Mom stuff

I took a look at my mom's retirement account balance (trying to watch it monthly or so) and the stock market must not be doing too bad. I think her balance is the highest I've ever seen it! And every time I look at it I think to myself is my Step Brother just stupid or what....telling me she would run out of money in about 10 years.

With the amount she has, and say earning even a conservative 3% a year on it, plus her social security, she shouldn't even need to touch her principal for the time frame she is living in this place.   Right now her expenses are about $36,000 a year. She makes $20,000 a year in social security, so only needing to take $16,000 out of her retirement funds. At a conservative 3% a year she should be earning like $28,000 a year on her funds. At this rate, her principal will still be increasing for awhile.

The only thing I can think of is that SB just took her balance, estimated a high yearly expenses and divided that and came up with 10 years or so. He obviously couldn't have taken into account that her large balance, even though going down each year, was going to continue to earn interest income each year. Plus, she has social security income. That spreadsheet I worked up she won't even be tapping into her principal balance for several more years.

And if he is indeed that stupid, then he definitely shouldn't have been the one in charge of her money! The only other alternative is that he was going to spend it, himself and thought I'm too stupid to know how long her money would last (even my uncle, when I told him what SB said about her money lasting 10 years or so, was like what?! That can't be right, she's probably got enough for 20 or more years)

Wish my 401k looked better like that. I'm still down quite a bit compared to the first of the year.

Both last couple of mornings my mom said she wasn't feeling the greatest. I asked her if she remembered to put the cream on her rash this morning and she said yes. Then she said maybe what the dr gave her is making her not feel so great. "Did he give me a shot for it?" No, I said, you had to take a pill on Monday for it. Then she remembered about taking the next one next Monday and I reminded her I taped it to her fridge. She goes to look and nope! She already took it down and moved it! ARRRGH!! She looked around and said it was on her table next to her pill box. I told her that I taped it to her fridge so it wouldn't get misplaced and we'd know where to find it come next Monday. She says she put it back up there now. Good Lord - who knows where I'll have to find it next Monday, but I'm sure she'll forget and take it down again and I'll be on the phone with her next Monday morning trying to figure out where it is! Thank God I wrote on the card in bold red marker "to take Monday June 15th". otherwise who knows if she might have thought she needed to take it already.

None of these logical things I try to do to help her with seem to work. It's really hard to figure out and try to do things to make things easier to remember/less to remember. Nothing really seems to work and things that seem so logical to me don't even register with her brain anymore. I guess I really just need to stop stressing myself out trying to figure out "tricks" to help her memory. She just doesn't quite think logically any longer and nothing will help now. Examples are now she will have food expire in her fridge or cupboard, but not think to throw it out. She can look at papers she has on her desk, see that they are from her old apartment (like their newsletter type things or upcoming activities) and not think "oh, I don't need these - I don't live there anymore!".

Next visit I'm setting up the medication reminder alerts/alarms that her digital calendar/clock has. If that doesn't work, I am looking into an automatic pill dispenser system that sounds helpful. You can load up to 30 days supply and program it to automatically dispense the pills down into a little cup. The machine will remind her it's now time to take. If she doesn't remove the cup, I would get a notification on my phone. It costs $100, then $30/mo, which obviously much cheaper than hiring someone to come in daily. My only concern on if it would work for her is would she remember to put the cup back after taking her pills, so it's ready for the next time? I would hope the device reminds on that too, haha!