5 Tips to Start Managing Your Aging Parents Money

Nothing truly prepares you for the day you’re sitting across from your aging parents, trying to piece together a financial picture they have spent a lifetime likely keeping private.For many adult children, that conversation often comes too late, triggered by a diagnosis that changes everything.Mine came when we learned that my 86-year-old father had dementia, and I was living 200 miles away from my parents.

I am an only child.And I had no idea if they had enough money to pay for a home health aide and memory care.I knew that my father had a pension, that he and my mother collected Social Security and that they had a generous health insurance policy.

I knew nothing more.Eventually my mother revealed something big: She had managed to sock away half a million dollars.When my parents sold their house on Long Island and moved to a 55-plus community in New Jersey in 1998, she realized their tax bill had plunged.

She opened a money-market account and saved the difference every month.Her financial discipline floored me.I stopped worrying about paying for their care, and I started planning for them to move to a senior living community a mile from my home.

But I skipped the most important step.Instead of asking my mother what she wanted, I told her what she needed.

That mistake shut down our conversation.Experts who work with aging parents and their adult children say this is one of the most common mistakes the children make: treating their parents’ crisis as a problem to solve.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....