🧮 Elder Care Finances: When Simplifying Makes Sense

With the unexpected passing of my mother in April 2025, my siblings and I went into full crisis mode for my then-85-year-old father, who was living with both advanced heart failure and lung disease/fibrosis.

My father was a retired Marine who served in Vietnam as a radar technician, by the way. He was an amazing guy who did not suffer fools lightly, Brutus!

I’m sad to say we lost our dear father in October 2025, only six months after we lost Mom.

That said, I learned a lot about managing finances for the elderly, as I served as my dad’s financial power of attorney (POA).

To begin, last April I had no idea how much money my father had, but it was clear he needed more regular care than any of my siblings or I could provide.

During the week of my mother’s funeral, my oldest sister—who was the executrix of my parents’ wills and POA—agreed to add me as a second POA to focus on our father’s finances because she had her hands full with a host of other things, including his medical care, a new job, and a new house purchase.

Here’s what I learned:

Step 1: Identify All the Income Streams

Not sure how many of you have been in a similar situation, but it’s a delicate one at best.

Thankfully, my father and I had a great relationship. He trusted me and thought I had my collective act together, so he was willing—and happy—to show me his accounts.

Note: I realize this was a major win!

Finding all the income streams was the very first thing I needed to understand.

I remembered hearing that my dad received a monthly disability pension from Veterans Affairs (VA) due to exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. I had no idea how much it was per month.

It was significant, and I’m so thankful he and my mom had that income coming in every month.

On top of that, once my father’s total assets fell below $159,000, the VA would have paid $2,500/month toward assisted living care.

In addition, my dad received Social Security, as well as two separate pension payments from different companies.

Step 2: Reduce the Number of Checking & Savings Accounts

In April, my dad had three sets of checking and savings accounts, none of which earned much interest.

One set was with a bank in my hometown that he probably had since the 1960s—or earlier.

Of course, remember: “back in the day,” people physically went into a bank to deposit cash, use an ATM, and handle a host of other banking transactions.

But over time, he had also opened two additional banking relationships:

• one through Truist for his financial planning business
• and one with USAA after becoming a member

I first closed out the checking and savings accounts with USAA. While my dad still had homeowner’s and auto insurance through them, there was no need for the bank accounts. He barely used them and kept very little money there.

The next decision was determining which bank relationship to eliminate next.

Initially, we thought my dad might be able to continue living independently in our childhood home in central Pennsylvania with regular support, so keeping the hometown bank made sense.

However, I took a more strategic view that he might need to move into an assisted living facility near my oldest sister—closer to a city and medical care—and therefore should have a bank with branches in that area.

I leaned toward eliminating the hometown bank, whose branches were limited geographically, and keeping the Truist accounts open.

While I had POA, I still discussed all of this with both my father and oldest sister, and they agreed with the plan.

It took about two months (and a couple of in-person appointments), but I finally eliminated the hometown bank.

Step 3: Find the Certificates of Deposit

The next order of business was to identify and consolidate all of my dad’s money market accounts and certificates of deposit (CDs).

I also ended any automatic CD rollover terms because of my father’s deteriorating health and age. I wanted to ensure all of his money remained liquid and easily accessible to help pay for his care.

I rolled his two “money market” accounts (read: low-interest-bearing savings accounts) into his primary checking and savings account because the interest rate wasn’t any better.

Then the hunt began for all the CDs.

Initially, I identified one with USAA, one with the hometown bank, and one with Truist.

Then, about a month after my mom passed away, my dad found another one with Discover (yes, the credit card company/bank).

That’s four CDs if you’re #mathing with me.

And the check for the Discover CD ended up getting lost in the mail the first time it was sent to my dad.

Step 4: Open a High Yield Savings Account (HYSA)

With my father’s deteriorating health and the clear need to get him into an assisted living facility—which would most assuredly be expensive—I wanted to make sure his money was earning as much as possible without investing in stocks or something similar.

My husband and I had recently opened a high-yield savings account (HYSA) with CIT Bank for our emergency fund, which had a 4.1% annual percentage yield (APY).

However, when I researched HYSAs for my dad, Valley Bank in California was offering a 4.3% rate for new customers.

The very short version of this part of the story is that Valley ended up being a nightmare to work with, so I ultimately opened an account with CIT Bank for my father’s money instead—and it worked out great.

Step 5: Reduce Credit Cards

When I first did an inventory, my dad had seven credit cards.

Thankfully, he had no credit card debt.

So I suggested he choose the two he used most often and close the rest. He got it down to three, which was one more than I thought he needed—but it was close enough!

Step 6: Sell the House and Move to Assisted Living

You can imagine this was a pretty difficult decision for my family to make.

This was the house my mother was born in, raised her family in, and lived in for her entire life.

That said, it became apparent after my mother’s passing that we needed to sell it so my father could move somewhere he could receive round-the-clock medical care.

After researching options, we found a place 10 minutes from my oldest sister’s new house that cost $9,500/month, plus the cost of his medications, which added another $200+/month.

While this caused some turmoil, it was clear we needed to do it.

My dad was on board largely because he saw that care options were limited in rural Pennsylvania, and he was becoming increasingly scared of being alone in the house with the possibility of falling.

So while my oldest sister was on vacation, my dad asked to move into the assisted living facility as soon as possible, and I led the charge (from Virginia) to get him medically evaluated, prepared, and physically moved while she was out of town.

The house sold in five days, and we received an all-cash offer.

It couldn’t have gone any better from that perspective.

Step 7: Stop Unnecessary Recurring Monthly Payments and Reduce Expenses

With my dad’s permission, I combed through his recurring expenses and stopped anything unnecessary.

That included:

• political donations (and spammy political texts)
• homeowner’s insurance (once the house sold)
• car insurance (once we sold his car)

The TV package at his new place stank, so we hooked him up with the best high-definition experience available.

His only remaining recurring expense was his cell phone.

Whew

I was proud of getting things simplified and consolidated for my dad because it made a difficult situation easier.

In the end, I was able to get his finances in order, and he had enough funds to cover his extensive living and medical costs for a long time.

I miss my father (and mother) every single day and am so thankful they were my parents.

Managing aging parents’ finances is emotionally exhausting, even when you know you’re doing the right thing. I hope this helps someone else care for their parents or loved ones.

 🐝 That’s the buzz for today – now go forth and make good financial decisions!