What is a good way to help support an elderly parent financially?

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the replies. Your suggestions are very helpful.

Parent is in a different country and culture is to support parents. I do support my own parents as well but my parents live modestly and there are so conscious of spending our money that I need to prod them to spend a bit more on comforts.

Paying for essentials directly seems to be the best option with me taking the responsibility of dealing directly with my in-law.

[Anonymous]

Years ago my grandmother would spend money on frivolous things then have bills go unpaid. What my father and uncle did is create an account that her social security and pension went into. Then from this account they paid the bills themselves. They gave my grandmother a monthly allowance to spend however she wished. My grandmother was not happy about this situation initially but got used to it. FWIW, she did end up being diagnosed with dementia.

[Anonymous]

Grow a spine and tell your wife no more money unless they fix their spending. No one should be flying first class if you are bankrolling them. Please grow a spine and say no. You are letting FIL walk all over him. He probably laughs at how weak his SIL is.

[Anonymous]

Can your spouse and her sibling who also sends money coordinate this, but have the father receive some money monthly instead of quarterly? Their father may feel like he’s getting a big windfall when he receives each quarterly amount, but then he blows through it too quickly and has little to nothing left towards the end of each quarter for his bills.

He probably won’t like that first transition and complain, but it should hopefully help him if his bills are arriving monthly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pay bills directly and send a gift card for necessities like groceries. And, help them sigh up for food stamps, etc.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spouse's parent is single and owns the home free and clear. Other than that he depends on us financially for all expenses. The issue I have is that spending is lavish. Wants to take first class flights (we ourselves never every took first class for example), wants to give expensive gifts to friends/family (things we do not buy ourselves) and generally very nonchalant with money.

Spouse agrees with me on this but unable to limit/control their parent's expenses. We send money quarterly and as does one other sibling. Parent makes my spouse feel guilty for not personally taking care of them after they have raised them all alone as a single parent. How much parent suffered, etc when they were children.

One approach I am thinking is to ask for a monthly listing of expenses and we pay only for all essential expenses. Does this sound reasonable or is it insulting?

Stop sending quarterly and send monthly. If you send $500/month and you get a $1500 check, it is very easy to spend it all within a month.

You have a mouth and you tell them no to first class and you limit the number of flights they take per year. If they want to give gifts then they save from what they receive from you and sibling give and from their SS.

I cannot believe that you have gone along with such craziness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spouse's parent is single and owns the home free and clear. Other than that he depends on us financially for all expenses. The issue I have is that spending is lavish. Wants to take first class flights (we ourselves never every took first class for example), wants to give expensive gifts to friends/family (things we do not buy ourselves) and generally very nonchalant with money.

Spouse agrees with me on this but unable to limit/control their parent's expenses. We send money quarterly and as does one other sibling. Parent makes my spouse feel guilty for not personally taking care of them after they have raised them all alone as a single parent. How much parent suffered, etc when they were children.

One approach I am thinking is to ask for a monthly listing of expenses and we pay only for all essential expenses. Does this sound reasonable or is it insulting?

Stop sending quarterly and send monthly. If you send $500/month and you get a $1500 check, it is very easy to spend it all within a month.

You have a mouth and you tell them no to first class and you limit the number of flights they take per year. If they want to give gifts then they save from what they receive from you and sibling give and from their SS.

I cannot believe that you have gone along with such craziness.

This. Or even send weekly. That will make it much harder to spend a lot of money on any one thing.

I wouldn't worry about being insulting, given how he is behaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can either send a fixed amount and nothing more (if they reach out for more money you can bring up a reverse mortgage so that they can contribute, that might be a scared straight situation), or you can take certain bills (utilities, health care) and pay them directly and nothing more.

Asking for a list of expenses is asking for a drawn-out fight every single month. I wouldn't sign up for that with a reasonable person, let alone a maniac who thinks you should fund their first class flights.

I think that this is the right path.

[Anonymous]

I made a new post on something that happened yesterday.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1092009.page

[Anonymous]

As I dug deeper I realized we just let him guilt his children to hell. He is doing the same to his grand children as well. Telling my 8 year old daughter "dont trust your mother", "your mother does not care about me", "you dont care about me". All because.... we did not take him out to buy a..... lottery ticket.

[Anonymous]

I am putting a hard stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As I dug deeper I realized we just let him guilt his children to hell. He is doing the same to his grand children as well. Telling my 8 year old daughter "dont trust your mother", "your mother does not care about me", "you dont care about me". All because.... we did not take him out to buy a..... lottery ticket.

This is about cognitive decline, not about him being a terrible person. Does he see a doctor who specializes in working with elderly people? When was his last physical?

I think he probably needs more daily care and help than he lets on. If he had some regular supervision m he wouldn’t be able to spend inordinate amounts of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spouse's parent is single and owns the home free and clear. Other than that he depends on us financially for all expenses. The issue I have is that spending is lavish. Wants to take first class flights (we ourselves never every took first class for example), wants to give expensive gifts to friends/family (things we do not buy ourselves) and generally very nonchalant with money.

Spouse agrees with me on this but unable to limit/control their parent's expenses. We send money quarterly and as does one other sibling. Parent makes my spouse feel guilty for not personally taking care of them after they have raised them all alone as a single parent. How much parent suffered, etc when they were children.

One approach I am thinking is to ask for a monthly listing of expenses and we pay only for all essential expenses. Does this sound reasonable or is it insulting?

What is all of this "spouse", "parent" & "them".
You've already stated that this is your "spouses" father above, so why can't you just state whether it's your husband/wife's father??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spouse's parent is single and owns the home free and clear. Other than that he depends on us financially for all expenses. The issue I have is that spending is lavish. Wants to take first class flights (we ourselves never every took first class for example), wants to give expensive gifts to friends/family (things we do not buy ourselves) and generally very nonchalant with money.

Spouse agrees with me on this but unable to limit/control their parent's expenses. We send money quarterly and as does one other sibling. Parent makes my spouse feel guilty for not personally taking care of them after they have raised them all alone as a single parent. How much parent suffered, etc when they were children.

One approach I am thinking is to ask for a monthly listing of expenses and we pay only for all essential expenses. Does this sound reasonable or is it insulting?

What is all of this "spouse", "parent" & "them".
You've already stated that this is your "spouses" father above, so why can't you just state whether it's your husband/wife's father??

Sorry, I just re-read that and didn't mean to sound rude.

It's just hard to follow some of these posts if you can't physically picture the "players" in the story going through what they're going through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spouse's parent is single and owns the home free and clear. Other than that he depends on us financially for all expenses. The issue I have is that spending is lavish. Wants to take first class flights (we ourselves never every took first class for example), wants to give expensive gifts to friends/family (things we do not buy ourselves) and generally very nonchalant with money.

Spouse agrees with me on this but unable to limit/control their parent's expenses. We send money quarterly and as does one other sibling. Parent makes my spouse feel guilty for not personally taking care of them after they have raised them all alone as a single parent. How much parent suffered, etc when they were children.

One approach I am thinking is to ask for a monthly listing of expenses and we pay only for all essential expenses. Does this sound reasonable or is it insulting?

What is all of this "spouse", "parent" & "them".
You've already stated that this is your "spouses" father above, so why can't you just state whether it's your husband/wife's father??

Sorry, I just re-read that and didn't mean to sound rude.

It's just hard to follow some of these posts if you can't physically picture the "players" in the story going through what they're going through.

On page 1 at 10:12, the OP said that he’s the husband. The elderly parent he’s writing about is his wife’s father.