How to Manage Your Aging Parents Finances

Hello, and welcome back to Money Notes, our new personal finance newsletter.

Today, Purse contributor Mia Taylor writes about the financial aspects of elder care—specifically the challenges of helping her mother, who suffers from dementia, manage her finances.

This morning, on my way to the office, I ran into my neighbor, an older man who I consider to be the mayor of our block, as he’s lived in his house for nearly half a century. He’s not been well lately, and I checked in to see how he was feeling. “I have one piece of advice for you,” he said. “Don’t get old.”

If only I could take that advice! Unfortunately, if we’re lucky enough to live long lives, aging is inevitable. But before we get old ourselves, Gen X and millennials are first going to have to reckon with our aging parents. The oldest Baby Boomers started turning 80 in 2026. By 2050, it’s projected that 23% of the U.S. population will be senior citizens, according to the Associated Press. And Pew Research reported this summer that more than half of Americans in their 40s are part of the sandwich generation, with children under 18 and parents over 65. It can be a lot to manage.

Talking to your parents about their finances can be incredibly difficult, but it’s also essential. As we prepare for the holiday season—and spending more time with our aging loved ones—consider this a starting point to initiate some of these conversations.

Just a reminder that we’re hosting our second Money Power Hour for paid subscribers this Friday, November 13, at 1:30 p.m. ET. It’s a fun and productive time: We log on, say hello, share what we’re working on, and then turn our cameras off for a focused 50-ish minutes of work. Sign up here if you want to join us!

-Lindsey

My mother’s decline in health crept up on us unexpectedly. Dementia doesn’t boldly announce itself or give you much warning. To me, at least, it seemed to happen practically overnight. One week, my 82-year-old mother was the alert, independent woman I always knew her to be; the next, she was confused, reclusive, and unable to fully take care of herself. She could no longer remember if she had eaten or taken her daily medications, and she would ask repeatedly what day it was.

As the decline in my mother’s memory continued, managing her finances became an issue as well. In the early days, when I stopped by her house for a visit, I would find piles of mail, including credit card and utility bills, on the kitchen table. And rather than sort through the bills and pay them as she had always done in the past, the pile just kept growing bigger as time passed. Sometimes, I would see that she had taken out her checkbook and placed it on the kitchen table in what looked like an attempt to begin addressing the bills that needed to be paid. But with her memory deteriorating, my mother didn’t seem to remember which bills she had paid, if any at all.

Share with a fellow member of the sandwich generation

By the time I worked up the courage to tell my mother that I needed to step in and take over managing her personal finances—and by the time she finally agreed to let me help—things had progressed to a dramatic point. There were property taxes that had gone completely unpaid, which put our family’s biggest asset, her home, at risk. She had also let her home insurance lapse, and the mortgage company, on its own, had added an extremely expensive alternative policy to fill the void.

On top of all this, my mother couldn’t remember whether she had paid her personal income taxes, and her car registration had expired at least a year prior, even though she was still driving the car. I only discovered these things by degrees, as I worked like a sleuth to uncover the full scope of my mother’s financial picture, including her income, debts, and any other liabilities. Initially, I only had limited information, and she was increasingly incapable of helping. It was like trying to find all of the pieces of a scattered puzzle in total darkness.

Some of the immediate questions I found myself asking included: How many credit cards does my mother have? Which financial institutions hold her credit card accounts? Who holds the mortgage on her home? And what bank account was she using to pay her monthly mortgage payments? (This was important because I wanted to find out whether she had been paying the mortgage at all, as she didn’t receive a paper mortgage bill in the mail.)

As I navigated these questions and tried to get my mom’s finances back on track, I took a few key steps and learned a few critical things that I believe can make the road less challenging for others with a loved one impacted by cognitive decline.

I know my son’s Social Security number by heart, as well as my own (of course). But I did not know my mother’s when I first took over managing her finances. Obtaining this piece of information from her early on was key. Here’s why: When she and I sat together calling creditors to check on unpaid bills, or when we called the mortgage company, her Social Security number was often the first piece of information requested to verify her identity and allow creditors to answer our questions.

Open a Credit Karma account for your loved one

As my mother’s memory declined, she was unable to remember all of the credit cards she had. And over the course of her life, she had a habit of opening A LOT of credit cards. Department store credit cards, bank-sponsored credit cards, and more. The only way I could get a handle on the full scope of her debt was to set up a Credit Karma account in her name. (Her Social Security number was required to do this, another reason why that bit of information is so critical.)

A Credit Karma account provides a wealth of useful information, including details like a list of all the open and closed financial accounts in a person’s name, balances on those accounts, and payment history. It also reveals any hard and soft credit inquiries in a person’s name and whether there’s been any collection action. (You can also check their credit reports for free at AnnualCreditReport.com, which will include much of the same information.)

Have your parents create a list of key accounts, creditors, and debts

This tip may be challenging for some families, and I totally get it. Not everyone wants to reveal the details of their finances. It can be deeply personal. Nevertheless, I advocate that adult children gently ask their parents—years in advance—to create a notebook listing things like:

Who holds the mortgage on your home, and what’s the mortgage account number?
Who provides your home insurance?
Which bank do you use for your checking and savings accounts?
How many credit cards do you have? And with which companies?

I had to find all of this information on my own, and it wasn’t easy. My mother, for example, simply could not remember who her home insurance company was. And despite an exhaustive search around her home, I could not find any documentation related to her insurance carrier. Having some record of this kind of information would have saved hours and days of searching and frustration. Keep the notebook in a lockbox if need be to make everyone involved feel more comfortable, or stash it in a safety deposit box at a bank.

Read for a more comprehensive list of accounts.

Power of attorney is essential

Years earlier, my mother had taken the wise step of creating an estate plan that included giving me, her only child, full power of attorney for her personal finances and her home. However, when dementia set in, she had forgotten ever setting up the PoA. I only discovered it by accident one day, while sorting through items in one of the spare bedrooms in her home, when I found a folder labeled “Estate Plan.”

Here’s what I did next, which was incredibly helpful: I brought the folder to a local estate lawyer and had him review all the documents it contained. He confirmed for me that all the documents were in order, explained what powers the estate plan gave me, and verified that the documents were created correctly and were legally valid. This was an important step that made everything that followed much easier. Once I could tell banks or creditors that I had financial power of attorney and could provide those documents, doors opened much more quickly when I sought information.

Get the passcode to your parents’ phones and passwords to their email accounts

Often when my mother and I would sit down to call creditors in an effort to find out more about the status of her accounts, they wanted to conduct a second level of verification beyond confirming her birthday or Social Security number. In many cases, banks or other financial institutions wanted to send a one-time code to my mother’s phone or her email. My mother, however, no longer remembered if she had an email account and, if so, with which email platform. Hotmail? Yahoo? Gmail? She had no idea.

Finding out what her email account was took some digging and gently quizzing her over a matter of days to gather clues. Similarly, my mother doesn’t always remember the passcode for her phone these days. If this information had been written down somewhere in advance, it would have made our initial attempts to sort through her finances just a little bit easier. Instead, I often had to hang up when seeking information about her mortgage and call back another day when I could access her email account or phone.

Regaining control of my mother's finances took several months; it didn't happen overnight. And to some extent, it continues to be a work in progress as we make payments on taxes owed and pay down credit bills. It’s required patience and perseverance every step of the way.

I also now understand what people mean when they say dementia is a long goodbye. It is a slow, progressive decline that replaces the person you knew your whole life with someone you recognize less and less as their personality and memory erodes with each passing day. But I hope my experience offers something for others to learn from, so the remaining days you have with your loved one can focus on quality time together, not financial stress and turmoil.