Search Results for: life insurance

How to Handle Financially Toxic Parents

September 14, 2020 By MelissaB 20 Comments

Your parents should provide for you as you grow up, but what happens when they ask you for money? Should you give money to your parents? The answer to how to handle financially toxic parents depends on both you and them.

Reasons Your Financially Toxic Parents May Need Money

There are many reasons your parents may ask you for money. Some are valid reasons, and others, not so much.

A Job Loss

Sometimes the unexpected happens. Your parent may find him or herself out of a job and in need of money. Our neighbor, Rob, worked hard all his life. Because he married young and he and his wife had children in quick succession, Rob never got to go to college. He worked as a janitor. While he and his wife were responsible with their money, they just didn’t have much money. They couldn’t establish much of an emergency fund because his income just paid the bills and covered the expenses of his seven children.

When Rob was 59, he lost his job. At that age, he had a difficult time finding a new job. In this situation, helping your parents out, if you’re financially able, is the right thing to do.

An Unexpected Funeral

How to Handle Financially Toxic Parents — Photo by Rhodi Lopez on Unsplash

If your parents no longer have life insurance and one dies, how does the other pay for the funeral? Funerals can run upwards on $10,000 or more. If your surviving parent doesn’t have the money to pay for the service and burial, contributing to this expense can be a nice gesture.

However, it is always better to plan for the future. If your parents don’t have a life insurance plan, talk to them directly. Remember, it’s never too late to have a policy. Burial insurance can be a savior by covering the funeral costs. Burial life insurance is nothing but a permanent whole life policy with small death benefits. Insurance experts also call it final expense insurance, funeral insurance, etc. You will be surprised to know that most of the big companies provide burial insurance for seniors. So, if your parents don’t have a policy yet, inspire them to have one and prepare for the unexpected.

For Younger Siblings

My friend, Joan, became friends with another girl, Leslie, in high school. Leslie had an unstable home life and eventually moved in with Joan and her family. When we all graduated high school, Leslie went to college for engineering and also worked full-time to support herself.

At regular intervals, Leslie’s mom, who still had four younger children at home, called Leslie and asked her for money. For years, Leslie gave money to her mom because she felt guilty. After all, her stepdad had just left, and her mom had to provide for the younger kids.

However, over time, her mother continued to spend irresponsibly, but Leslie didn’t feel like she could say no because if she did, her younger siblings would do without. Leslie begrudgingly gave her mom money until all the kids were out of the house.

Bad Money Management Skills

How to Deal with Financially Toxic Parents — Photo by allison christine on Unsplash

Now, I’m on the flip side and am old enough to have friends who have adult children. One of those “friends” (and I use the term loosely), Heather, continually writes on Facebook about her money troubles. These posts always appear as thinly veiled requests for money.

In the most recent post, Heather wrote about the financial troubles she and her husband have and went on to say that their 20 year old son, who is working two jobs and taking a full load of college classes, is giving them money to pay for their utilities and gas to and from work.

However, in that same week, Heather posted about going out to eat two different times and having a manicure and pedicure as well as getting her hair highlighted.

Say what?!

Should You Give Your Parents Money?

As an adult, if you find yourself in the awkward position of deciding whether or not to give your financially toxic parents money, there are a few questions you should ask yourself:

Can you afford it? Do you have the money to give your parents? Can you loan them money without causing your own financial hardship?

Why do your parents need the money? Are your parents in a truly tight financial spot because of unemployment, sickness or another issue? Or, do they have a history of mismanaging money and now, like so many times before, they’re in a bind?

Are they trying to change their situation? If your parents are facing financial difficulties, are they taking steps to try to improve their situation? Are they wisely cutting expenses and learning how to manage their money so they won’t be in this position again? You probably can’t give them advice here because they likely won’t listen, but you can recommend your favorite financial blogs or books to help them get a better handle on how to manage their money.

What does your spouse think? If your parents are routinely asking for money, your spouse may be annoyed or angry. After all, you’re giving away money that now can no longer be used for your own retirement fund, household needs, or for your kids. If your spouse is tired of you giving your parents money, please listen. The last thing you want to do is make your own marriage unstable to enable your financially toxic parents bad money habits.

Money arguments are the number one cause of divorce. Giving money to your parents frequently can definitely lead to tension and disagreements in your own marriage. Is enabling your parents worth it?

Should You Cut Your Parents Off?

If you do decide to lend your parents money, how often can you do so? You should set boundaries for the limit of your generosity in the beginning. Leslie, the girl I went to high school with, regularly gave her mother money for eight to ten years. Then, as her younger siblings grew up and left home, Leslie saw that her mother often caused her own drama and financial woes.

She cut her mom off about 15 years ago, and now she rarely hears from her.

I don’t know how long Heather’s son will lend his parents money, but I hope it’s not for too long. There’s no reason why a son should be financing his mother’s highlights and pedicures when he himself is working two jobs to pay his way through college.

Finally, if your parent is in dire financial straits due to addiction or gambling, you shouldn’t lend them money. Using tough love here would be the best advice.

Have your parents ever asked to borrow money for you? If so, how did you handle it?

Are you a parent? If so, have you ever asked to borrow money from your children?

Couples: To Combine Finances or Not?

The Best Spacing of Children for Your Finances

Is Debt Hiding a Form of Cheating?

Advertisers Note: This article has been made possible through the generous support of the people at Max Cash Title Loans. If you need a title loan, or want to refinance your title loans, contact Max Cash Title Loans and get a loan today!

4 Ways to Make Sure Your Bills Get Paid On Time

June 24, 2019 By MelissaB 2 Comments

You’re busy. I get it. I’m busy, too, and sometimes I forget to sit down and pay my bills in a timely manner. However, I don’t want a ding to my credit score. Because I’m so busy with my kids and their many activities, and L.I.F.E., I use several strategies to make sure my bills get paid on time.

Here are some of my favorite strategies:

Set e-mail reminders.

For each of my credit cards, I have set up e-mail reminders. Depending on the company, I’m sent an e-mail reminder six to 10 days before my payment is due. I can’t tell you how many times these e-mail reminders have meant the difference between a late and on-time payment. Everyone should set e-mail reminders for their bills, in my opinion, especially if you have a very busy schedule.

Set up recurring payments to your credit card.

While I generally avoid setting up recurring payments to my checking account, I do advocate setting up recurring payments to credit cards. Why? If a charge is fraudulently applied to your credit card, the credit card company protects you. If the same thing happens to your checking account, your entire account could be emptied, and then you would miss other payments to other creditors and have to pay for bounced checks.

In addition, if you have a credit card with a rewards program, you could gain rewards simply for paying your monthly bills that you used to pay via check and snail mail. Those points can add up quickly when you’re paying your monthly recurring bills with credit cards. Just make sure to pay off your credit card each month.

Set up a special account for automatic payments from your savings or checking.

If you still prefer to set up automatic payments to your bank account, I’d suggest setting up a separate account just for automatic payments. Then, if there is an error on the vendor’s part, you don’t risk paying overdraft fees on your regular checking account.

I have one account that is devoted solely to automatic payments for my husband’s student loans and our life insurance (the only two payments I have set to auto pay from our bank account). These are both fixed expenses, so at the beginning of every month, I just schedule a transfer to that account so the payments can be deducted. Since I don’t use this account for any other purpose, there is no worry about not being able to make other payments or bouncing checks.

Keep all of your bills in one place.

If you’re still receiving bills in the mail rather than electronically, keep all of your bills in one place. If you use snail mail, also keep stamps there. Then, when you’re ready to sit down to pay your bills, you have everything you need right in one place.

What are your strategies to make sure your bills get paid on time? What suggestions would you add to this list?

1 Simple Trick to Find More Money in Your Budget

July 18, 2016 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Do you have a budget that already feels tight? Have you cut and cut but still have more month than money? Are you struggling to find more money in your budget?

I know how that goes. Over the last few months, my husband and I have been working hard to cut our budget as much as possible. We thought we’d cut all that we could, but I discovered one more secret, which, depending on your budget could help you “find” another $20 to over $100 a month.

So what’s the magic secret?

Make your payments on a semi-annual or annual basis rather than on a monthly basis.

Paying Annual Can Provide Big Discounts

1 Simple Trick to Find More Money in Your Budget — Find more money in your budget.

We have Ooma for our home phone line. I pay $17.99 a month. Recently I had to call Ooma because I was having an issue with the service. After the customer service rep had finished helping me, she asked if I wanted to pay annually instead of monthly. An annual payment would be $105, the equivalent of $8.75 a month. In other words, I was paying an additional $110.88 a year for the convenience of monthly payments.

Our life insurance is the same. When I checked into it, I realized that we would save $22 a month if we paid annually instead of monthly.

We already pay our car insurance semi-annually, but if we opted to pay monthly, we’d be charged a $2 per month fee. Other car insurance companies charge as much as 5 to 10% more for a monthly payment.

Convenience is expensive.

Take a look through your monthly bills. Are there any that you can choose to pay annually or semi-annually? If so, how much will you save per month if you pay annually instead of monthly? In our case, we “found” an extra $32 a month. Sure, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but over a year, it adds up to an additional $384 we now have that we didn’t have before.

Two Caveats

Before you change your payment method, it’s important to consider two factors. First, if your budget is already tight, you may need to wait to switch to an annual payment until you have a windfall like a bonus at work or an income tax return. If you’re used to paying $80 a month for car insurance, even with a discount for paying annually, you may still be looking at paying $800 or $900 in one swoop, which can be difficult on a tight budget.

Second, only use this method if you know you’ll be disciplined enough to set aside money every month for the annual payment. If your annual car insurance is $800, then set aside approximately $65 a month so you’ll have enough to pay the annual payment when it comes due.

Making payments annually or semi-annually can be a great way to find extra money in your budget, but before you change to this method, make sure that you have the discipline to set aside (and not spend) the money each month for the annual payment.

Do you pay bills like your insurance monthly or semi-annually or annually? Which do you prefer? Why?