How to Provide Financial Help to Aging Parents

As children of elder parents, most of you have had to step in to help them with financial decisions. If you do not live close to your parents it makes it hard to manage. You may have also found it difficult to broach the topic with your parents when you are treading in an area never discussed before. The primary concerns are to make sure that bills are being paid on time, taxes are filed on a timely basis, that your parent's are protected from fraud and scams, and that all the necessary estate planning documents are in place. The attached article "How to Provide Financial Help to Aging Parents" gives a good overview of stepping in. It is normal to want to do as as much as you can for your parent's to keep the cost down on managing their finances and planning, but please do not bypass the expertise that professionals can provide (and savings when needing to properly structure the estate planning). (Side note: Practically everyone I meet does not know what DMM, initials included after my name, stands for. I am a member of the American Association of Daily Money Managers (AADMM at www.aadmm.com) and follow a code of ethics in helping those who are unable to manage their daily household finances.)

https://www.kiplinger.com/article/retirement/T013-C000-S002-how-to-provide-financial-help-to-aging-parents.html