By Wendy Einspar

Think of the mail coming into your home, the bills that need to be paid, the calls or emails that should be made about your insurance, wills, retirement planning and more. Now imagine handling all this with impaired eyesight, decreased hearing, arthritic hands, or failing memory.

Many of us wish we had someone to handle the day-to-day personal paperwork, bill paying and interactions with advisors. Daily Money Managers can fill that role. However, the support of a Daily Money Manager (DMM) is even more critical for seniors.

A DMM for busy professionals often works alone in the clients’ homes (or virtually from the DMM’s office) while the clients are at work. DMMs for seniors, more often than not, work with their clients in their homes and have special skill sets to help their clients navigate between dependence and independence. In addition, the DMM for seniors needs to have an incredible array of resources available to guide the senior and the senior’s family to the right decisions about legal documents, long-term care planning, housing options, care management, financial asset management, household management, and more.

 Signs That a Daily Money Manager Is Needed By a Senior:

• Complaints of too much paper
• Bills not being paid
• Medicare, secondary insurance, and medical bills are piling up and not being addressed
• No Power of Attorney, Health Care Proxy, Advance Directives in place to provide back up for the senior when he or she is no longer able to handle his or her own affairs
• A spouse has passed away and the widow(er) does not know how to settle the deceased spouse’s affairs and/or does not know how to handle the finances going forward
• Estate planning needs to be done, but there is no clear information about what assets are involved
• A sense of confusion is communicated in conversations
• Letters are coming in from the IRS that taxes have not been filed
• Rent, mortgage and/or insurance has not been paid, electricity is about to be shut off
• Medicaid may be needed, but the process of getting everything together to apply is overwhelming

Early on, DMMs need to sort through accumulated papers: locate bills that need to be addressed immediately; identify important documents and file appropriately or note which documents need to be collected. DMMs help organize and file estate planning, tax and financial documents for the client; work with doctors and insurance companies to sort out what needs to be paid by the insurance company or the client; and prepare budget and spending reports.

How Do I Finding a Daily Money Manager

Search on the website of the American Association of Daily Money Managers (www.aadmm.com) – click “Find a DMM” and search by zip code. In the same area of the website, you can find a list of excellent questions to ask when hiring.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact Wendy Einspar for a free consultation at:

Phone 630.728.1257

Email – wendy@einspardmm.com

Internet – www.einspardmm.com