This post is for caregivers that have to take care of your elder parents, the Baby Boomers! My mom is living on her fixed income of Social Security and thriving within her means, thanks to Florida's low cost of living!
I have had the opportunity to learn how to take care of my mom who has needed assistance with everything. Instead of paying $4,000-$7,000 for assisted living, I decided to take care of her myself. I had no idea what that entailed. I KNOW NOW!
I had to take care of her HOA fees, Home Insurance, Mortgage payments, Medicare costs, Medicine costs, Nurses, Manage Medicine, Blood Pressure, Doctors, Taxes, Home Insurance, Power of Attorney forms and more! It was a huge learning curve that I needed to overcome fast!
So if you need help, here is How I Navigated Caregiving my Elder Parent!!
1. Medicare Plans: I called Boomer Benefits and worked with amazing people! They helped me apply for Medicare and choose the right plan. I then learned about Plan A and B and realized I needed Plan F and signed her up for that, it kept the costs very low for us! Also, I needed Plan D for her medicine so I chose the best plan.
2. Paying High HOA Fees: I had to pay a $15,000 roof that the HOA was giving the residents only 1 MONTH to pay!! So I had to finance that with a personal loan. I turned to Credit Unions (iThink) for personal loans, to pay the high interest rate credit cards, charged with HOA fees, when they tripled in 2024. Then I had to refinance the roof loan (too much at Wells Fargo 15%) with a low interest rate auto loan (7% at Florida Credit Union), using our car (which we previously owned) as collateral. So now I pay a very low interest rate for the auto loan. I was able to pay for the roof and sell my mom's condo fast to be released from these high HOA fees! We now live in a condo with very low HOA fees. (From $700 down to $300) It makes a big difference! So if your elder parent is not active to be using the pool and such, move them into a place with lower HOA fees!
3. Credit Card Debt from Home Repairs: I managed to take out a personal loan with my mom to pay off the home repairs that accrued on the high interest credit cards, with a low interest personal loan. The less debt the better for elder parents! (iThink)
4. Selling and Purchasing a New Home: (lower Home Insurance costs) I sold mom's condo for a good price ($350,000) after I renovated it, paid for the home repairs with my "high balance" credit card, and I moved mom. I found a new home for her (55+ community) that could be purchased with a reverse purchase, the reverse mortgage option, but using that towards a new home, with lower home insurance costs. Total Mortgage helped me navigate this brilliantly! So now mom has no mortgage payment, a new home, and low home insurance payments. Look for properties that accept FHA loans.
5. Power of Attorney Forms: I have to do all of mom's doctor appts online, on her app. So be sure you have Power of Attorney forms uploaded for all of your parent's bank accounts, mortgage accounts, Insurance companies, Medicare, Loans, HOA offices, etc. Any transaction that you do online, make sure you have a Power of Attorney form uploaded and received, and they know you are the Power of Attorney when you call next. Banks that you can not go into physically, you will need to do everything over the phone, and my mom is beyond talking tech talk, so I have to do it. I worked with Legal Zoom.
6. High Medicine Costs: I found Plan F and D and a good way to keep her costs down or affordable. I work with my pharmacy to fill 1 month of meds instead of 3 months. That is an option!
7. Online HOA Payments: Make sure they have written instructions how to navigate this in paper form or a password notebook with all the passwords. (Low tech explanation needed for seniors.)
8. Living Will: I turned to Legal Zoom for all the Living Wills, Power of Attorney forms, etc. I had to notarize the forms at (UPS or PakMail) an online account until the verification process became too complicated. So now I just have them in paper form. I don't need access to them online and besides the address has changed so I probably need to get new ones again.
9. Verification Codes and Passwords: Make sure that you have all the Elders passwords written down in a password notebook. I bought them on Amazon. So when you have to help your Elder verify their identity on Login . gov or Social Security etc. they can!
10. Social Security Forms and Taxes: Save the paper Social Security form from the mail because you will need it to file their taxes! Have all the updated login info to get to the Social Security because they changed the online platform again. So login every year or so to make sure it is current, and receive the online SS form, that is now accessible. I have a wonderful accountant that I work with online and uploaded all our taxes!
11. Home and Car Insurance: I chose AAA for our Home and Car Insurance bundled. It works for us. It is a low cost on mom's new home!
12. Senior Discounts: Finally, Get AARP! There are so many discounts and eventually when I receive more income, I will be able to give back to AARP! I just discovered them last year. I wish I knew about them earlier. I signed up mom for Dental AARP plan. It is very inexpensive! Also, I signed up for T-Mobile's 55+ plan and upgraded my mom's iPhone to an iPhone 16 so she can pay her bills online, since the apps will not work on outdated phones. So even though I pay her bills online, most of them are on automatic pay, she has to have the latest iPhone in order to verify her identity and access her apps. It is very important that you keep your Elder parent's phone updated.
13. Hearing Aids: I paid Manhattan Life for a year to get a discount ($900) for mom's hearing aids ($5,000). They work well and then we went to a (FL Palm Beach County: hearing aid specialist) for a very low cost for yearly maintenance.
14. Daily Schedule, Self Care, Family Help: Use Numbers (Apple) for your daily schedule of Caregiving tasks, to keep track of your time given to your Elder parent. Also, so you can schedule some time for yourself! You can communicate to your siblings the time you spend on caregiving and ask for financial help, if they can, help with monthly medicare costs or medicine ($400 + $100 a month). Besides, the JOY of watching the birds walk across the backyard with my mom is priceless!! I spend my time wisely taking care of what matters to me, my mom!
15. Digitize Family Photos: Mom loves to look at her family photos! I sent the physical photos to Forever Studios and digitized them all. We have videos of VHS Nutcracker dances, Super 8 films, and photos. I have them on a USB, External drive, online (Forever Studios website yearly member archival option), and Google Drive. I shipped a copy of them on an external drive to my sister so she can show them to the grandchildren!
16. Declutter! Help your elder parent declutter and donate to charities! It helps to move into a smaller more manageable home and if you are worried about not being able to leave them home alone in a huge house with clutter, then declutter and move them into a smaller more manageable house or condo. We live in a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom with a garage and all of our family storage fits perfectly along the wall in the single car garage! We moved from a 3 bedroom condo and now all of mom's things fit perfectly! We donated to Goodwill!
17. Passport: Update their passport! They might need two forms of identification for verification or to travel. Trust me, you will need it! I had to locate marriage certificates from the City Hall where my parents were married to prove name changes, then it turned out, the office made a mistake, and I no longer needed the documents. My mom had to take Passport photos twice because the gov office did not accept the first one from PakMail. So make sure you get the photos done at the Passport office at the City Hall or somewhere where they do really good Passport photos. It's a circus, trust me! It took more than a year to renew my mom's passport. So start to work on it now! You might need to move your parents into your home in another country in the future, so make sure the passport is current!
18. Human Reminders: Remind elder to take their medicine even if the alarm goes off! Enjoy every minute that you have together!
GOD BLESS GOOD SONS AND DAUGHTERS!! I know it is a TON of WORK, but worth it!
If any of this information is valuable to you, feel free to buy me a cup of tea!! You can email me any questions or concerns! Please refer me to anyone who needs a few tips about how to take care of their elder parents!
@Anna-Torlen
or PayPal: https://paypal.me/atorlen
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