I know how you feel, but understand you can still give your parents help while helping yourself.

To do this successfully you need to take a different tack when talking to them. Ask them to look over something relevant to personal finance with you, as you get their opinion on it they learn about things, and by helping them gain an understanding of something you will gain a better understanding yourself.

A person that can explain something complex in simple to understand terms can prove he knows something those that can not are only pretending they are smart.

You care about your parents so it is worth your while to try to help them AND YOU BOTH FEEL BETTER FOR IT.

I truly see now the problem with that but what can i do? Probably learn from this so I can be better for my own family in the future.

Make a one or two page “set of directions” to be placed with your will or financial documents so there is at least a roadmap to accounts and information if something terrible were to happen.

Additional if you look at most CFOs you do not have anything to learn from them as many of them are leading their business enterprises to disaster. On the other hand those of us that are baby boomers can often remember, grandparents or great grandparents that really knew how to live frugally and within a budget.

Looking back at how well my mom’s parents did on a very merger income, they knew somethings that the rest of us should learn (that includes all those corporate executives). The only loan they ever had was their mortgage (at that time you had to have at least 30% to put down to get one. They where always happy, had plenty to eat, and had time to talk with family and friends. So with their shining example how did we get it wrong, we traded common sense for nonsense. Instead of following their example and living within our means and budgeting for every purchase, we bought into the we deserve it now ad line. Well the truth be said we are now paying for it big time.

We need to get our selves focused on what we can do about our situation. The one thing we can control more then anything else is spending, that is what a budget helps you do. After you get out of debt you will realize just how much that debt was costing you and how little you actually need to live comfortably.

When you have no debt and control your spending, saving will become easy.

Just remember that with both saving and debt elimination the process starts slow. It will take 5 or more times as long to pay down or save the first thousand, then it will the last thousand the key is not to give up.