1. Your parents may be old and
living off a government pension and a comfortable corpus that they have built
over their working years.
2. However, of late, you may be worried about their
ability to manage their own finances, when you find that your parents have become
forgetful and tend to lose track of things.
3. You then realize that it may be time for you,
and your siblings, to take a more active role in your parents’ financial lives.
4. As your parents grow old, they are likely to be
reluctant to take decisions related to money, can get influenced to make
inappropriate financial decisions and can become forgetful about those that
have been done.
5. However, you must realize that it is not going
to be easy for them to accept that they need help, and you must handle this very delicately and in
small steps by getting them and your siblings involved
in it from the beginning to avoid misunderstandings later on.
6. One of the easiest ways to begin is for you and your siblings to
help your parents with those aspects of finances that they are likely to find
most tedious, such as visiting offices of banks, insurance companies and other
investment providers, besides paperwork and dealing with their taxes, which will also give a good understanding of
where your parents have invested their money.
7. You and your siblings should also help your
parents invest the surplus funds which may be lying in their savings accounts as this is another task that older people find very
difficult to undertake.
8. While evaluating the various investment options
and making decisions, you should consider your parents' age and stage in life,
not your own or of your siblings.
9. Once your parents become comfortable with the idea of
involving other family members in their financial affairs, it may be a good idea to get a power of attorney (POA) executed in favour of you and your siblings.
10. This document should be registered with all the
investment providers that have been enlisted for investments and will make it
easier to manage these in the future.
11. While you reduce the monetary
responsibilities of your parents, the latter should not be made to feel helpless and should be
consulted on all decisions so that they still have a feeling of control.
12. The idea behind the exercise is to ensure that
the parents’ financial stability and comfort is taken care of and you should be
able to convey this in a caring manner.