Supporting Aging Parents With Their Finances
Keeping track of finances takes time, attention and energy at any age. In the case of older adults, health challenges such as memory loss can make it difficult to manage their financial obligations as well as they did in the past. If you’re the son or daughter of aging parents, here are a few items to keep in mind that can help protect your parents from financial missteps as they grow older.Looking out for your parentsFor many seniors, signs of memory loss or dementia may first become apparent when they start to lose track of financial responsibilities. These signs could include unusual spending patterns, failing to remember which bills were paid or incurring uncharacteristic late or overdraft fees. Unfortunately, seniors are far more vulnerable to financial scams as well. Savvy swindlers routinely target older adults who may not be as quick to discern fraud in the form of phony phone calls, letters, emails or texts.If you notice that mom or dad is struggling to stay on top of their finances, approach the situation delicately. People experiencing memory loss may not want to admit they’re having difficulties, while other family members may be in denial about mom or dad needing help. Start the conversation by offering a helping hand. Older adults often want to maintain their independence, so keep that in mind as you start to get involved.Creating a support planIdeally, it’s best to get mom and dad involved in creating a financial plan while they’re able to communicate their wishes. While this isn’t always possible, any preparations you can do before the situation is critical can help you feel better about their financial affairs.Start by reviewing your parent’s financial situation, covering off on all their assets and liabilities. If he or she is working with a financial advisor, invite that professional to the meeting. Work together on a strategy to make sure mom or dad is able to cover current expenses and prepare for future ones. The following checklist can help you get started:1. Designate someone who is committed to the best interest of your parent to take the lead on financial matters. While many family members may want to be involved in decisions affecting the individual with memory issues, consider choosing one person as the financial contact. This person should make sure bills are paid on time, taxes are completed and keep track of mom or dad’s overall finances, looping in other family members as necessary. Meet with your attorney to discuss if the designated person should seek legal financial responsibility as well, by becoming a “power of attorney.”2. Ensure each asset is properly titled and has a beneficiary that reflects your parent’s wishes. Suggest a meeting with an estate attorney if you think your parent needs to set up or update their will, health care proxy or other estate planning documents.3. Establish automatic bill pay where you can. Suggest that your mom or dad set-up his or her account to receive emails when bills are due or paid so that there’s a paper trail to follow in case of confusion.4. Create a retirement income strategy – or document your parents’ income if they’re already retired – so that it’s clear what their sources of income are and how they will pay for caregiving expenses. Sources of income may include Social Security, pensions, retirement accounts, annuities or other investments, while their life, health, long-term care and disability insurance policies may provide important coverage to offset expenses. Caregiving costs can be significant, particularly if a higher level of care is needed. Take the time now to explore options and costs for in-home and facility care, and make sure you understand how your parent feels about the various options.5. If your parent is still fairly independent financially, remind him or her about the prevalence of money-related scams. Demonstrate how your parent can protect themselves against fraud.If you are concerned about your parents’ memory issues, try to find some time to lay out a caregiving and financial plan of action while your parents are still able to be part of the conversation. Consulting with a financial advisor or an attorney familiar with elder law issues may help get the discussion started.
Helpful Hints in Preparing for Buy Here Pay Here Dealership Financing Requirements
Remember that the definition of buy here pay here dealers is that these dealerships finance the customers directly. This makes each dealer make his own criteria on what is needed to be able to trust that their money that is invested in the customers, is not going to be lost. This makes writing a rigid table with actual requirements an almost impossible task to achieve. However, here are the basic requirements as well as hints of why would dealers need them.1. Some sort of identification with picture of the customer that is asking for financing approval for verification.2. A recent bill to prove the address of the customer in case the payments are not paid on time. Although most identification cards, like the state ID and the driver’s licence, have the customer’s address, it can often be several years old and hence the address is not updated to the most recent one but a bill would have the recent address.3. Proof of income – This can be from check stubs or direct deposit into a bank account with the bank statement present to show as proof. Or it can be from Social Security Disability income or other reliable sources. Each dealer would have their own measurement of what is reliable income sources. Remember that some dealers are aiming to be able to garnish wages in case the payments are not paid and vehicle is not returned or can’t be found to repossess.4. Some places require a bank statement to reveal how the customers spend their money. If there are other car payments that show up on the statements, then the dealers would take this into account when calculating the approved loan amount to be granted to the customer. More life expenses means that this customer is less likely to be able to pay large monthly payments, even if his income is high.5. Down payment money – This differs greatly from dealer to dealer and from car to car and even from customer to customer. Here is why, first, some dealers are running incentives while others are not. Second, customers might be asking for very expensive vehicles. Third, customers may be asking for average priced vehicles but their income proven can not cover the monthly payments as well as life expenses so the dealers ask for higher down payments to lower the risk involved with such deals. Customers need to keep in mind that even if dealers are asking for no money down, it does not mean for customers not to have any cash available. The reason is that customers, in most states, are still required by law to pay all the taxes on the vehicle as a lump sum in the beginning of the sale. Also, there are registration costs that need to be paid by the customers.6. References – Many dealers require that customers provide references from family and friends. Basically, the dealerships would contact these people and ask them for information about the whereabouts of the customers when needed. This is meant as a secure way for the dealers to be able to track down the customers in the event that the payments are not paid and the vehicles cannot be traced to repossess.
Essential Photography Tips for Beginners
Learning the art of photography is fun and fascinating at the same time, photography is now much easier than what it was back in the days, when photographers need to expertise a lot of technical knowledge about photography before they can actually start, but now with the advance photography equipment and accessories, you can just start clicking images anytime, though at a later phase you will learn techniques that will fine tune your photographic skills further.In this article we will discuss the essential photography tips for beginners:The first question that every photographer has is “How do I take a great picture?”1. Make mistakes: “Every expert was once a beginner” remember this one line before starting. When you are new there is nothing to lose, make as many mistakes as you can, but don’t get frustrated with your mistakes, learn from them and develop your skills further.2. Get as close as you can, to your subject, try to fill the gap around your subject by approaching as close as you can to him, this will fill the frame of your picture with the subject only, you will see the difference between the pictures clicked from a close distance than when you clicked the same subject from a far distance. You will see the fine detailing of your subject.3. Click as much as you can: We all know that “practice makes a man perfect” this can be said rightly for all the new photographers reading this article, if you are a new photographer, click as many pictures as you can, of the same or of different subjects to find your masterpiece with different angles. This will help you in mastering technical skills of photography.4. Use the light: If you learned how to take advantage of a light source and utilise the source of light whether it’s a natural source like the sun or an artificial source of light like a lamp or something, you can make an ordinary picture look extraordinary.5. Using flash: If you are a new photographer, you might think that you only need a flash when it’s too dark or when you are clicking pictures indoor, but this is not true. You might have come across a very common problem of uneven shadow patterns, those have spoiled your shots, when you were taking pictures in the bright sunlight, to resolve this issue you need to on the flash of your camera and put extra light on your subject, this will help you in getting rid of those shadows.6. Invest in books: Read about the experts in the field of photography, as you can learn more about the techniques used by them and get inspired by their great work. Merely having an expensive camera and accessory won’t guarantee you great pictures; if you have the right technique you can even click extraordinary pictures with the help of a simple SmartphoneAbove we have discussed some of the important photography Tips for beginners and we will keep on sharing photography tips further.