Financial investment decisions for elderly mother and stress

[Anonymous]

My widowed mother (77) retired at 55 (around year 2000) many years back. At age 55 she pulled all her money out of 401k (conservative investments anyway) and put it into CDs. She was a great saver all her life until retirement but not an investor. She saw the dot.com busy and us of the opinion that wall Street is evil. I tried to tell her at the time in 2000 to reallocate her investments to perhaps slightly more conservative index funds (inflation protection bonds). But she believed in CDs. Even if the dot.com busy hadn't happened she would have still done CDs. I told her 20 years ago that inflation would hurt her savings but again she didn't listen.

With this past year inflation is worse than before. I do feel like we are overdue for a market correction but would really like to move her money out of these terrible CDs and into somewhat more conservative investments through Fidelity. Perhaps given her low risk tolerance, 25 percent equities and 75 percent bond funds or inflation protection. How much do I push her? She constantly complains about how poor she is and frankly her assets are dwindling. She had a mere 200k in her account. Obviously she'll never live under a bridge and will move in with me if she is broke. But I am frustrated at her years of lack of financial savvy. Even when she was a much younger woman.

She has very poor health and frankly won't be around in 5 years mist likely. Although I did say that 5 years ago and here she is. But then again, she's always told me she's imminently about to die, since the age of 50! Suggestions?

[Anonymous]

idk how much she started with, but she should have had a financial planner years ago.

[Anonymous]

Does she collect social security and/or a pension? You can certainly make a shift as you propose but it it’s not going to make a big difference at this point. The best thing to do is to detail her expenses and current income and project out how long the funds will last. Also, what expenses can be reduced or eliminated.

[Anonymous]

200K is too little to worry about.

[Anonymous]

I think you should do something. I had the same problem with my mom and she's now 91yo.

First, consider putting $10k this year and next in I bonds. That might be safe enough for her and they happen to be paying well right now.

What I wanted to do with my mom - and maybe yours will okay- is to put just 10% of her money in an index fund. It isn't much but should help fight inflation.

If you do both those things, you will at least have $40k growing. You can also look to see if you can churn any of her savings with bank bonuses. (There's a website that tracks them - doctor of credit)