into actively engaging MIL in learning and taking ownership. She may have delegated all this time but she needs to step up and learn bc legally she's the one who has more power in the situation. Otherwise you will be looking at POA which might be hard. Try to get them set up with as many online accounts as you can so you can have some form of surveillance. I favorited their properties in Zillow to make sure nothing gets listed (long story) and check their property tax payments as well.

ETA: Maybe also do free credit pulls to see if there are any dangling loans/accounts. 

[tacokick]

Are they close by? Can you trust them to save mail for you? My mom did everything and died in September so I’ve been dealing with my dad. I have all their financial records/house upkeep info at my house. He reads then keeps the mail and I pick it up periodically to go over it. The mail helps a lot because they didn’t do much online. You could also get USPS to do informed delivery and have the scans sent to your email. That might help you track down some banks/loans.

I got medical and financial power of attny over my dad. He added me to his accounts and I set up online accounts to monitor. He is mentally functioning fine but hasn’t dealt with anything financial or medical since he married my mom 40+ years ago and is really overwhelmed with it.

I do near daily check ins and talk him through doing things like making doctors appointments/oil delivery etc as needed. I keep a calendar of his appointments, scheduled house maintenance, when bills are due and either pay them myself or have him pay and I check to make sure the checks were cashed.

I have never been close to my father at all and it’s a huge change. My mom was pretty private about money. I’m lucky that he 100% accepts he isn’t the best at these things and needs help. He is also very appreciative of my help. It is still A LOT.

Maybe your MIL could be helpful getting your FIL to cooperate since she knows she doesn’t know the details but needs them? It sounds like a tricky dynamic, I’m sorry! Its better to know now and deal than try to piece it together after a death.

Maybe your MIL can take over some things too once you get them organized since she seems more with it and can be looped in? I do not want to do things like schedule my dad’s appointments/repairs for him or deal directly with his doctors or workers like my mom did so I’ve talked him through taking ownership with that. Even if it means basically outlining a script of what he should say and answers to various scenarios. He’s become more comfortable handling these things. He even handled some house emergencies without my help which I don’t think he could have done even a few months ago.

[janegold]

Cappy, yes - I told my H to get their SSNs and pull credit reports today, and my plan to is get as much as possible set up online with email notifications to all of us. And you're right, I need to focus not just on fixing all of this but on educating and empowering MIL, too.

tacokick , yikes, that sounds like a huge amount of work. It's hard enough to do those things for one family - but you're basically running two. I do hope that MIL will be open to taking a more active role here. She is easily overwhelmed and doesn't have much wherewithal for new things, but maybe this will be a bit of a wake-up call for her. Luckily, they do live nearby, just a couple miles away. We moved here last year to be closer - mostly because they were supposed to help us with the kids, but also so we would be nearby for them when they needed us in the future (or, as it turns out, now). I'll look into usps informed delivery, that would be hugely helpful. Thank you.

[dr.girlfriend]

I am sorry you have to deal with this. My dad had bipolar disorder, and he was very secretive about his finances, so my mom was never involved in anything. Due to other behaviors on his part, she started to divorce him after 50 years of marriage, and then he passed away. I feel like I've spent a huge chunk of the past two years just dealing with their legal and financial stuff, but fortunately they at least had considerable assets despite my dad's at-times crazy plans. Here's some of the stuff we did. It may not all be applicable to your situation, but maybe some things to think about.  Luckily, she moved to a retirement community where she's just renting and almost all bills are included in a big monthly charge, which simplifies things:

1. Made sure we had power of attorney and medical power of attorney for her and she had an updated will
2. Made sure we were listed as beneficiaries on any existing accounts, and had access to accounts where that was allowed (e.g. they had created a 529 for my son that I now have access to manage)
3. Consolidated everything to a few accounts -- one checking/savings and one investment account with a financial manager
4. Moved her investment assets to "safe" investments
5. Made a list of all her bills and passwords and put every recurring bill on autopay
6. Froze all her credit -- she got phone scammed so this became more urgent
7. Added myself as proxy on her medical portal -- I get notifications of her doctor's visits, have access to notes from those visits, etc.
8. Divested from any complicated investments (e.g. foreign accounts, etc.).
9. Got someone to do taxes for her
10. Installed Lyft on her phone so that she has transportation when she sold her car

That's all I can think of right now...good luck!  You may need to consult an attorney familiar with elder issues if your FIL is resistant and needs to be declared incompetent to handle his own affairs, but hopefully it won't come to that.

[tacokick]

Feb 25, 2021 14:04:48 GMT -5 janegold said:

Cappy, yes - I told my H to get their SSNs and pull credit reports today, and my plan to is get as much as possible set up online with email notifications to all of us. And you're right, I need to focus not just on fixing all of this but on educating and empowering MIL, too.

tacokick , yikes, that sounds like a huge amount of work. It's hard enough to do those things for one family - but you're basically running two. I do hope that MIL will be open to taking a more active role here. She is easily overwhelmed and doesn't have much wherewithal for new things, but maybe this will be a bit of a wake-up call for her. Luckily, they do live nearby, just a couple miles away. We moved here last year to be closer - mostly because they were supposed to help us with the kids, but also so we would be nearby for them when they needed us in the future (or, as it turns out, now). I'll look into usps informed delivery, that would be hugely helpful. Thank you.

It is not fun lol and it is a lot. But! It really isn’t horrible. Luckily my mom was pretty organized and they kept a good calendar about when they had appointments so I could sort of reverse engineer things. I had him do all his annual appointments back to back in the fall so they are done. I have him pay any bills he can at once (car insurance, preordering oil and propane for the house) so that’s not monthly. Consolidating accounts and services helps.

Your MIL being with it and your FIL being around will probably help too. He might remember once you start going over things. Taking over for my mom after her death is hard because there are so many little things she’d 100% know the answer to but obviously I can’t ask her. If you get things under control now you will be making your own life so much easier if they both start to decline (further).

[tacokick]

Oh, I would get not only their SSN but drivers license numbers/expiration dates. For some reason I keep needing them for various forms as back up verification.

[Covergirl82]

One of my friends had to step in to help her parents get back on track financially. Her mom is a recovering hoarder (my friend dug out entire rooms of her parents' house and helped her mom sell or give away most of the hoarded things), and had gotten them in some cc debt. My friend did what you mentioned - go through everything and gathered a list of debts, etc., set up online accounts, and set up a budget. But then my friend managed everything financially for her parents - monitored bank accounts online, paid bills (whatever she didn't set up as an automatic payment), and made sure they were on track with their budget. It took a few years, but my friend's parents are now out of debt and actually have some money in savings. Good luck! It sounds like a delicate and stressful situation, so I am hoping for the best and that you are able to get everything figured out and get them back on sound financial footing.

[janegold]

dr.girlfriend, super helpful, thank you!

[flygirl]

I have not dealt with this but a friend of mine did. Her IL’s seemed like they were financially well off-taking their children/their families on multiple extravagant trips, they had high end cars, etc. The MIL had tons of health issues and I’m guessing the FIL thought she would go first and he’d deal with the poor choices he had made-but he died suddenly of a heart attack. The MIL had no involvement in their finances so friend and her H had to pull it all together. Like someone else suggested, I would pull credit to see where their might be loans, try to find financial advisor info, and assuming due to their age, they probably write checks a lot so I’d go thru and see where bills might have been paid to. You could also look at their taxes to see if they received 1099s from anywhere.
I hope your process is easier-my friend who thought the ILs were wealthy found $100k on multiple credit cards, high car loans, several very small investments that were spread over 4-5 places and he also had chosen to not do survivor benefits on his pension. They also discovered one of the siblings was getting money every month from them...it was a disaster and even a year later they would get stuff on the mail for items they didn’t know about. The MIL made it easier by giving POA so friend could make calls and set up online access,

[hbomdiggity]

Ditto dr girlfriend.

My dad is having memory issues so my sister has taken over his finances. Thankfully she is now an empty nester and has the time. She also worked in medical billing so that is helpful too.

In addition to the POA, she has direct contact with my dad’s wealth manager and instructed WM to contact her if my dad makes large buy/sell orders.

[Wallflower]

janegold, I'm so sorry that this is happening to your family. I don't have many great tips, but I do handle my mother's finances for her. I've set up a document in a shared DropBox folder with all the financial information (account numbers, URLs, login credentials) so that my brother/SIL could access this info if they ever need to. I do that for transparency but also because should anything happen to me, they could take over.

[simpsongal]

If it's any consolation re: the timing, this likely has to happen now or as they get closer to their final years. Let's hope your early intervention makes everything easier for all involved. I too am getting slowly involved in my mom's finances since my dad passed unexpectedly last year. She's competent but not great with finance stuff, and she doesn't use a computer. She called me concerned about an outstanding Amazon bill - it was a phone scam, she's never had Amazon again, b/c she doesn't use computers

One more consideration that I don't think was mentioned, I would talk to them about their previous employment to run down if they have an unclaimed pensions or 401Ks. Sometimes you can check state websites for unclaimed funds and assets. PBGC also has a missing participant program for pensions.

ETA: I'm guessing it was mentioned with the POA recs, but make sure they have wills, including ones that specify their final wishes re: funeral/burial.    

[magic]

I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. You mentioned that you have really young kids so I imagine you have a lot on your own plate (even more so with the pandemic). Are you in a position to hire someone to help piece together their finances? If so, I might consider enlisting help to ease the burden on you.

[janegold]

magic, it is a lot to deal with. I think MIL and FIL would really prefer not to entrust this to a stranger. Last year, I tried to hire them a home organizer just to help them with their personal possessions, and they didn't even want a stranger to help them with that.

I'm an attorney so I generally am well-equipped to deal with sorting through everything but time is an issue. I am hoping that if I can just carve out a few hours every weekend to work with them on this, that we can get things straightened out without it spilling over into the rest of my life too much. (Of course, I've barely been productive at work the last 36 hours so clearly I'm not doing a very good job of segregating things so far.)

[dr.girlfriend]

janegold,I would add that if possible, enlist help from others. IDK if your spouse is an only child, but if not you can definitely divide tasks up between siblings. For example, my sister did all the online bills part while I was in charge of chasing down my dad's various retirement accounts and filling out beneficiary information to get them transferred into my mom's consolidated account. TBH it was very fortunate they were divorcing, because my dad had to provide a list of assets to the divorce attorney a few months before his death, otherwise we would have been CLUELESS since he had so many different accounts squirreled away in different areas.

If your in-laws won't accept paid help, can you pay someone to take other tasks off your plate while you deal with this? Meal delivery, childcare, dog walkers, whatever it takes to make your total time burden not overwhelming?

[janegold]

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[dr.girlfriend]

janegold , Big hugs to you. Alcoholism was a big part of my dad's problems, both in combination with and in conjunction with his bipolar disorder. I had long suspected that maybe he had some kind of dementia going on as well, but it was hard to sort from the other issues. The imaging from the stroke he had that led to his death supported that there was likely some frontotemporal dementia going on. Sometimes these things feed off each other -- disinhibition leads to greater drinking, which leads to more neurological damage, liver dysfunction with cognitive impact, etc. And then if people get all their calories from alcohol they can develop a Korsakoff's dementia. All this to say is that it can be really hard to watch the person you knew become eroded by these issues, and endanger their legacy -- like I said earlier, my mom was divorcing my dad at the age of 81, after FIFTY years of marriage, which is a measure of just how far he pushed her, and we (his daughters) were only able to maintain a civil relationship with him by some very determined ignoring of his worst behaviors. I'm glad you're there to support your husband through this, and I hope you are able to wrestle these problems down to a manageable level.

[pinkplasticdoll]

Hugs man , it's hard. My father had a tbi from falling down the stairs while drunk when dd1 was 4 months old and I was the lucky individual appointed to handle his affairs. I will say that it's a challenge at times but my dad is incredibly cheap which helps support his liquor store/ beer habit. Please feel free to pm me If you need an ear or help or basically whatever, I have been there while holding my own life together with small kids and health issues of my own.

[Wallflower]

janegold, I wish I had some wise words to help you and your H through all of this, but you will be in my thoughts.

[numbers]

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. We were in a similar situation a few years ago.

Feb 26, 2021 8:42:17 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

One more consideration that I don't think was mentioned, I would talk to them about their previous employment to run down if they have an unclaimed pensions or 401Ks.

This! I ended up finding an old 401k worth $X that he had forgotten about. (PDQ)

[janegold]

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[simpsongal]

janegold, I'm so sorry. I hope that you guys can plow through the finance piece so your MIL and the rest of you can focus on helping your FIL (should he want help). Eventually, you or your DH may want to attend an Al anon meeting, perhaps with your MIL.

[janegold]

deleted

[aprilsails]

Big hugs janegold. Alcoholism and denial are so tough to sort through. I’m sorry that this is adding another layer to the issues at hand.

My FIL had a TBI from a motorcycle accident 16 years ago. His doctors told MIL to watch out for early signs of dementia. He’s 70 this year and it’s happening, and alcohol is also a factor according to MIL. We have limited means to help them at this time because he is super Covid paranoid. He’s also a PhD and is telling MIL that she’s wrong about everything when he is clearly incorrect, so I foresee a lot of trouble in convincing him to seek treatment. MIL says that she is managing and he’s not bad yet, but I am dreading when we are able to actually get in there and have a real conversation with him and can evaluate the current state of affairs.

And yes, dementia and mental impairment can lead to overconsumption of alcohol. Immediately after his TBI FIL started drinking like a fish, which was not exactly conducive to the healing process. Basically he was sundowning every day because he was mentally exhausted, and was drinking because then he could attribute feeling off to alcohol rather than facing the reality of his injuries. So much denial all around.