About six to nine months before my Mom had become ill enough that she had to go to rehab; I would come to visit her at the family house in NY. I usually came in 4-5 times a year.
On this one particular visit, I noticed an abundance of mail on the dining room table. Due to my innate curiosity, I look at a few of the envelops, and noticed that many of them were bills, such as from Macy's, PSEG, the gardener, Rocklyn Oil, and Visa. Upon further inspection, I also noticed that many of them were passed due.
During dinner that night, I asked my mom why so many bills were passed due. She told me that she had been tired, and just wasn't up to handling all the paperwork. She was doing the best she could, but it was costing her a fair amount of late fee charges. On an average month she was paying close to $50.00 a month just in late fees. That is about $600 a year. Up until my Dad passed away in July of 2011, he had been taking care of all the bills. It was at that time that my mother asked me to take over the paying of her monthly bills. Fortunately, on line bill pay makes this sort of thing quite easy. This would have been much more difficult about 10 years ago, especially since I live in Florida. The next day we went down to her local bank, and she put me on the checking account with her. That was the first step in many, in taking over my mother's financial affairs.