Elderly Mum (recently widowed) now dealing with money - advice.

Pollycat

chesky wrote: »

This is a plea to all women of middle age and over. If you're married or have a partner who you've left all the "money stuff", DO get involved in it. It's much easier to deal with if you approach it slowly and with help from your old man. The OPs mother is only a year older than I am so, if she's still got her mental faculties, SHE CAN DO IT. With help. Perhaps the local Age Concern or Age UK can give classes. As a CAB adviser, I see many women in this situation and it breaks my heart.

I think this works both ways.
It's not only women who leave all the 'money stuff' to their partners.
A male friend of ours is clueless about their finances.

Yellow_mango

This is a plea to all women of middle age and over. If you're married or have a partner who you've left all the "money stuff", DO get involved in it. It's much easier to deal with if you approach it slowly and with help from your old man. The OPs mother is only a year older than I am so, if she's still got her mental faculties, SHE CAN DO IT. With help. Perhaps the local Age Concern or Age UK can give classes. As a CAB adviser, I see many women in this situation and it breaks my heart.

Not just women...

As a woman who handles all the family finances, this thread has made me very aware that I probably should at least make sure that there is a guide or record somewhere to help my husband if anything were to happen to me. I have tried to involve me, but he’s really not interested in the day to day details.

Sea_Shell

We have monthly "budget" meetings, where I go through all the spreadsheets with DH. He'd be well placed to deal with it all if needs be, even if he leaves it all to me in the meantime. I enjoy it to be fair and stole the job from him when I first went part time.

Loanranger

My mum gave me power of attorney. I rang her twice a week specifically to ask her what shopping she needed and I ordered it online to be delivered to her at her home. I had access to her bank account and set up direct debits for the household bills. Every month I printed off her bank accounts and went through every item I had spent on her behalf and she signed and dated them. I did this for six years or so. I did not want to ever be accused of fiddling the books.

chesky

Pollycat wrote: »

I think this works both ways.
It's not only women who leave all the 'money stuff' to their partners.
A male friend of ours is clueless about their finances.

Hello Pollycat, no I do realise that all things gender-based work both ways, but just as there are some women who use domestic violence, the vast majority are men. So it is with finances. It's usually (but not 100%) the male who is the main earner and the person who controls and deals with the finances. And to have to learn how to deal with this side of things when you're also trying to come to terms with the death of your life partner, is incredibly difficult. Many of these women can and do come to terms with the situation, but it's tremendously difficult and takes time and patience.

74jax

chesky wrote: »

This is a plea to all women of middle age and over. If you're married or have a partner who you've left all the "money stuff", DO get involved in it. It's much easier to deal with if you approach it slowly and with help from your old man. The OPs mother is only a year older than I am so, if she's still got her mental faculties, SHE CAN DO IT. With help. Perhaps the local Age Concern or Age UK can give classes. As a CAB adviser, I see many women in this situation and it breaks my heart.

When my mam had a stroke, dad had HIS bank card but didn't even know how to get money out, he didn't know his pin, when bills were due etc. It's not always men who are in charge. My dad happily let mam have his card and buy everything. He was well and truely lost.

Madmel

Chesky and Polecat, you are both correct. My mum died very suddenly aged 54. She handled all finances and cooking when my dad worked. Once dad retired, some 10 years before mum died), she told him to shape up and be responsible for half the evening meals. There was a transition period of some rather odd creations, but he really enjoyed cooking and has always been good at ironing. When she died, lots of friends were really worried about how he would cope but he has done really well. He's now in his mid-80s and very proud of his cooking skills. He cooks every week for his recently widowed neighbour.

I went to South Korea 18 months ago at the height of the Trump vs Kim problems. Before I went, I gave DH a document about how to run the house, in case I never came back. It took me a couple of hours to type up, but he has it now in case anything happens to me. This thread serves as a reminder to check everything on it is still relevant. Now the DDs are both adults, maybe I'll give them copies too.

MoneySeeker1

Loanranger wrote: »

My mum gave me power of attorney. I rang her twice a week specifically to ask her what shopping she needed and I ordered it online to be delivered to her at her home. I had access to her bank account and set up direct debits for the household bills. Every month I printed off her bank accounts and went through every item I had spent on her behalf and she signed and dated them. I did this for six years or so. I did not want to ever be accused of fiddling the books.

Commendably clear and honest way of approaching it.

Asking specifically what is needed is a good way to go about it. This is one of the things that concerns me re the relative-by-marriage that holds this power over my parents, ie that they aren't doing this. They are just ordering what they think they will and not consulting with my parents about what they want and I was only able to see details of the first order (so could see it didnt include a full range of food) and haven't been able to get sight of what has been ordered since or even whether regular orders have been put in for them.

onwards&upwards

chesky wrote: »

Hello Pollycat, no I do realise that all things gender-based work both ways, but just as there are some women who use domestic violence, the vast majority are men. So it is with finances. It's usually (but not 100%) the male who is the main earner and the person who controls and deals with the finances. And to have to learn how to deal with this side of things when you're also trying to come to terms with the death of your life partner, is incredibly difficult. Many of these women can and do come to terms with the situation, but it's tremendously difficult and takes time and patience.

I don’t think that’s true anymore. Certainly not for the baby boomer generation who came of age in the sixties or younger generations than that.

The current generation of women over 70 were probably the last to allow this to be the norm.

Mojisola

onwards&upwards wrote: »

I don’t think that’s true anymore. Certainly not for the baby boomer generation who came of age in the sixties or younger generations than that.

The current generation of women over 70 were probably the last to allow this to be the norm.

There were a lot of couples of my parents' age (born in the 1920s) where the husband handed over his wage packet each week and the wife managed all the family money.