@gunn I understand completely! I have my own experiences with this. Absolutely the sooner you address these financial concerns the better!
I highly recommend adding your or your wife's name to their accounts as well. This makes access, control and transfer upon death much easier than a POA, trust or will. You'll just inherit the account through right of survivorship. This is the approach that I've taken with my parents, although I do also have a durable POA.
Like your mother and her auto-bill "convenience" fees I had a similar issue with Mom's cable. I knew and it took some time to convince my mother after my father passed that she didn't need 3 TV's in the house with 3 cable boxes @ $10 each / month = $360 a year! Including phone, internet and TV her cable bill was over $300 a month or Roughly $3,600 a year for everything! After turning in the boxes and dropping her cable for just her landline phone and internet her bill was reduced to less than $100 a month now.
I found myself in a similar situation in 2007 when my Dad's brother passed away it was a real eye opener. My Mom who always handled my parents finances agreed to let me do a full review of their affairs and it was agreed that we would add my name to their accounts as a co-owner. This would make access, management and right of survivorship ownership of the accounts very easy. As the eldest son and probably the most financially savvy sibling my brother agreed to this. It doesn't hurt that we're on good terms with each other and he trusts me.
When talking with Wells Fargo, where they bank, to add my name to their accounts I discovered that they had like 3 checking accounts, 3 savings accounts, a safe deposit box and an untapped, unused line of credit on the house. I was like WTF do you need all this for? The banker was like, Oh, that's normal. I asked Mom if she agreed to all this and she indicated that the banker had "recommended" all these accounts. I was like no effing way do you need all this. It was just like a year later in September of 2016 that the Wells Fargo multiple account scandal was uncovered and became public. Some of you may remember that scandal. Wells Fargo was fined heavily by the, now neutered, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for that. BTW, thanks to the current adminstration for crippling the CFPB. Pfft.
Since then we've got Mom down to one savings account, one checking account, closed the line of credit and cancelled the safe deposit box.
My mother, who's financial acumen is limited to balancing a check book, refuses to use an ATM or do any online banking. She had left her inheritance in a very, very low yield savings account yielding less than 1% at the bank. I finally convinced her to let me move it to an online account yielding 4%. I initially kept that account in my name only to avoid the 5 year look back rule if needed. She got all pissy about not having her name on the account even though it was for her, and our protection in the even that she would need long term care under Medicaid. So I added her name to the account. In a way it benefits me now that I can split the earned interest that I have to declare from that account with her reducing my tax burden.
Also, while doing this analysis, I discovered that Merrill Edge (Now part of Bank of America) had mismanaged my Father's retirement account. He had accumulated quite a bit of ESOP Wal-Mart stock during his time there. When he retired Merrill convinced my parents to allow them to manage his retirement account. In their financial naiveté my parents agreed. What Merrill then did was criminal. I discovered that they had sold all of his WMT stock and placed the money into high fee front loaded Mutual Funds with fees up to 7%. Not only that but a few years later one of their agents churned his account selling the funds and reinvesting them again into other high fee front load funds. Eventually, after my name was added to that account, I was able to sell these funds and move the money into the market. I'm now slowly drawing down Dad's 401K and moving it into a Cash Management Account for Mom that is now doing quite well. Ironically, I repurchased WMT stock with some of his funds and it's currently the best performing stock in the portfolio. If they'd just left his money in WMT stock he, and my mother, would have been just fine.
Another issue that I discovered was that one of Dad's life insurance policies that he had taken out back in the 1960's still had his parents down as beneficiaries. They were both dead at the time. So, fortunately were were able to update the beneficiaries on that policy before Dad died. Make sure that the beneficiaries on your parents life insurane policies are up to datey you know what insurance they have and if the accounts are up to date on premiums, etc.
We've also since then added my brother and my names to the deed on my parents house to avoid any issued and we'll inherit the house through right of survivorship. We've drawn up POA's for Mom and Dad (although Dad passed not long after that).
It's so important to keep up with your aging parents finances. Especially if they're not financially savvy.
