Anyone have any tips on how they talk to their parents about money? My dad is retired and my mom is getting close. I never really thought it was my place to know how they were doing financially. Over the last couple of years, as I've become debt free and turned my financial life around, I've grown more curious about their situation but I'm not sure how to talk to them about it. Thoughts?

Welcome to the forums!

This is an interesting dilemma… It really depends on how you relate to them. They’ve never brought it up and apparently neither have you. Consider mentioning how you got out of debt. Perhaps that will start the conversation. Come at it from you care for their well-being and you love them… That should help them open up more easily. If not you might just have to be nosy and ask point blank what their financial situation is. After all if you don’t know what to expect how are you to plan for helping to assist them?

Do they live extravagant lifestyles?

Are they still married?

Appreciate the welcome and advice Eagle!

My parents are still married and I would say they're fairly modest - my mom is probably the more free spender of the two though. I also have 3 other siblings, me being the youngest, and we've never had talks about our situations - starting to wonder if that's weird. My brother is handicap and still living with my parents as well. Should something happen to my parents, I don't know what I would do. All the more reason to get the conversation started...

I've had very good luck with working it into their healthcare planning. My parents are in their 70's, and not in good health. I began by asking what they wanted or didn't want to happen if they were no longer able to take care of themselves. Such as, do you want assisted living or would you want to try to stay here and have an aide or move in with my family? How would your finances work - do you already have plans for this?

That way it doesn't look like you are trying to take over, just making sure that THEY have a plan. It makes a great opening to talk about how debt might affect their plans etc, or in my case, since my dad does all the money stuff and my mom totally doesn't even know what bank their account is at, I talked about what would happen if my dad were to pass suddenly or become incapacitated. How would the bills get paid etc?

A good time to bring it up is after some sort of event that hits close to home but not TOO close so that people are grieving and don't want to think about it. Like a casual aquaintence or a news article.

I have a sister-in-love (sister-in-law) with the same situation. She's not actually handicapped but I'm not sure if she could live on her own in her current state. Someone will need to look after her.


A good time to bring it up is after some sort of event that hits close to home but not TOO close so that people are grieving and don't want to think about it. Like a casual aquaintence or a news article.



These are great, positive, helpful comments/questions/suggestions Ms Kitty! I actually talked to my parents about similar a situation recently. Dad handles all the investments. Mom does all the budgetting finances. I suggested they make a FLOP (financial life on paper) or a document that give the other spouse the logins/websites and where all the important financial stuff is in case one of them passes away. They liked the idea and are implementing it.



Good suggestion. I like it. I'll probably need to talk to my 2nd set of parents (In-laws) about our family situation hopefully this year.

Do you have any specific concern about their financial well being? (I.E they are not going to have big enough savings to last them a long time into retirement)

Or is it more of a general what if kind of thing?

Personally, in my family these things are pretty open.