What to Do When Your Loved One is Running Out of Money

Take a minute to imagine the following scenario: Bills are due soon, so you go to the bank or the ATM to retrieve money to pay them. You put the card in, and the following message appears: “Insufficient Funds.” Your heart would drop to the floor. After all, you’ve saved up money for years, so you should have enough. But you don’t have enough, because you’ve also needed money for this or that over the years. So now, something like this happens, and you find yourself scrambling to figure out what to do.

The sad fact of the matter is that the above scenario is exactly what happens to many elders today. They find themselves having outlived the funds that they saved up when they were younger. As they got older and expenses began to rise, they had to spend much more than they originally anticipated. At the time, the amount they had planned to save seemed like enough.

But it isn’t.

So, what can they do? What options does a person have when they’ve seemingly run out of options? Thankfully, there are a few. If your loved one requires constant care, they can go to a small care home, such as an assisted living center, except on a much more modest scale. However, family members would have to pay any difference between the loved one’s income and the cost it takes to be placed in the home.

Another option is that your loved one could go to a nursing home, since, in most states, Medicaid will pay for a nursing home. However, Medicaid will not pay for a caregiver at home in order to keep an elderly loved one out of the nursing home. If that sounds ridiculous to you, that’s because it is; and if you want to help make a change, be sure to bring up the matter with your legislators.

While these sorts of financial problems are prevalent, they can be avoided if we work together with financial advisors and try to find the right long-term strategies. It’s great that people these days are often living longer, but it isn’t good that the money needed to support those individuals is running low or running out altogether. That’s why it is important for us to sit down with family members, figure out exactly how much they need for expenses, bills, etc., and then work toward making some changes, even temporarily. This type of approach can help to right the ship, so to speak, until a more long-term solution can be made and put into action. This type of approach can help us make sure that our