Budget for elderly parent

Parent Cafe
61

OP here. Thank you all for your continued comments. I had intended to reply to everybody but wasn’t quick enough, so I hope you’ll excuse a general response.

Pizzagirl, our situations are very similar indeed. MIL has lived a life of entitlement, surrounded by nice things, with people to tend to her needs and the ability to make grand gestures. She likes being important and demands special treatment wherever she goes. Only one tech is permitted to draw her blood, the doctor must fit her in on her schedule, the banker must flatter her. Weirdly enough, people go along with it! Maybe they see her as an eccentric old lady who’s a bit of a hoot, but the hoot part falls flat when you’re trying to deal with her in a rational way or have a serious conversation.

Having just come home from helping her unpack some boxes, I can tell you that she has every expensive kitchen gadget ever invented, and brand new Williams Sonoma towels and potholders, and so much stuff that it will never fit in the spacious condo (it’s a condo but we’re renting, so I’ve been calling it an apartment). There’s so much crap piled in boxes now that it’s going to overwhelm this pretty condo.

Much of her spending has been a mystery to us, as she spent lots of cash. We suspect she took people to dinner and lunch and sent flowers and so on. She buys lots of expensive deli food, and way too much food, much of which she throws out. She spent a lot on her house and yard so we hope apartment living will limit some of that. She has announced that she isn’t interested in meeting any old people, and we’re the only people she knows in our city, so I’m not sure how her social life will evolve.

I don’t believe there is any credit card debt. I think she has paid everything off each month.

She does have jewelry but there’s no way in h*ll we could convince her to sell it at this point. Other than that, most of her things aren’t nearly as valuable as she believes.

We do think $1,000 is a reasonable monthly spending amount to negotiate (excluding medical, rental, utilities, cell, internet). Once she is settled in, we will have the conversation. I am not optimistic.

Yesterday, on the heels of several attempts by DH to discuss decreasing spending, she sent us about $100 worth of flowers.

Thanks again to all for your thoughtful input. Pizzagirl, I wish you well. The personalities involved seem extremely similar. Hang in there. Nothing about this is easy.

62

Won’t listen to a financial planner; ignored the “real” financial planners for years.

A therapist may be in the cards, but I get first dibs :slight_smile:

63

This is just a mindset that money grows on trees, and if someone has a certain amount of money, why doesn’t it get spent? For example, she knows that I have the money in the bank that could pay off her cc debt and “rescue” her house. So how come I don’t do it? She doesn’t get that H and I are going to live 40 more years and we just can’t take big chunks of money out of play today without impacting our future life.

There is no sense of the time value of money and I suspect the OP’s MIL is the same.

64

I think the point is with these elderly ladies is, they have no ability to see that they’re doing it to themselves. They feel entitled to it all. They will go to their graves, thinking their end years were bleak because their kids didn’t maintain the style they’d been accustomed to. Even if they end up on Medicaid, they will not believe it is their fault, no matter how many times you tell them, and let them suffer the consequences of their own actions.

65

It’s hard for many folks who have never had to worry about $$$ to have to start learning how to live with a budget. I have a friend who was married to a very successful MD. He took care of all their finances and they traveled and lived in nice homes. Eventually, he retired and when he couldn’t afford bills (like taxes), just wouldn’t pay them! The W had no idea about $$$ and always thought things were fine and kept spending as she wanted. She was shocked when she found out that he hadn’t paid taxes and that the money that was made selling their residence disappeared. She still has no idea where those funds went (maybe to pay bills, maybe to their adult kids). After her H died, she has had to take control of the finances and is figuring out how to make things work so she can be comfortable when she retires, but it was a rude shock for her to take over and figure out how to pay past taxes and other debts.

When people don’t ever had to figure out their own finances, they really don’t develop any sense of how much things cost and how to stretch resources to make them last. Deferred gratification and saving are abstract concepts for them.

I’m sorry that so many are finding themselves in this situation and don’t wish these awkward times on my worst enemy.

66

You should put your MILs alone in a room with a marshmallow and tell them if they can wait 10 minutes to eat it they get two… But I bet I know what will happen…

67

I absolutely never in a million years would have ever thought I would be in this scenario. It has thrown me for a major psychological loop. Really, half my b****** on CC is just blowing off stress from this issue!

68

<<<
I absolutely never in a million years would have ever thought I would be in this scenario


[QUOTE=""]

[/QUOTE]

That is curious. Was your mom good with money at some point, and then suddenly changed? Or did you think that she had a lot more money than she actually does?

The reason I ask is that I always knew that my MIL was terrible with money. If her H hadn’t inherited some money rather late in life, which she later inherited when her H died, she probably wouldn’t have had anything except SS.

69

I had social workers, therapists, psychiatrist, psychologist, talk to MIL on any number of things. No go at all. Just made her more stubborn. I think once someone is that set and does not want to change, it isn’t going to happen. Money will run out and then she’ll have to work with what she gets. Till then she’s living as she pleases.

70

We just never knew how badly she was spending down what she got in her divorce settlement (which was half, and was entirely fair - no issues there). We never questioned it - we had no need to - and we assumed that her financial planners had set up some way of disbursing the funds appropriately. We didn’t know she blew them off and blew through it. The shame is that she could have lived off the interest and not touched principal (or touched only slightly) and be sitting pretty. My guess is that the OP’s MIL did the same. It’s so easy to gut the principal if you don’t pay attention.

71

I am several pages behind, but just had to post, if MIL is as resistant as she seems, make certain nothing is your responsibility. For example, don’t be on the lease, make it hers, such that if she gets cranky toward you and uses her money for her fun stuff and does not pay rent, that does not affect you, such that if she runs up bills somewhere, none of them are her responsibility. Seems to me the $1000 is too much, actually, it seems to me she should get nothing at all for several months to grasp her situation.

72

Yes - zipyourlips, do NOT commngle any of your funds with her, and if you decide to pay for something, you pay it directly.

You said she pays off her CC every month - but what order of magnitude is her typical monthly CC bill? Is there a chance she would just revert to paying just the minimum and then that will build up and snowball? Just a watchout for you to consider.

73

“Yesterday, on the heels of several attempts by DH to discuss decreasing spending, she sent us about $100 worth of flowers.”

I so hear you on this - this is so frustrating because you want to scream - don’t waste your money on flowers. The gestures are just not consistent with “getting it.”

74

,<<<
Yes - zipyourlips, do NOT commngle any of your funds with her, and if you decide to pay for something, you pay it directly.


[QUOTE=""]

[/QUOTE]

Absolutely. Set up autopay for payments right after SS/pension goes in…and set up autopay for anything you pay.

Some of this is sounding very ADHD…the “now and not-now” problems that many ADHD people have. “Now” they have money. “Not now” is “not now” so don’t worry about it.

75

There is no “get” when it’s her money. Someone who sends $100 in flowers to the person explaining she has to cut back, isn’t going to stop. Short of taking away all of her credit cards and blocking access to her money, and having her go on a cash basis, it’s not going to work. Plus there usually are some secret little goodies (not necessarily notorious or terrible) that no one knows about.

My friend’s husband found out that his mother who had been running short on money each month for necessities and was way behind on biil, owed all over the place with only debit cards left, and had not paid taxes on the house, was backlogged $2K on utilites and on a senior’s plan that she was late on too, and owed more than two years of what she got each month, had bought her great grandson season tickets to the city NBA team, took her daughters and granddaughters shopping regularly and just spread out that money as soon as it hit her account. Shame on the daughters for allowing it. They are living hand to mouth too, and now with Grandma and her social security check gone, and no one covering the household payments, the buck has stopped. The house will have to be sold, if it isn’t lost for non payment of taxes, and everyone will have to find another place to live. The free ride is over. So this grandma was enabled by her children, and there wasn’t anything her son and DIL who lived away could do. My friend knew this was going on for years. Had that MIL been more careful, not necessarily frugal even, but just not extravagent, the insurance and savings that her deceased husband left her, would have been plenty to last another 10 years and still not be depleted. But there was no telling her.

76

“There is no “get” when it’s her money. Someone who sends $100 in flowers to the person explaining she has to cut back, isn’t going to stop.”

I bought my mother a car a few years ago. She will go buy Groupons to get car cleaning because she wants to show how appreciative she is by “keeping the car nice.” The car doesn’t have feelings, it doesn’t care if it’s dirty on the outside. I like keeping a car neat and clean too, but it’s not top priority to keep it washed. She sends Hallmark cards to my kids. They don’t care - a text or phone call is how they communicate. Little things add up. Death by a thousand paper cuts.

77

Its not ADHD. Its entitlement. Big difference.

78

Entitlements die very hard and are painful to all those around!

79

Yes, I guess it is entitlement, considering what’s been conveyed. The thinking that they’re entitled to have their kids support them.

I don’t think my MIL ever verbalized that sort of thing or even really thought that far… For her it truly was the “now I have money,” with no thoughts about tomorrow.

I would be concerned if an apt is needed, because those seem to require showing that the rent is only XX% of income. It doesn’t sound like is the case. I don’t think I’d want to be the guarantor in such a case unless I was fully committed to paying the rent each month.

80

Pizzagirl, the Hallmark cards! MIL sends cards for everything, even though we’ve asked her to stop. The flowers yesterday came with a fancy Papyrus card that probably cost $5.

We have co-signed the lease for the apartment because MIL’s credit is so bad that nobody in their right mind would have rented to her, but we are not going to share responsibility on any other bills.

“Entitlement” absolutely describes MIL’s attitude. As I mentioned earlier, I believe MIL has a personality disorder so I try to think of it like an illness. It’s hard, though, to maintain that perspective when she’s being a snappy, dismissive, insulting, know-it-all b*tch. I like the idea of putting your mom and MIL in a room together. I bet they would hate each other!