Mom is 82. She sucks at managing her money. Always has, but after Dad died 10 years ago, she didn’t care about anything. I know, depressed and should seek help. But she refused and continues to refuse, so....
Anyway, I’m 250 miles away and at the beginning of 2016, I found out just how bad her finances are, or I get a good idea without a complete picture. It took a year to convince her to let me help organize things, creating online access to every account, bill, etc. Then I found out it was worse than I thought.
In January, I created a spreadsheet of it all: creditor, phone number, account, username/password, closing date, due date, last paid, and balance. For cards, I added expiration date, interest rate, and credit limit.
My brother and I loaned her just over $10K, to bring down the balance on a high-interest card. Even if we have to wait to get repaid from her estate (houses in SoCal are worth a lot), we can wait. This made a HUGE difference.
I’m doing a combination of eliminating low-balance cards and going after high-interest ones. And getting her checking balance higher, in case of a problem with her house or her rental. And I’ve gotten her to curtail her reckless spending. Her not being able to drive anymore has “helped” with that.
In just a few months, I’ve gotten three of her cards paid off and cut the big, high-interest card to a third of what it was--A THIRD!!--mostly from the interest-free loan from me and my brother. She’s already saving over $200/month in interest payments. I called three card companies (again) seeking to lower the interest rates. One went down 1.2% to 15.74%, another went down 1.75% to 16.74%--but that’s the second reduction, it was 22.49% in January (so that’s almost 6% reduction!!).
I have to make her bill-paying as simplified as possible (and I’m simplifying it more), and she still messes up. “Mom, you have to pay off this month’s charges in full.” “Okay.” Then she doesn’t. So I go online and pay the rest from her account, to stay on schedule. That’s how I’m going to handle it--if she messes up, I’ll keep it on track. I inform her of everything and keep my siblings informed--especially my sister, who says I’m “keeping secrets” but she’s a fool. My brother’s better with money and understands I’m doing a good job. My sister declared bankruptcy twice because she spends like an idiot when she knows better.
I’m figuring Mom can have this paid off in (best case) 1 year to (worst case) 2 years. Best case is if she remains careful with spending, no costly emergencies, and if she gets a end-of-the-year distribution from her IRA. It takes A LOT of time and effort to do this, a lot of monitoring, a lot of phone calls (she won’t call ANY creditor unless I’m conferencing it), but it’s worth it to help her get out of debt.
After these debts, she has a timeshare (!!! I know!!!) to pay off, since she doesn’t want to sell. I can’t override her on everything. By then, it’ll be another 5-6 months and be done. Then me and my brother.
Submitted April 17, 2017 at 08:15PM by Callmedory http://ift.tt/2pvl0R1
