Some background:
I live in the US and my parents immigrated here a long time ago. They are relatively poor, and my father manages money very poorly. He barely makes enough at his job, that my brother has to help him make monthly mortgage payments. Unfortunately he just shifts that freed money to other uses, like buying useless junk, giving money to his parents to make himself appear well off, etc. I'm afraid he might have taking extra loans to... buy the useless junk.
Over the holidays, I had some alone time with my mother, who tells me that the situation is getting bad with my father. He won't admit that he's a hoarder, there is literally a room in the house where boxes fall and hit your head when you open it (and he won't let us throw away anything in there because it's all "perfectly good stuff he can sell"), etc.
But then she tells me this really sad tidbit: My mother has never worked in her life (she is in her early 60s), so she's dependent on my father for cash. But now he's basically stopped giving her cash a few years ago. I inquired as to how she pays for things, and basically her sisters give her cash whenever she visits them. She says she doesn't spend much on a day to day, so it's okay.
I was sort of (ok, really shocked) and heartbroken. I'm not sure how to deal with my father (yet), but I'd really, really like to help my mother out. She's constantly worried about being broke, and it's depressing for me, since I just bought a whole bunch of random stuff over the holidays. I have a large cash flow which I don't need all of, and I'd really like to help my mother out.
What I would like to do is set up some way to transfer money to my mother, without my father knowing. I live really far away (plane flight), so cash transfers won't work. It would preferably be automatic so I could schedule it on a monthly basis so I wouldn't have to worry about it... That way she would have some cash flow she could rely on, rather than begging her sisters for money. I figure this is better than giving her a large check at once.
I talked to her the other day, and even though many of their accounts are joint (which my father suspiciously changed to her as the primary), there are two accounts she holds a checking account at some regional credit union and a savings account that I opened for her a long time ago that my father doesn't (seem) to have access to. He does look at her phone and e-mail from time to time.
I looked at some options -- I have BOFA which will let me schedule monthly ACH transfers, but it costs $3 each time. NBD, but it annoys me when there are free options like venmo. Unfortunately venmo doesn't have a scheduling mechanism I can just setup, and I'm afraid dad might click on the venmo app if she sees it on moms phone.
That was a bit longer than I expected... My main question is about the transfers, but any other advice is appreciated.
tl;dr; Dad can't manage money and won't give money to mom anymore. I'd like to periodically give my mom some money in a way my dad won't know about it.
Submitted December 31, 2017 at 05:14PM by greentea45 http://ift.tt/2ly9PpS
