I’m no math wiz, but if she had over seven policies, that would be eight.
Or am I missing some subtle nuance here. A joke, maybe? That seven ate nine one?
Aceplace57, do you have any idea how little income some people have to live on? My mother’s income right now is about $2,000 per month. ALL of it goes to her assisted living facility PLUS another $2,000 per month from her savings. She has about six years worth of savings left. She’s 92, so maybe there will be enough. I’m a childless only child, so if she runs out of money, I’ll have to come up with the extra $2,000 per month (although by then it will probably be $3,000-$4,000 extra that will be needed) to finance her nursing home care.
In the post after the one I quoted above, you said, “Unless it reaches a point where the senior just can’t take care of their affairs.” What exactly do you mean by this? It’s the “just can’t take care of their affairs” part that I don’t know how to interpret.
My gf’s ex apparently belonged to a local catholic church. I’ve lived with her a dozen years. Every single month I’ve lived here the mail person has delivered an envelope filled with envelopes for that month. I’ve thrown out every one, yet they continue to arrive. 
Are you thinking that since you throw them out, no donations are going to the church, so the church should figure out that donations will no longer be coming from that source? Wrong. The mailing part of the transaction (and the keeping of the mailing list) and the opening the envelopes and taking out the checks part are completely separate, handled by separate people, at separate locations. Next time put a note in one of the envelopes and ask that the note be sent to whoever handles the mailing list, so the person can be removed from the mailing list because they no longer live in the parish. You may have to do this for a few months. Carry on.
P.S. Or just keep the envelopes and use them for something else.
They get treated the same way other junk mail gets treated, but thanks for the suggestions.
Mostly, having managed mailing lists, I just wanted to point out that lack of response will not get someone removed from a mailing list. I still get mail for my late husband, and he died 17 years ago next week.
I don’t know how many policies. It was easily over seven. My mom took over my grandmother’s affairs. She spent weeks making calls canceling them. Mom still gets furious whenever it’s mentioned. They don’t make it easy to cancel these policies.
My grandmother had been suckered into buying these policies for several years. Lots of cold calls that start with, “do you want to leave something for your grandchildren?”.
I was trying to be tactful. Some seniors can no longer manage money. The children have to apply for guardianship. It’s a very painful process for everybody involved.
My mom had to do it. It really hurt my grandmother and she rarely spoke to my mom afterwards. But there was no choice. The savings were gone and my mom had to payoff several high interest credit cards. Grandmother’s home was sold and it just barely paid off the debts.
I totally understand this situation. My grandmother had always depended on grandad to manage the money. His estate left her with a car, home and some savings. Grandmother’s advanced age and vulnerability made her a target for many cold callers.
We get very little mail for my gf’s ex. I write a little note about how “William has passed away. Please stop sending him stuff, it just brings tears to his widow’s eyes”.
We do not have a forwarding address. He may very well be dead for all we know.
Dont think it says old ladies should go broke??
““Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always. But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the LORD your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the LORD will choose to put his Name is so far away), then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the LORD your God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice. And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own. At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands” (Deuteronomy 14:22-29).”
She should not be paying anyways
She is a poor widow, the tithe is for her, not to be taken from her.
Then her church is abusive. I’m sorry.
But it would still be worth going and talking with the pastor of the church, so that at least the situation can be laid right out and everyone can know exactly where they are.
Churches should be supporting those in need, not driving them into bankruptcy
Sorry y’all had a rough time of it. My mother can’t manage money. She can’t remember whether she’s going to lunch or dinner. Fortunately she had the foresight to add me to her two bank accounts, so I can spend her money on her. But I only spend her money on the nursing home. I spend my money on the incidentals-- clothes, snacks, disposable underwear (amazon subscribe & save).
Anyhoo, 10% percent of a small income is a lot.
Just to clarify, you might move JW’s up there with the Lutherans. JW’s don’t even pass a collection plate at meetings.
(Although, when they build a new meeting hall, you’re kind of expected to show up with a hammer, saw, or BBQ pit to help out.)
I’m late in making this response. Been busy.
Agree 100% that Mom has a right to spend *her *money as she sees fit.
Once she is flat broke, and 100% of her needs and wants (above government payments, e.g. social security, etc.) are being funded 100% by her family’s voluntary payments to her directly or on her behalf to third parties, how much say ought the family members have in where that money goes?
Total control by the family? Zero say? Some of each? How much does it matter what she’s spending it on? How do we score spending on need-to-haves for herself, nice-to-haves for herself, total frivolities for herself, donating to fraudulent “cat shelters” or real legit cat shelters, donating to fraudulent “churches” or real legit churches, donating to fringe or odious political movements, withdrawing cash and hiding it around her residence, only to have it stolen by caregivers repeatedly? Etc., etc.
Once Mom is spending purely family money = other people’s money (“FOPM”), what “strings” can/should various family members attach to their support? Do you (any you) really think the answer is “absolutely none”?
Allied with this question of *where *Mom’s spending the money is the question of *how much *she’s spending. Does Mom have total discretion to demand and therefore receive as much as she wants to spend however she wants? Do you (any you) really think the answer is “total discretion to demand, receive, and spend as she will”?
Said another way, what volume of FOPM is appropriate to give to Mom? How big a contribution does a child or other relative “owe” Mom as an absolute filial duty? How much above that is voluntary but reasonably expected? How much above that is voluntary with no expectations? Should the total be split out to the family members per capita, or according to ability to pay, or according to closeness of blood relationship? A drawing of lots?
Once there’s a settled position on the case above, we get to the transition case. e.g. Mom has a positive bank balance today. Every penny she spends *today *is her own. But it’s evident that on the present trajectory Mom’s bank balance will hit zero significantly before she dies. Thereafter she’ll be spending pure FOPM. And her current spending includes a bunch of outlays that family members object to now. IOW, in their view Mom is “artificially” hastening the day she goes broke and although nobody knows how long she’ll live, she’ll be living off pure FOPM thereafter. The longer she does so, the more FOPM she’ll be consuming. What (if anything) can we say now about Mom’s freedom to spend now whatever amount she wants however she wants to?
None of these are easy questions. Certainly a perennial favorite in GD is the degree to which taxpayer-supplied OPM, such as 'food stamps", “welfare”, or Social Security payments ought to have strings attached on what they can be spent on.
Family supplied OPM is obviously different from taxpayer supplied OPM. Because families paying in is ultimately voluntary and taxpayers paying in is not. Family members can choose not to pay up, and Mom can’t send the IRS goons around to collect. She can however deploy family guilt. As can the other family members who perceive a need to “pick up the slack”. As well, darn near everyone feels some moral sense towards supporting relatives in need. Whereas not everyone feels any moral sense towards supporting only distantly- and randomly-related humans in need.
My bottom line:
“Give to Mom as much or as little as you freely choose and totally ignore where it goes” is certainly a convenient sword through the moral/practical Gordian Knot I outline above. But it’s not a side-effect free sword. Not for Mom, not for the giver, and not for the other related givers. Perhaps we can do better than the crudest possible solution.
I’m gonna try something different, giving rational arguments that allow her to still tithe.
Everyone I know pays tithes on the net, not the gross. One of those things that is taken from the net is health insurance. So there is an argument that she should be tithing 10% of what’s left after the nursing home has been taken out. To facilitate this, you could try to get her home to make it an automatic expense.
There’s also a simple fact that she has already paid her tithes on her savings, and there is nothing in the Bible about making up the difference from savings. Furthermore, it doesn’t say to tithe on gifts.
I think solutions where she still gets to tithe are the most likely to succeed. And you can bring these up with some sort of pastor, who then will hopefully be trusted by this woman.
That is, assuming the family wants to do anything. You at most should offer advice to the family, and offer to help if they need it.
What does Mom think will happen in a year or two when her savings are all spent and she can’t afford the nursing home? Is she still rational enough to look at those numbers? She might be forced to move to a Medicaid-funded home at that point - and from what I hear, those are NOT good places to live.
If she can be made to understand that the family CANNOT afford to make up the difference (we’d be looking at that situation if the in-laws ever cannot live independently - they have no assets and there’s no way we could afford a nice place for them), and the upshot is that she would be living in a fairly wretched situation, she might be persuaded to go the route of leaving the church 10% of whatever she has left.
Can the family talk to the church and ask the minister to address this with the mom?
Also: “some members of the family are going to have a very hard time handing over money that just bounces start into a collection plate”. No, they won’t be sending money that goes to the collection plate. They’ll send it straight to the nursing home. Admittedly, this will be because of what the mother already spent, but still, that might be enough of a difference to make it more palatable.
Plus if there’s only enough savings to cover another year, there’s a good chance that she’d only have another 2-3 years even without the tithing.
I’m guess its not the church and more of a habit type of thing. I would talk to her minister and have him/her sit down with her and explain she has given enough and does not need to do it anymore.
Now, if she would want to say knit hats or something and donate those. That way she would still feel like she has been “giving”.
My religious background is insane fundamentalism, but I wouldn’t count on a minister telling a poor old lady that she doesn’t have to tithe any more. The Bible famously says the opposite.
The bigger the sacrifice, the more blessed you are.
As has been mentioned upstream, tithing is incredible important to some folks. Better I think would be for the pastor to take the tithe, then give it back to the family or spend it on good works (like in the nursing home) that benefits the parishioner. That way, pride is kept intact.