How Do You Help Elderly Parents With Finances?
• Begin your money discussions with your parents when they retire. • Discuss where their sources of income are coming from (e.g. pension checks, annuities and/or Social Security), and ask them to keep an up-to-date document with this information. • Find out what institutions are holding the money. • Ask them to sign power of attorney documents. • Make sure to have this discussion early enough, if you are unable to catch them at retirement age, that their memory capabilities are still intact. Otherwise a large amount of time will probably be spent piecing together the parts of your parents’ financial puzzle. • Automate your parents’ regular transactions so as not to lose checks or forget to pay something. • Set up their Social Security and other income checks to be direct deposited into their bank. • Sign up elderly parents to have utility payments debited from their account. • Reconcile their lists against past tax forms to confirm that you are accounting for all of the income. • Revie
