Saturday, April 17, 2010

the finances

Over the past few months Mom has finally let me help her with her finances. She was loosing bills, she was paying bills twice, she was sending in bills with no checks. She was getting demands. Her ledger and check book are a mess.
Every time I visit my Mom, I scoop up another pile of important papers and bring it home to sort through. As I look back, the big financial mess began March/April 2008. Her ledger looks like a two year old was scribbling in it. Then she only made sporadic entries.
Now as I look more closely at her household expenses I find odd things.
She had been sending checks to all those junk mail requests - buy this insurance - support this cause - subscribe to this magazine - join this group.
I wonder how many $20 bills were sent out in envelopes to support campaigns like "Zebras Without Stripes".
I'm glad my Mother supports her college, her church, and her local public television station. But when I found she had sent four checks to the local public television station in two months, I told her she had to wait before she sends another contribution.

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