3 Signs You Need to Take Control of Your Parents’ Finances

These episodes, combined with my mother’s observations of accelerating forgetfulness and compulsive behavior, led us to hunt medical evaluation for him. The diagnosis was clear: dementia within the early stages. His doctor revoked his license and ordered me to instantly take control of his funds. This moment introduced my family and I to the tough reality. Although all of us expect our parents to get older and want help, suddenly finding ourselves tasked with caring for an individual’s declining health may be shocking and leave us unprepared for the caregiving responsibilities that lie ahead.

Warning signs which will require you to take motion

Many of the signs could appear quite harmless and subtle at first, but should you notice that they occur steadily and frequently, they may very well be a clue to a diagnosis. These can include:

• Repetitive conversations: Constantly circling around the identical pattern of obsessive thoughts.

• Familiar faces should not recognized: Several times my father didn’t recognize long-standing family friends with whom he had previously spoken frequently. There were times when he didn’t even understand who I used to be, which was so disheartening.

• Social withdrawal: As health problems progress, the person’s social circles shrink slowly, but then dramatically. As my father’s condition progressed, each of my parents separated from their moderately large social networks. COVID-19 has accelerated the method.

A job you never applied for

These behaviors are sometimes more troubling to members of the family than to the person with health problems.

If you are reading this and occupied with your personal aging parents – or should you’re already in the midst of it, as I still am – you are not alone. According to a 2022 report by Statistics CanadaApproximately one in 4 Canadians aged 15 and older (7.8 million people) cared for a member of the family or friend with a long-term health condition, disability or age-related problem. These 2018 figures likely underestimate the true prevalence of care, particularly within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased demand for elder care services.

Managing your parents’ funds can feel like a full-time job. I’ve been on this journey for six years now and it has been a never-ending rollercoaster of phone calls, emails and appointments with banks and repair providers. It’s hard enough keeping track of your personal and your immediate family’s funds. You now need to know all your parents’ financial ins and outs, from their sources of income and recurring expenses to the investments they could make. Sometimes it seems like an limitless scavenger hunt looking for documents, bank accounts, invoices, legal documents, insurance policies and online accounts.

Levels of care

In most cases, you will not do that in a bubble. You must navigate family dynamics, which regularly results in difficult and emotional conversations along with your parents and other members of the family. You could have to take into consideration difficult decisions which might be more likely to provoke resistance when pride and independence are tested. In my experience, this was probably the most taxing a part of the experience, each emotionally and physically.

Financial support may be divided into different levels depending in your parents’ abilities. It may very well be that you simply simply provide advice and guidance to your parents by reviewing and explaining financial accounts and documents. This could take the shape of suggesting ways to higher organize their financial affairs.

If your parents’ health impairments are more advanced, energetic cooperation could also be required in the shape of paying bills, filing tax returns on their behalf, or accompanying them to appointments with the bank or financial advisor. In probably the most extreme cases – just like the one I went through with my father – legal intervention via power of attorney could also be vital to make financial and health decisions on his behalf that require a high level of commitment and a focus to detail.

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More lessons to follow

In our upcoming series on MoneyDown, I’ll share the sensible insights from my journey: the essential documents you want to find, the conversations you want to have before they turn out to be urgent, the financial red flags to observe out for, and the systems that will help maintain your parents’ independence while protecting their financial security.

While we will not prevent our parents from aging, we will definitely be higher prepared for the financial realities that include it, hopefully allowing them to retain some dignity of their lives and setting a positive example for our little ones to pay it forward.

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