Please share your helpful tips ...what helps / helped you most when you started keeping track and paying your parent's or loved one's bills?

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Please share your helpful tips ...what helps / helped you most when you started keeping track and paying your parent's or loved one's bills?

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My father has been bouncing checks. His water and internet were turned off as a result and he's had to pay late fees. There are many more reasons. I'm really worn out from him and a lifetime chaos he has created. I would love some helpful suggestions to make it as least stressful as possible. I do need to be able to look at all activity on his accounts because he falls for scams. Thank you in advance.

Family Caregiver Financial Planning

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To help an elder (who’s appreciative), my husband has been systematically “helping.”

Signed up with the post office to get a photo of every piece of mail going to the mailbox.

Set up credit cards to send a text when a charge is made to the card.

Set up credit card online so he knows the login and password.

Balance the checkbook in Excel which gives access to the statements.

Grab the junk mail, call them and give them a new address (his) so he can trash it all.

Set up bills to autopay.

Get every account number, login and password.

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It helped me to be the ONLY one doing the bill paying, and all the financial work. My brother made me his POA and Trustee of Trust when he was diagnosed with Lewy's. I took on ALL accounts, all payments, all monies in and out and kept meticulous records of all for him when he was able to understand, and ongoing after. It would be impossible not to have complete control, or to have one doing something and the other repeating or redoing. My brother had his own spending account, which, if it were to run dry he would ask for more funds deposited. As it was he only GREW the account while he lived; he stayed true to form his whole life long as a saver careful of money. If your father doesn't wish you to take on all of it, then I wouldn't do any of it at all. He can work with a Licensed Financial Fiduciary to tell him what he wants him to take on and what he does not, and then it is all in their hands. If he won't do that he may well fall prey to scams. I STILL remember the day my bro called me and said "I know you reassure me and I have your accounting for this month that my Social Security arrived on the 4th and is in my account, but you you just reassure me, because I got a call from folks who say they are with Social Security and there's a problem on my account and they cannot put in my SS until I do as they tell me. It was easy to reassure him, but he was about to fall prey to the most common scam out there, one we are ALL aware of. And the amounts lost by elders to scams is horrific.
You can only protect your Dad if he allows it until/unless he is diagnosed as demented and unable to control his finances, and you get guardianship. That would be difficult and costly and a problem I would to be frank never take on. Just not up to it. I sure wish you luck. This was hard to do what with calling ALL entities, sending POA papers, etc, and that with someone wonderful, organized, and completely cooperative. I could never have done it otherwise.

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This is really helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time to thoughtfully reply. I'm so glad you suggested an alternative idea just in case he does not want me to handle it all. Thanks again, I hope you have a very healthy, happy Christmas and New Year.

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I would advise you to get your name added to his bank account. I did this as my mother is 93 and has dementia. She lives in a retirement home and is no longer capable of handling her finances. She was forgetting to pay bills so I arranged with the bank to have all bill payments come out of her account automatically. I can view her bank account on my cell phone so it's easy to check the balance, deposits and withdrawal. I give her money each week for her hair appt and extra for lunches out or whatever. Because of her bad memory and dementia we do not allow her to have checks or credit cards. That way if she were to get suspicious calls she has no credit card information to give out. You also should have a power of attorney document drawn up. I had POA for my mother prior to her moving into the retirement home. It's really important to have this document drawn up while your dad is still able to consent to it.

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The only problem with this is that it can be considered melding money, with the account being "unaccountable" in terms of Medicaid if qualifications are needed etc. It is so much better to be put on as POA. But letting the elder law attorney answered questions as to what is best in any individual case is best. I think we have folks who have done it one or the other way perhaps half and half on forum.

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Mmm777: Before I had to move in with my mother from out of state, I signed off on her town's bookkeeper to balance her checkbook. This individual was VERY inadequate. She was off to the tune of $659 FOR NINE MONTHS. My mother stated "She'll get it right on month number ten." My response "No, she is done; she is to balance on the first month." My mother was also sending way too much of her limited income to charity organizations when they called her on the telephone. I put a halt to that by placing a block on the caller. Also, one of her bill payments was lost in the mail. She automatically paid the late fee. I instructed her that she should not have done so as it wasn't her fault. In addition, she barely possessed $12 to pay the late fee and that I could have telephoned the company to waive the late fee, but it was a moot point as it was too late.

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I was already on my dad’s accounts when I went to the bank and switched all his banking to my control. He was in the hospital at the time and I told him nothing. I moved all his bills to be emailed to me, forwarded his mail to my home, and got all banking moved online. Once he was back home I showed him a 3 ring binder I’d made with all his monthly bills listed, amounts, date paid, and confirmation numbers. There was nothing hidden. I expected an explosion. Instead he accepted it, loved how he could see it all, and seemed relieved.

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Thank you for taking the time to comment. This is really good. Your dad is lucky to have you. Im glad he didn't get mad bc it sounds like you were / are doing a wonderful job of it. Thank you and happy holidays

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As others have said, if you wish to do this for him, get POA. Read up on what it means, to reassure you about how you can protect yourself. It does not mean that you will be liable for his bills, unless those bills are billed to you, personally. Bills with his name on them are his, and all POA does is allow you to spend his money and do business in his name, in his interest, to deal with his legal/financial issues. (A place to start: https://info.legalzoom.com/article/power-attorney-liable-debts ). It's like taking a job where you handle money at work: you keep records, don't mix money, don't put your name on anything that is his debt, etc. You can also refuse the role at any time, if you find it's too much.

If you don't wish to do this for him, then call your local Council on Aging/Aging Services and say that he needs someone to help take over his finances (needs a fiduciary). You don't have to take all this on if you can't - they can get someone else to manage this aspect for him. As someone else mentioned, no one can make him give up control if he is still legally competent, but CoA can help start a case for him and get him what help he'll agree to.

When I took over my father's finances, I did what others suggested: got POA, had him add my name to his one checking account, had checks made with both my name ([my name], POA) and his on them, got access to his email, set up online accounts for his bills, and then either changed the bills to paperless (notices coming to his email that I monitor), or changed the mailing address so bills come to me (don't change the name on the account, though - you want them to be charged to him, and you just pay them). I monitored his mail for several months, then had it forwarded to my home address to catch everything, contacting companies/agencies in his stead when I saw it was needed, to change mailing address/billing preferences. His money goes directly into the shared checking account (which only holds HIS money), and when bills come, I pay them online or via check from that account. Then, when it seemed he didn't need them (and that him having them at his facility was just an opportunity to lose them), with his permission I now keep his checkbook and credit cards with me. He has a small account with his AL facility for what little spending money he wants. This ensures that he has some spending money, but he doesn't need to remember to pay bills, and he has no way to get confused and give a scammer money.

Good luck. I know this is hard.

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First, do you have POA over finances? If not, please get that in place immediately. You will want a durable or enduing, (name varies by jurisdiction) for his finances. While you are at it, get the Healthcare on put in place too.

Easiest is if you can fully take over the bank account and take Dad's cheque book away.

Set up as many of his recurring bills on autopay as you can. Make sure you are getting email copies of the bills or have online access to the billing company.

Do not pay any of Dad's bills with your own funds or out of your funds to be reimbursed. This creates a nightmare to unravel in the future.

I am a numbers girl. I love spread sheets, my local credit union allows me to download my banking information into a spreadsheet, then I can categorize everything.

To allow Dad to still feel he has some independence you can leave one account with a small balance for him to have access to. I woudl suggest just letting him have a debit card on the account, not a cheque book, as he cannot go into overdraft on a debit card.

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I don't have POA yet. I have been worried about liability. I just wonder if anyone can sue me or find me liable for problems he creates if I have POA. He is a very stubborn person to say it nicely. He does not respect me. There is an issue at the moment concerning him driving a car and he wants to keep living independently. My parents have been extremely difficult throughout my life and I'm worn out. I wish I had not moved back when I moved after college. I want to help him even though it really stresses me out but I don't want to be liable.

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If 'we' had been smarter, as the 'kids', we would have x-ferred all of mom's bills to online banking, cancelled all CC's, and then given her a cash allowance for groceries, etc. back after her 1st knee replacement when she was in a rehab for 6 weeks. She still writes checks and they are coming back as 'unreadable'--her handwriting is so bad. She is proud of the fact she can still write her checks and balance her checkbook and the FPOA is not going to take that away from her. So much has been 'taken over' and she feels marginalized.

BUT, she has shopped a lot from catalogs, then returns the items and won't pay the shipping and that has gotten her in trouble. Again--if she didn't have access to a couple of credit cards, this would not happen.

So, someday, I hope I am with it enough to know that I will need my eldest daughter to help me with finances. Right now I do the entirety of it and it's 99% online.

I can see, however, that someone who is not the least bit tech friendly would balk at not being to 'write checks'--and lose that feeling of control.

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Get a locked mail box and collect the mail . Get POA and see what's going on with His statements . I sort thru the mail and get rid of people looking for Money and other scams . Get the POA thru his bank that way they Know who you are .

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I scanned thru the suggestions and did not see anyone say to set up auto pay. Bills will be sent to an email, and auto drafted from his account. Set up the email/use his existing account and have the password so you can see the bills. Manage the account online to balance the check book and ensure there are funds to cover the drafts.

I did this years ago for my mother and did not need to invoke any POA. Rather, I just called each bill with her sitting next to me and she gave verbal approval for me to continue the conversation.

The only bill my mom writes a check for is her credit card. And, I set up an auto draft for minimum balance if her check is late so she doesn't get additional fees (the customer service agent suggested that to me, which I really appreciated). The auto draft cleans up mom's mail which was overwhelming her, and made bills simple for me to manage easily on my phone.

I feel sorry for anyone who is actually writing checks for routine bills in 2022.

Please share your helpful tips ...what helps / helped you most when you started keeping track and paying your parent's or loved one's bills?

17 Answers

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