I have resolved that I need to save for the inevitability that they will require in-home care, or be in a retirement home. I fully expect to hear, “told you god would provide.” Thanks mom and dad.

About a year ago, my mom found out that she hadn’t done her taxes in over three years. This meant that her old age security and farmacare benefits had stopped, not to mention she hadn’t been receiving GST credits (about 90+/quarter).

I have now taken over all of her taxes and associated benefit programs to ensure that they are done and information stays up to date. It was a trial, but after several one on one conversations, she understood that I just wanted to help make sure she had her benefits, she let me help.

I now have her receiving her pharmacare benefits (discount on prescription drugs), she received a back GST payment of $1014, and a small tax refudn of about $300. Woohoo!!! She also *should* be getting both CPP/OOS – but I will know for sure next month. She doesn’t have debt to pay off, but she was happy with the extra $$.

oh – and I got her set up on direct deposit!! This has been great! No more cheques, or trips to the bank (I live in a different city). She can see the $$ flow on her bank statements.

It’s hard to help parents/grandparents – but if you go in with the right attitude you’ll do fine. At the end of the day, they are adults and get to make there own decisions (and that means deciding if they would like to take your help or not) whether you agree with it or not.

My mother who is 85 and has a decent amount of pension to live on, inherited a lot of money from her maiden sisters, maybe 15 years ago. My mom has tried to spend all the money in her lifetime – even if it wasn’t intentional. Now I’m talking about $100,000. which mom inherited.

In preparation for her inevitable death and as her power of attorney for property and health as well as future executor, I tried to locate her will last week -well what a surprise- I’ve found that it was left in a draft state. So, I called for an appointment for finishing up her will, but wonder what else I need to worry about.

Now this is the problem. My mother seems to have lot her senses. She really thinks that buying little things from a company by the initials of P C H will really lead her to winning a fortune in their draws. I’ve read the materials and thought how stupid of you Mom. It would be better to throw money away on the lotteries or on all of us – $30- $80 a week, rather than to give it away to a company who likes to exploit old, frail and nearly demented women. She really believes that every time there is a new draw and her name is somehow in that favoured list that she will be the winner. I call it a scam as does my sister and brother.

Gail, do you have any advice for how to close down all the advertising which comes to my mom’s door?

My sister and I have tried to talk with her and yes I’ve really put on the role of ogre. Why are you paying for all of this stuff?? Don’t you see that you are being ripped off? What a waste. Look at all the junk which I’ll have to throw out when you die. You could have spent whatever amount of money on something that mattered to you, etc.

My mom doesn’t have life insurance -quite a surprise for me as my parents always had insurance. So, with spending all of the money which was inherited and meant for her retirement upkeep, on these possible winning lotteries, she has put me into a difficult position to be able to clear her estate with anything left over – as was intended by my aunt.

My mom, thinks that all we want is her money and that she will spend it as she wishes – which is her right. Well, I was the executor for my aunt – her sister, and I know full well that my aunt would be rolling over a thousand times in her grave in the knowledge of how mom has used her savings. They were meant for enhancing her retirement with paying for care or necessary things to help her lead a good life up to the end.

What do you do with a woman who refuses to listen to reason? I told her that I wasn’t paying for her funeral. I couldn’t afford it. Her reply was take the CPP payout and cremate me. The plot is already paid for as my dad died 17 years ago.

You only hope that she will not continue to fall prey to these exploiters who send her fist fulls of lottery dreams – with a little purchase. She does stop for a while after we get upset but then goes right back to it.

The real problem is how to help with P C H concerns and when to finally step in to take control of monetary situations. Any help, Gail?

So, I count myself lucky!

My biggest stress right now is that I can’t afford to help them out should this house of cards fall apart. I’m still trying to get myself on track. Thanks to Gail’s Blogs, my finances are getting better and better… but I still can’t take on any extra debt or financial burden… especially considering my student loans. This article really hit home. I wish someone had an answer, but I don’t think there really is one. I can’t force my parents to stop spending.

My in-laws and my Dad are financial disasters. My husband and I live in his parents basement as they can’t pay the mortgage, credit cards etc without the money that we pay them every month. At the time we moved in, it was in response to his Mother’s confession that she couldn’t pay the bills as his Father had stopped work due a cancer diagnosis. In truth, as we later found out, that they hadn’t been doing well financially for quite some time. And 2 years later (with his Father in good stead for over 18 months) they seem to think that our current living arrangement is a perfectly acceptable situation and don’t understand that we’d rather be spending that money on our own mortgage. They say they’ll leave my husband the house when they die and regard us unreasonable when we point out that may be 20+ years. 20 years living in someone else’s home with all of their stuff, in a part of town that we wouldn’t choose etc. His Mother cries at how “unfair” we are or how terrible her life is every time we try to discuss things and his Father is an absolute stork, he just claims it’ll all be fine and walks off. And my Dad is no better! We do love them and they are lovely people but there seems to be no way out except to continue making all the compromises and hope for the best.