Managing the Finances of Ageing Parents

Choosing a financial advisor for your parents can be every bit as important as choosing a doctor or lawyer for them. Advice related to money matters, like medical or legal advice, can be critical and potentially ruinous if poorly given. Therefore you should take the time and effort to choose a financial advisor that is right for your parents. The advisor you choose must be competent, well-informed, and experienced in the areas of money management and financial counselling.

The need to take over your parent’s financial life, especially if it happens suddenly, can be extremely stressful. However, if you approach it one step at a time, the process can be simplified. Even if you’re not at this point with your parents yet, we can help you decide what to do now – before anything happens.

Caring for elderly parents finances

If you’re worrying about your parents ability to continue to manage their money, bank accounts, investments, forgetting to pay bills or paying them twice, and being taken in by scammers and sales calls, make a plan immediately to help your parents now.

With internet banking, cloud accounting, emails and cloud storage of documents you can now set up a system that is transparent, secure and ensures that both parents and children are all kept informed of all financial activity and transactions to avert suspicion and avoid family conflict. Yes, it does cost money for a service that the parents previously did themselves for free. However, they saved for retirement just so that they could afford these financial services that become essential.

As time passes, parents ask for help to manage their money matters. Now it’s not quite so easy for your ageing parents to grasp some of the more intellectual aspects of money management and they find that they miss key dates and have become a little forgetful. Hence, it’s quite common for parents to turn to their children for help. However, often the children are in different cities of the world or just too busy with their own full time jobs and family life to be able to enthusiastically take on managing the finances of their ageing parents.

Hence financial advisors and money managers like us are often called in to help with the management and administration of the ageing parent’s financial affairs but work very much in partnership and consultation with the individuals, seeking their approval along the way.

How to handle elderly parents finances?

 We have designed a system commencing with advice using a very consultative management approach and progressing to the stage when our clients, who may be ageing parents are not in a position to take actions on their own and rely on us to manage, not only their investments, but also their day to day financial needs. We can also help you decide how best to budget your parents’ money or determine whether your parent has sufficient savings to support them for their remaining years. Relying on external advisors also helps to allay potential sibling concerns about the effective management of your parent’s finances.

Our team can also advise you on appropriate investments to sit within a portfolio at this stage in life to ensure that they provide the appropriate balance of growth and yield to support the needs and lifestyle that your parents have become accustomed to. If your parents have a large estate, our financial advisors will also consider the combined interests of both the parent and the ultimate beneficiaries. If your parents have plenty of money to cover their care for years to come, for instance, the planner might suggest long-range investments aimed at benefiting their children or grandchildren. All such options are best evaluated with our professional help.

Our Financial Service for the elderly addresses the needs of the individual at each and every stage as they choose to become less involved in their financial affairs and each client has different requirements for levels of involvement.

Consider hiring a team to help.

To discover more about dealing with elderly parents finances and all other services we offer at Peter Vickers Business Group, get in touch today. 

_{Advice provided by Peter Vickers and Associates Pty Ltd Chartered Accountants Liability Limited by a Scheme under the Professional Standards Legislation ABN 60003466813. Authorised representative of Peter Vickers Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd trading as Peter Vickers Investment Services Australian Credit Licence and Australian Financial Services Licence Number 229302}