Elderly parents and finances…

[itscomplicatedagain]

My parents are late 70’s and 85. In fairly good health and reasonably comfortable financially.

My main concern is how my mother will cope when my father dies.
She’s incredibly dependent on him to manage finances and things like central heating controls, driving, turning the TV on and off and other basic tasks as she finds it too complicated. I don’t think she has any cognitive problems but it’s a combination of laziness, anxiety and enjoying being looked after by my father. She has always been the queen in their relationship.

Their adult children including me, tiptoe around her as she can be volatile, and stubborn and always has been. She is a black and white thinker and incredibly lacking in self awareness.

She told me recently that she has no wish to learn anything about her finances but that I will have to sort it out for her when my father isn’t around.
My other siblings aren’t as local to them as me apart from a brother who has a high flying career and is and therefore ‘too busy’ to help- my mother’s words.

I’m a single parent with 3 children and two of them have additional needs and I work 4 days a week.
I feel resentful about her assumptions and frustrated by her refusal to take any responsibility. I feel I don’t have a choice but to step up when the time comes. How do others manage the resentment? I feel selfish but I do help them out with small tasks already and make an effort to see them at least twice a week. I also take them on holiday sometimes.

Maybe she could hire a PA through somewhere like Age UK. Obviously that won't help with things like the TV channel but for an hour or so a week to keep on top of finances it would not cost a lot.

Your mum may well die before your dad.

I think you need to be totally upfront and tell her you have enough on your plate and simply won't be available to handhold her through the rest of her life when your father dies.
There will be kickback I am sure but she now has time to sort herself out and either get her act together or rope in your siblings.
I would also have a word with your father...

Have they got wills and poa in place?

Thanks for the suggestions of hiring a PA and telling her now I won’t be able to help a lot.
My father doesn’t like to rock the boat and at 85 it’s anything for a quiet life.
luckily I got their wills and POA sorted a few years ago.

I think it’s the entitlement I find hard. She may well die before him but it’s sadly more likely he will go first being 8 years older.

I can totally relate to your post, OP - is could have written it myself.
X

My mother is the same. Takes no responsibility for anything.

I’m ashamed to say I’m the same.. although a lot younger, and I let my dh do everything. It’s laziness and there’s no other excuse! I’m aware though that as I get older I’ll have to be doing more as i don't want to put it on my kids..

I think to some extent, most very long term relationships have elements like this. We each have our jobs - I do the bills, finances etc, but have no idea how to turn the TV on! To quote Mackenzie Crook, “its a complicated process with three remotes that I’ve never got to grips with” we are only 40’s/50’s.🤣
I think this is the type of issue that you shouldn’t worry about too much - it might never happen, and most likely other issues will cause you more grief. If it does work out how you’re dreading, a PA type person is a good suggestion.

My DM is similar. Been a lady of leisure her entire marriage & has no idea if anything. This is partially DF's fault as it's suited him to be free with the money management.

I already know we're going to have to untangle DF's messy finances, sell the house to repay a 250k debt to a wealthy family member (DF lost all their money). Then figure out if there's enough left to house DM, manage her money, bills etc & govt pension, pay her an allowance, and look after getting her around as she won't have a licence by then. Her DM lived to 101 & she looks to be the same. DB is too busy having a lifestyle to help out. DF is still alive, but older & very frail.

I'm resentful as hell, mostly because she did zero for us growing up & I'm expected to spend the equivalent of the time she should have spent looking after me ensuring she doesn't have to be bothered looking after herself. Can't bow out, unfortunately.

This sounds harsh but simply don’t do it. She’s doing herself no favours cognitively by refusing to learn basic adult skills.

Of course you can bow out. You don’t HAVE to help, but you may have the fallout to deal with

@Mermaidmummy06 I'm sorry but why do you have to? If she has capacity, why can't she be allowed to manage, and if she doesn't manage then the money will disappear and she'll go into a home if she can't look after herself.

Honestly, I think you have no chance of her suddenly becoming competent at the age of nearly 80. I’d save your breath on that one.

Finances can be dealt with remotely, so just because you’re local, doesn’t mean that becomes your job. You will have to be assertive with your siblings.

I'm in a similar position, DM isn't a queen, she always worked full time and contributed to the household in other ways but DF did all the finances and life admin and is now incapacitated. There is also a lot of anxiety around tech for her. Fortunately everything is on direct debit and Mum can pay occasional bills by cheque, Dad has kept his paper records in good order, so I'm just going to have to suck it up. I hadn't thought of a PA but I think they are going to be short on money as DF now needs extensive care.

Perhaps a conversation with your siblings needs to be had to express your concerns and what will happen.

I am the high flying non local sibling with a very busy job. However I deal with my elderly parent’s finances precisely because it can be done remotely whereas other things can’t be so closer sibling deals with those. So don’t let your siblings wiggle out in basis of distance.

The key difference though is my parent no longer has capacity to deal with the finances so someone has to do it. I would be deeply unimpressed at being expected to do because they were lazy and couldn’t be bothered to learn.

I do my dms finances. It would be a total mess otherwise. She tried for approx 10yrs, she just renewed the same house and contents insurance which soared to nearly 1k a Yr as she didn't shop around. She ticked every yes box on every insurance offer delivered through her door, she was paying for extra polices for lock protection, pest insurance, window insurance, drain insurance, every electric item was insured, even the 35 yr old tumble dryer... was costing her thousands a year. She had 2 polices with different companies for emergency home electric and plumbing call outs. But still called a local plumber if something went wrong.
It was a lot more trouble picking through this and cancelling them than it would have been to take over from the start.

I wouldn’t get involved. All of these people have agency and have made their choices. Those choices now have consequences. It’s not luck or bad luck, it’s an active decision to be helpless!

^ illness aside, obviously.

Is everything in joint names (bills etc)? If everything is in your dad’s name it’d be worth getting it switched to joint names.

My mum always looked after their finances and had all the bills in her name so when she died suddenly, it was quite the job to unpick everything. She’d previously given me access to her bank account ‘just in case’ so I was able to download a list of direct debits before her account was frozen but I then had to contact all the companies and move everything into my dad’s name/account. It was a nightmare to do especially in the first few days after a sudden death, but I had to make sure all the utilities were paid etc.

One extra thought is to ask your dad if he will write out a list of all his accounts/passwords, any direct debits etc. It can be stored away safely but it makes life a lot easier when someone dies.

As for the entitlement, that’s a tough one. You have to decide what you’re willing and not willing to do and then just say that. There is of course the possibility that your mum dies first. We certainly didn’t expect our mum to die as she was actually my dad’s carer but she went before him.

If there is joint and separate POA then there is no reason it should be you sorting out finances. Once there is POA on the actual account- which is a huge PITA to arrange and seems to need in person visits to the finance institutions. However once that is in place there is no reason why another sibling couldn’t handle financial matters. In fact you could go along the “Oh Robert is so much better at numbers than me, I would feel much safer for you if he was in charge of your bills and so forth”. Use any golden child, gender cliches to your advantage here to force your other siblings to do some of the work.

Buy your Dad a gym membership.
Buy your mum a gin subscription 🤪

She's in her late 70s, so she isn't going to change now. You say you have POA for her, didn't you realise you might end up doing a lot of this type of work? I had POA for my mother and I disliked doing it but there was no one else available. I simplified it all as much as possible, and when she needed care I outsourced that immediately.

It's possible your mother may already have some cognitive impairment and is now unable to do these things whether she 'wants to' or not. It's easy to hide it when your partner is doing all the heavy lifting, but becomes very apparent when the partner is no longer there, as I found with the inlaws.

Your description of your mother (especially this bit: I don’t think she has any cognitive problems but it’s a combination of laziness, anxiety and enjoying being looked after by my father.) sounds uncannily like mine! I was similarly worried about what would happen if dad went first. Sadly a few months ago the worst case scenario happened and my dad passed suddenly of a heart attack.
I am having to stay with my mother and deal with everything for her, the shock of dads death and her grief left her utterly overwhelmed.

I am slowly working through setting everything up to help her cope, giving her every bit of support and guidance possible to learn how to manage. She is however completely uninterested in doing this 😂She wants me and my sibling to step in and do everything that dad did for her. We did for a few months but now setting some boundaries. Example, she won't have online food deliveries and wants to go to posh supermarket miles away, I drive her to the nearest not so posh one & send her in on her own. Harsh but necessary for my sanity. We will not do cleaning or laundry, if she needs help she will have to get a cleaner etc.
I can only advise you to hope for the best but plan for the worst, familiarise yourself with how the house works, bills, bank accounts, passwords (we had none & made life very difficult) get wise about POA etc for when its needed. If possible I would also suggest funeral planning & payment in advance. This took up so much of our mental and emotional energy that we then struggled dealing with all the financial admin etc.

I empathise so strongly with your post, I wish you all the best with this difficult scenario. x