Financial Caregiving 101

10 Tips and Tricks for Managing Your Parents' Finances

By

Cameron Huddleston

March 2, 2023

Staying on top of your finances can be hard enough. It can be even more of a challenge if you have to manage money matters for your parents because they’re having trouble handling their finances on their own.

However, there are steps you can take to make it easier to stay on top of your parents’ finances if you are providing elder care. These 10 tried-and-true tips will help you gather the information you need, get organized and create a system that will save you time and prevent things from slipping through the cracks.

1. Have a list of your parents’ personal information

Think about how often you’re asked for your Social Security number or other personally identifying information when you call your financial institutions. Now, imagine having to provide that same information about your parents every time you need to talk with one of the financial institutions they use. If you don’t have it at your fingertips, you won’t get very far on that call. That’s why it’s so helpful to have a list of this information.

Create a document on your computer with your parents’ birthdates, Social Security numbers, Medicare or Medicaid numbers, driver’s license numbers and military IDs. Whenever you need that information, you’ll know where it is and can quickly pull it up on your computer.

2. Create a list of financial accounts

You should have a list of all of your parents’ bank accounts, retirement accounts, investment accounts, credit card accounts, loans, insurance policies and any other financial accounts they have. For each account, you should have the following information:

• Name and phone number of the financial institution where the account is
• Web address of the financial institution
• Account number
• Account username and password

Having this information in one place will make it easier when you need to access those accounts or reach out directly to those financial institutions. Be careful, though. If you write down this list, store the document in a safe place that can only be accessed by you and others who are authorized to see it.

3. Consolidate accounts

If your parents have several bank accounts, it will be easier to stay on top of them by consolidating them into one account. Ideally, you should transfer funds to the account with the lowest or no monthly maintenance fees. Review all of the accounts before closing any to see if automatic deposits or withdrawals are being made from these accounts and need to be switched to the primary account.

4. Automate bill payments

Automate payments for as many of your parents’ monthly bills as possible. If any of their service providers don’t offer this service, see if you can set up automatic payments for those bills through your parents’ checking account.

5. Create account alerts

Log onto your parents’ online bank and credit card accounts to set up alerts to be notified by email or a text message of activity on your parents’ accounts.

6. Check your parents’ credit report

Take advantage of the free credit report consumers can get once a year at AnnualCreditReport.com. You can get copies of your parents’ reports from all three of the credit bureaus—Experian, Equifax and Trans Union.

7. Limit spending

If your parents’ free-spending ways are jeopardizing their finances or yours, you might need to set up a system to limit their spending. You could give your parents a cash allowance or a prepaid credit card to limit the amount they can spend.

8. Keep detailed records of statements

Hang onto all of your parents’ financial statements and create a filing system to store them. Creating a spreadsheet or using Quicken to track their income and expenses will help at tax time.

9. Notify financial institutions about your Power of Attorney status

Even if your parents have given you permission to access their accounts, they should name you their power of attorney so there’s no question about your legal right to conduct financial transactions for them.

10. Notify government agencies of your POA status

To stay on top of your parents’ government benefits such as Social Security and Medicare, you must apply with the Social Security Administration to become your parent’s representative payee to manage benefits for your parent.

Cameron Huddleston is an editor-at-large at Carefull and the author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances. You can learn more about her at CameronHuddleston.com or follow her on Instagram at @cameronkhuddleston.