There may come a point when you need to help your parents with their finances. Often this will happen when they are older and it becomes difficult for them to keep track of everything. It is important that you approach this manner delicately and that you only offer advice and help when it is asked for. If your parent is suffering from Alzheimer’s or another similarly debilitating disease you may just need to step in.
One thing you may want to do is to make sure that both parents understand where the money is and how to take care of it. Often times the husband is solely in charge of paying the bills, investing the money, and taking care of it all. It can be overwhelming for his spouse when he passes away, because she will have no idea where to start and what to do. In some families it may be opposite of this.
If your parents need to enter a nursing home at some point you will want to make sure that you protect their assets. This is important because you can make sure that their quality of life is higher with the more money that they have. You may want to encourage your parents to have long term care insurance, because it will help them in a situation like this.
If your parents planned well, then they should be able to pay for their daily living expenses with ease. You may need to help them out (if you can afford to) if they are living solely off of social security. It can be difficult to live off of a fixed income, and it takes careful budgeting and planning. Gift cards are a great way to help your parents to splurge on themselves occasionally.
These situations may be tricky to handle. You should be as up front with everyone as possible. You may want to involve your siblings in the big decisions so that there will be no hard feelings later on. Again it is important to help only when asked. Otherwise you may cause a permanent rift in a very important relationship.
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