Aging Parent Filter

January 25, 2006 4:08 PM

My Dad is getting older and is beginning to have problems keeping track of all the bills. Mom just called and said the phone had been turned off again and that the car insurance had lapsed. He obviously needs a little bit of help, but gets pretty defensive at the mere suggestion. I cannot imagine how bad things would have to get before he agreed to let us help. To make matters worse, while my Mom agrees that he needs help, she's entirely passive in their relationship, and would happily learn to live without heat / lights before daring to make my dad (the heart patient) unhappy. Anybody have experience with handling this type of situation delicately? How can I convince a stubborn old coot to let somebody help him? My parents planned well for retirement, and I have no reason to believe that they're in any danger of losing everything, but it seems to me that this is a situation that we'll have to address sooner or later.
posted by richmondparker to Human Relations (15 answers total)

If the money's there, talk to him about setting up automatic bill-paying through his bank. Play it up as a convenience thing rather than something relating to his age.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:27 PM on January 25, 2006

This previous AskMe had some good advice on the same syndrome, which in the prior question was slightly more advanced.
posted by ikkyu2 at 4:28 PM on January 25, 2006

Another option would be to have all bills paid via credit card, then there's only one bill and it would be a consolidated statement of the other bills. As long as you don't carry a balance it wouldn't cost more.
posted by furtive at 5:13 PM on January 25, 2006

Use www.paytrust.com. I've been using it for 6 years (back when it was called paymybills.com) --- I have no relationship with the company other than as a customer. You can have all his bills sent to them. They will scan in the bill as a pdf. They send you mail when a new bill comes in. You can write checks from his checking account (or yours) to pay each one. Or you can have them pay anything that comes in. Many of the "checks" are EFT (i.e., debits). You can pay a flat fee or $.50 a bill each month.

The best part of the service is it cuts down on the junk mail you receive. The second best part is at the end of the year, you can pay $20 and they send you all your bills on one CD. No clutter!!
posted by about_time at 5:18 PM on January 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

By send you mail, I of course mean email.
posted by about_time at 5:19 PM on January 25, 2006

Paytrust sounds like a great idea.
You might also talk him into a computer program like Quicken, which can be set up to automatically pay bills.
posted by sixpack at 5:52 PM on January 25, 2006

Response by poster: I should clarify: my Dad has used Quicken for years and has always been very meticulous about all things financial. Indeed, my first thought was to set him up with his bank's online bill paying service. This proved to cause more confusion, however, since he would only tolerate the briefest of tutorials before waving us away convinced that he understood the whole process (their homeowner's insurance lapsed after he sent their mortgage payment to a company with a similar name). The experience only helped to convince him that there's just something wrong with the new-fangled billpaying service. He just doesn't seem to be able to get his mind around exactly what he's looking at and what he's done.
posted by richmondparker at 6:06 PM on January 25, 2006

Is Third party notification a possibility?
posted by Orb2069 at 6:10 PM on January 25, 2006

If he's this stubborn now, it'll only get worse. Stop letting it bother you and concentrate on getting your mother to take more control.
posted by cellphone at 6:48 PM on January 25, 2006

The credit card idea is really good -- they need JUST ONE that all they do is pay the bills on it. Give that to the payees, they bill automatically, the card company sends the bill, your dad pays everything off in one fell swoop, and if (as was said previously) they don't carry a balance there isn't any interest.

You may want to play this up by using a "rewards" card -- something like AmEx Blue or whatever. "You can build up points and then you and mom can take a vacation!" Typically it takes a while to add up the points, but if you're paying all the bills, all the time via the card, I bet it wouldn't take all that long (particularly for airline tickets or whatnot). It's also Way Less Hassle. For him, for your mom, for you, for the payees, for everyone.
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:38 PM on January 25, 2006

i think your dad may need to be checked out ... he sounds like he's getting quite confused with this

a long time ago, my dad heard from the rest of the family that my grandad was keeping his money under the mattress and driving in a way that was dangerous ... he had to confront his father and force him to hand over the money so it could be put in an account and hand over the car keys so he couldn't drive the car anymore ... i watched it ... it was heartbreaking for both of them

my father told me later that day that a day might come when i might have to do the same with him ... thank god, that day never came

i think you need to talk much more with your mother and find out what other things are going on with him ... you may have to do something much like my father did ... you may want a doctor to evaluate him

good luck with it
posted by pyramid termite at 9:32 PM on January 25, 2006

Our family recently went through the same situation. We resolved it by:

1. having one credit card that everything was charged against (we used an AmexBlue card and we cancelled all the others)

2. get the credit card company to automatically pay the bill out of the checking account to avoid any late fees

3. Make sure that Mom and Dad keep enough money in their checking to cover it.

The hardest part for us, was getting Dad to accept the automatic payment setup. For some reason, he was dead set against having the credit card company be able to withdraw money from his account. We had this same discussion when we had his SS check automatically deposited. He wanted to see the money (or check) first.

Good luck, I know how frustrating it can be...
posted by Psharden at 6:01 AM on January 26, 2006

The credit card idea is good, but what do you do about the bills that can't go on their credit card? Example: some towns don't accept credit cards for property tax payments.
posted by raedyn at 6:50 AM on January 26, 2006

Is there some way to make yourself (or are you already?) his Power Of Attorney? If your mom doesn't want to deal with it, you could possibly have things like the taxes or whatever that can't go to the credit card sent to you as the POA. You can also be added to the bank accounts as a POA, which would help if you need to make emergency payments.
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:57 AM on January 26, 2006

Response by poster: I'm tempted to mark the whole page as "best answer." This has really helped me a lot, and I'd like to thank you all for the ideas. I'm headed up to see my parents this weekend, and will try and spend time talking with both of them about the situation. I'm thinking I'll try and push the credit card idea; it certainly seems easy, and I'm encouraged that several people have had a good experience with it.
posted by richmondparker at 5:04 PM on January 26, 2006