As we age, it can be increasingly challenging to stay organized, manage finances, and keep up with responsibilities. Often, this can be attributed to a combination of cognitive, physical, and lifestyle factors that evolve over time, making tasks that were once routine feel more burdensome.

Cognitive decline can make it harder to remember due dates for bills, keep track of important documents, and navigate technology. Physical health issues, such as arthritis, vision impairment, and reduced mobility can impede the ability to conduct tasks. These factors can lead to missed bill payments, an inability to locate key documents, and increased vulnerability to scams.

There are things seniors can do today to help them stay organized in the future. Here are some suggestions from our own experience:

Simplify Your System

Client #1: Bill was the spouse responsible for paying bills and managing money in the household he shared with his wife Rebecca. Some bills he received in the mail; others were paperless, and he got an email. For payments, he paid some by check/mail: others were on autopay. Even some were ACH payments direct to vendors. To make things more complicated, some vendor’s bills were paid from Bill’s bank portal and others from Rebecca’s portal. Fast forward to the day when Bill ended up with a medical crisis – Rebecca quickly became overwhelmed. Not only did she not understand Bill’s process, but she also didn’t know what bills were outstanding or how to pay them.

When we came on the scene, we set out to create a streamlined process for managing their finances. We:

  • Reviewed all their recurring bills and created a master list identifying how they were currently received and how they were paid. Then we:
  • Made consistency a goal. Rebecca chose her preferred method for receiving and paying bills, and Life Managers switched everything to accommodate her preference.
  • Lastly, we documented due dates and average payments in a centralized location so that if both Bill and Rebecca were unable to manage it, they could easily hand off the responsibility to another party.

Lesson: It is easy today to build up quite a list of regular bills – cell phones, streaming services, subscriptions, and memberships add to the basic monthly utility and household costs. If you are the one paying them, you may not even realize your system has become overly complicated. Taking a step back, making efforts to streamline and document can help avoid missed payments if someone else needs to take over.

Client #2: As this was their second marriage, John and Cathy decided it was best to each have their own bank accounts and one for joint expenses. That worked ok in the first several years, but over 20 years of marriage they each began paying for expenses out of their own accounts and it became difficult to track what payments were coming out of which account. Missed payments became a problem sometimes because each thought the other had paid the bill. They eventually lost track of how much money they were spending because they didn’t have a centralized budget or way to see their overall financial picture.

We stepped in to help. To simplify their finances, we:

  1. Created a spreadsheet of bills and payments, including the expected amount of each bill and payment due dates.
  2. Agreed on one bank account from which to pay all the bills.
  3. Reviewed their subscription history to identify anything they no longer needed and installed a mechanism to track renewal dates.

Lesson:  Having multiple accounts for paying bills can present more challenges in keeping track of what has been paid. Using one account for all daily money management and implementing a straightforward process for managing money can help ensure that nothing gets missed.

Other Recommendations

Simplicity and consistency, with respect to ongoing payments and accounting, impact a senior’s ability to maintain their independence, and there are a few other money-related areas to monitor regularly:

  • Charitable Donations – Everyone gets bombarded with requests for donations. As cognition deteriorates, seniors become more susceptible to making poor giving decisions. This can be due to bad actors preying on seniors but can also be a lack of remembering that they have already given or sometimes the name of the asking charity is just slightly different than one they have supported in the past.
    • Lesson: Set a budget for giving, listing the actual names of the charities you want to support and keeping a log of donations can help protect you from giving to the wrong organizations or giving too much.
  • Special Offers and/or Rate Changes – Signing up for a new service often comes with a teaser rate that will expire in the future. Sometimes the difference between the teaser rate and the full freight is significant. Additionally, over time rates you are used to paying trend up. If you don’t monitor your increases, you could end up overspending your budget.
    • Lesson: A spreadsheet which details how much you are spending and when rates are due to increase will prevent surprises.
  • Necessary Documents – As you purchase larger items, sign contracts for services, accumulate material that will be needed for taxes, create a centralized place where you can retrieve these documents when needed. This can help if you need to collect on a warranty, terminate a service you no longer need, or provide valuable knowledge if someone is called to step in if you are no longer able to manage your finances.

Get Help

Simplicity and organization go hand in hand when managing finances as you age. At Life Managers and Associates, we help older adults by:

  • Reviewing their current inflows and outflows with an eye for how to simplify the process
  • Developing a primary inventory list of accounts – bank, investment, credit cards, etc.
  • Creating consistency in how bills are paid by setting up direct deposit or auto payments
  • Logging donations, memberships and subscriptions including renewal dates
  • Implementing a filing system to access needed documents which includes identifying what documents/statements need to be kept and what can be shredded

Whether it is just to set up a system that can make financial management easier or providing ongoing bill paying assistance, we can help. Contact us today and let’s get your finances in order.