Helping an older lady

bowlhead99

margaretclare wrote: »

You would really be in the deep doo-doo if you attempted to give her any kind of financial advice and it all went belly-up. As could so easily happen. No one really knows the long-term effects of the Greek crisis, the eurozone, the Middle East, any of that. I suppose that MIL doesn't know that all this is happening?

I'd assume she isn't particularly clued up on, for example, last week's announcement that mortgage interest on rental properties will only be given tax relief at basic rates rather than higher rates from next year, and the general 10% "wear and tear" allowance for landlords is being scrapped. To me as a prospective purchaser of her house as a BTL opportunity, those factors would certainly make the value of her house fall in my eyes, but good luck being an estate agent and trying to explain that to her

I know the type of person you mean but fortunately my family isn't so afflicted. My mum realises she's not an expert and is happy to leave the planning to someone else. My dad is pretty stubborn and only embraces 20-30% of the advice he's given - and quite often it's a 20% slice that only made good sense if he had also accepted a different 20% slice too, which he instead flat out rejected or decided to put off thinking about it for a while... Still, he does at least hear me out or diligently print out my emails in a good-natured way, as if he appreciated my efforts to nag.

In your case if you avoid specific advice , you're probably safer than if you risk giving advice that can go wrong. But as a doting son-in-law you can't really duck her question entirely...

The point to try to make politely is that she has lived the last 30 years where she could earn a living by turning up to work and being very experienced at that and good at her job (stifle your amusement with a coughing fit at this point). Now her only way to earn a living for the next 30-40 years plus is to invest wisely, which is something she doesn't have any experience of - and may find difficult to do when all the research needed to avoid the pitfalls, and all the low-cost DIY investing services, are online. If she just "saves" and doesn't invest, she'll lose it all to inflation as she spends the income and the capital which is trying to produce the income, falls in real terms. Remind her of what she was paying for bread or petrol or rent in 1975; that jump in prices is what she'll experience again before she pops her clogs.

The simplest way to deploy her money for income and real-terms capital preservation is simply to pay a bit of it out to employ an IFA to deploy it for her. The less-simple way is to spend the next 30 years becoming a expert herself, just like she did with her career. Unfortunately that's too late, so she will have to trust an expert or learn fast. I don't think you should avoid stating these obvious points, even though you know she won't embrace them.

xylophone

doting son-in-law you can't really duck her question entirely...

"doting
ˈdəʊtɪŋ/Submit
adjective
adjective: doting
extremely and uncritically fond of someone; adoring.
"she was spoiled outrageously by her doting father"

You are a master of irony?:)

You can't mean in in the sense employed by my Irish uncle when talking about great grannie's decisions in her final years

"Och, well, she was dotin' by then..."

Or you feel that the poor OP is being driven into Banstead, as my father used to put it.....:)