The Parent's Future...

Last Saturday, I went over to Mom's house to help her with Quicken. She has always used a paper register and I convinced her to try out Quicken. She has been using it now for about three weeks but she is also still writing down everything in her paper register. I think she's not getting the whole point of Quicken...it's supposed to make life easier...NOT create more work! I think that once she gets used to entering her checks on the computer and having it do all the adding, subtracting, balancing, categorizing, reporting, etc., she'll see the beauty of it and dump the paper register once and for all.

I left her house on Saturday, once again nervous about their financial future. Am I the only one out of my siblings who worries about them like this? I'm guessing so. I'm not sure what to do about it because she got SO defensive this weekend. I showed her the report that adds up everything by category...I was shocked at how much she spent in three of her categories and I really hope she was shocked as well. I know exactly where I learned how to do finances... from Mom herself. She does her finances the way I did them all last year...haphazardly. Spending money that she thinks she has, but really doesn't.

OH - I sound so judgemental! I tried really hard to not sound that way when I was talking to her but I must have because of how defensive she got. We didn't fight...she just got defensive....and I started worrying again about the two of them. I have to figure out the best way to talk to her about getting them on a budget. I told her she needs to buy "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey...and I really hope she does. She's read "The Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach but that doesn't really help with getting the finances under control. It's a great post-debt book, in my opinion but that's not what Mom and Dad need right now.

Yes...I realize I sound like a hypocrite because I still have debt and who am I to give financial advice? No one...that's for sure! I just know how hard DH and I have worked over the last 2 1/2 months and how fulfilling it has been for us to have paid off FOUR loans and working on the last one (not including the car loan....baby steps within baby steps!). I just want her and Dad to have the comfort of knowing that their future is more secure than it is right now. And selfishly, I want the comfort of knowing that their future is more secure than it is right now! It will undoubtedly affect me and DH too!!