I actually was surprised to get letters from 2 former employers when I turned 55. I had vested with both (7 yrs with each of them) and had modest 401k accts, so I thought that was all there was. We were recovering from a personal bankruptcy so I had never been able to save much in personal contributions. However, both employers purchase annuities for employees that are vested. Now, annuities by definition mean that you are dependent on the life insurance company holding that annuity to stay in business! My FIL, for example, worked for Mead Paper Corp. for decades, and lost his entire pension when Mead was purchased and the insurance company subsequently went bankrupt. So I'm not counting absolutely on them, but it's a nice little "boost" if it comes to me. My husband is a state employee and his pension is pretty safe. The agency agreed, at the last union contract, to start funding the pension obligations at a rate double what they were doing before. This will put them as one of the few public agencies to be on a sound basis, actuarially speaking, for their retired workers. His 401k is with PERS, the largest pension fund in the US. An extremely well managed, influential, and progressive pension fund, it is also one of the very few government funds at any level to completely forbid any financial contributions of any sort being accepted by the treasury managers. If you want to know why that's important, you can see the current issue of Forbes magazine for a very enlightening article on how North Carolina's pension manager pays high fund fees, receives substantial contributions from fund companies, yet produces extremely poor investment results for the state employees.

....take over her bill paying, and then giver her an allowance. Not knowing whether or not a financial Power of Attorney has been conferred, I'd be hesitant to recommend taking the responsibility of discharging another's debt. What would that mean? Paying out of your own pocket? Sign her checks for her? You can't legally sign another's checks without the granted power to do so. Perhaps the least intrusive and easiest thing would be to have her son's name added to her checking account. Even though my brother had my Mother's financial POA and took charge of asset management, etc., I had the responsibility of keeping up with the everyday things. I simply had my name added to her checking account when she was beginning the slide into Alzheimer's and getting farther and farther removed from taking care of her affairs. I seem to recall it was nothing more than a quick visit to the bank, signing a paper providing my SS#, etc. and ordering a new set of checks. I also understand what it is to try and engage a senior in other activities - sometimes it's just not in the cards. Either they're not joiners by nature or as they age there's a certain fear in trying new things that are a little outside of their comfort zone. My Mother gave up playing golf with the local ladies league at age 85 and we never could come up with something/anything even remotely close to replacing the enjoyment she got from that. From what the OP has written, it does seem her MIL is just aging and that bad habits are becomming magnified; she doesn't quite recognize her spending habits as unusual or that she's being taken advantage of by her sister. It might not be any one of the dementias one could put their finger on right now. It could be in the future.

the loss of 25% is not too bad compared to Social Security going bankrupt in 7 yrs or less, Medicaid & medicare are down to 5 yrs now. the treasury dept sounded the alarm more than a yr ago but i guess everyone has their butt's covered and can do w/o in 7 yrs cuz no one is talking about this lol. it amazes me no one is concerned, like it will just get fixed somehow, when in reality considering the economy we know better than that. i've CMA to go completely w/o so i don't care...other than i've already at 40 yrs old made enough money over working for 25 yrs, to get the maximum payout according to my SS statements. atleast i can say i paid my share in ~ liz

Do you think it wise to plan an income to carry you to age 100? It's better to run out of days before one ruins out of dollars than the other way 'round, I've heard. I figure that at 65, I may well have 35 years of life ahead ...which is seven 5-year blocks. If I use up all of the first five-year block during the first five years, it isn't there to work for me any more, so other blocks will have to carry the full load ... but then I'll be eating up the second block, and after ten years it won't be available to work for me any more, either. So it seems to me that I'd better make that first block of funds (i.e. "asset" - not "funds" as in "mutual funds")(1) last for a full ten years, to reduce the possibility of my having eaten through all of them before I hit 100 ... and now some are saying that we should plan to fund to 110, even 120. As I plan to still have 85% of my current asset still around in 10 years, and probably half of it still here in 20 years, it might be wise for me to keep in mind that, since about 1870, there hasn't been a 20 year period in which the entire stock market went down. Dad, as a farmer who of necessity had to make long-term financial plans, used to say that some people couldn't see beyond the end of their own nose. In recent years, we've become more prone to think only of today/the short term. Good wishes to you as you proceed with your plans. Learning how money works (and taxes) is an interesting hobby - and it pays well! ole joyful ... who, at 80+, lives frugally, by choice rather than necessity ... so the assets/investments are, so far, more or less "play money" 1. I haven't bought a mutual fund in 25 years, and not about to. They make great noises about the superior skills of their managers ... but if they're so smart, how come about 85 - 90% of the time they don't do as well as the segment of the market in which they operate? Most of your (i. e. U.S.) managers charge 1.5% or more management fee annually (ours [Canadian] charge 2.5% or more), guaranteed, whether they make any growth or not ... and the only skin that they have in the game is if we get so mad at them that we move our money elsewhere. Nobody cares as much about your money as you ... except possibly someone who may have a strong desire to move some of it from your pocket into his/hers. o j