Like most people, you recently received a thick packet from your tax preparer that needs to be completed and returned along with copies of documents so they can prepare your tax returns. The “documents” keep arriving in the mail and if it even hints at being “tax-like” you save it…somewhere.

I’ve never heard anyone be excited about getting their tax information together. Most people delay up until the last possible moment. They hunt around for everything in the “somewhere” pile and are not pleasant to be around until the task is finished. Don’t let this be you this year!

Instead, here are some simple tools to make your tax preparation task more organized and less stressful.

1. Create a tax year folder. Get out a manila folder and label it “Taxes- 2011”. (While you are at it, create a folder for next year too – label it “Taxes – 2012”.) Now as the documents arrive, put them in the appropriate folder so everything is in one place. Your somewhere pile has a defined place now!  Throughout the year we accumulate tax specific receipts such as charitable contribution letters, DMV bills and property tax statements. Place these papers in the file for next tax year as you go and you won’t have to hunt around this time next year.
2. Create a Tax Return Checklist. In a word processing document, start listing all of the forms you need to receive to complete your tax return and send to your tax preparer. Add any special notes to help you remember when it arrives or who to call for another copy. (Many of the forms are also online at your financial institutions.) Add check boxes so you can check off when the document arrives. Leave room for special or new items. Print the form out and keep it right inside your tax year folder discussed above. Start using it as the documents arrive. Note – expect to update the form a few years in a row until you get everything down or when you have a change. We create it in an electronic document so you can quickly get a fresh version each year that is customized to you.
3. Create a Tax Return Mini-Worksheet. Your tax preparer gives you a thick worksheet to complete and return to them. You compile and write your numbers on this worksheet and after you send them in, they’re gone. This was of course after you spent hours trying to remember how you pulled the numbers together. You look at your tax return from last year and then your system for keeping track of your income and expenses. You fiddle around until the memory starts to return. Sound familiar? In a word processing or spreadsheet file, create a simple form to record which numbers you gather. Most importantly, write some notes about where the data comes from and any assumptions you used – anything to streamline the task.

As I age I find I need these types of tools to not only help me remember, but to also make a laborious task a bit more bearable. If you are helping someone else pull their info together, like your aging parents, then these tools become invaluable. It’s far easier to remember our own affairs but not so easy to remember someone else’s.

Helping clients pull together their tax information is one of the services we provide. Tools like these allow us to get the job done more quickly. We hope it can for you too at home!

Let us know how these tools work for you or how we can help you.

Warmly,

Debbie 

With such busy lives, it’s hard enough to remember day-to-day what happened in your life. If you have aging parents, at some point you begin to step in more and more in their lives. We often get asked for an easy system to help with remembering all the details, conversations and tasks we have with our parents.

Now don’t laugh. We find this very effective – and inexpensive too. It is a simple spiral notebook. You can get one for a just a few dollars at any store that sells office supplies.

The trick is to use this solely for your parents (or your aunt or family friend you are helping out). Write the date on a new line and the time too if this is helpful to you. Then just write out your notes. You don’t even have to be neat, just get them on the page and out of your head.

Your notes can include things like:

• The name of the new medicine you picked up for them
• A decision you helped them to make
• Reminding them where to look for a piece of paper
• A funny quote they made
• A story you heard about their life, or someone else in the family
• When you visited and what you talked about

The list is endless and will be unique to you. JUST DO IT!

Yes, we write in our calendars when we scheduled meeting or calls with our parents. But we don’t record what happened when we spoke with them. These details can help us tremendously later on. They allow us to see patterns in our parents behaviors.  My Dad has mid stages of Alzheimer’s and reads alot. We’re not sure if he remembers what he is reading. He was just visiting for a few weeks and I asked him the same question every week to see what the answer was. Now his response is just a faint memory in my mind. I know my memory loss is from too much going on. Wish I had written it down. I now have a spiral notebook I use for my parents.

Using a journal can also help us remember where things are located. I do have a spiral notebook for each one of my senior clients. It has saved me a ton of time when looking for things like the extra cash they hid away and are now looking for. Or even silly things like where the scotch tape is (because its in a place that means something to them and not to me). Mostly, it allows us to focus on our own lives yet still be more effective in helping our parents.

Here are a few other tips…

If you write a note on scratch piece of paper, just tape it into your spiral notebook. Be sure to label the outside of the notebook and keep it in an accessible place. Don’t use the notebook for anything else though. This is not the place to permanently write all their contacts, account numbers and medical history. Use our Life Affairs Binder for this.

We know that managing multiple households can be taxing. Use this simple, yet inexpensive tool to help you!

Good luck and let us know how it is working for you!

Who can you call when a wheelchair bound senior needs a ride to their medical appointment and you as the caregiver are no longer able to lift them in and out of the car?  Or the senior can’t drive themselves to any place (like a senior center to get meals, or the grocery store, hair salon and so on) and transportation assistance is needed?

It’s fairly easy to a call taxi when the person isn’t wheelchair bound and is fairly ambulatory. But when the senior needs more assistance, where do you look?

As so true to form when helping a senior client this week, we encountered this “new” issue for us. Mom was in an assisted living center near her doctor that had a nice van which took her to appointments. The family decided to move her to a residential care facility (a home that can handle up to 6 residents) that was no longer near her doctor. The excellent doctor was treating her for a rare form of dementia so the family wants to continue to use him. The daughter, in her late 40′s, has time to take Mom to appointments but is unable to lift her in and out of the car any longer. She wondered if there was a somewhat affordable (and safe) transportation option so she didn’t hurt herself , thus needing to go to her own doctor.

This of course isn’t a new issue in general, but as any of us know who help those who are aging, every day seems to bring something new we didn’t think of or don’t have a resource for. We didn’t for this one. I checked our local Council on Aging office and I was surprised to find only one  local agency even though we live in Orange County, a large metropolitan area of Southern California. I had to use Google several times for resources because I didn’t even know what to search on.

I finally found the right term, so use this when you need it to save time:     Non-Emergency Medical Transportation Services.

In a nutshell, here are the fairly limited options I found:

• In our area, the local government-funded bus service offers a special door-to-door service that is very reasonably priced for those with disabilities. They have a small bus with a wheelchair lift. You need to be prepared to give a large window of time though to get to and from your appointment and they only go so far.
• Some cities and senior centers also had special programs for residents in their area.
• Your residential care facility (board & care) may also let one of their caregivers drive the senior to the appointment – for an extra charge of course. You can meet them there so you can listen to the doctor. Hopefully this will save you a trip to the chiropractor for your back!
• Then there are for-fee transport services that are specifically designed to assist in this area. Some very cursory research said this would cost $60 for a 40-mile trip. I expected to see more options.

For our Orange County readers, here are the specific resources I found. NOTE – We can’t vouch for any of them! When we use one, we’ll let you know what we think. Until then, do your homework.

• OCTA (OC Transportation Authority) ACCESS Program 877-628-2232 (Eligibility Help Desk 714-560-5956)
• Age Well Senior Services (must reside in South OC, be over 60 and not qualify for OCTA Access)  949-855-9766
• B&B Medical Transport 866-483-0024
• Caramedix 714-569-0441
• City of San Juan Capistrano (can’t be be an OCTA Access client, must reside in OC, max trip 15 mi one-way)  800-510-2020
• Memorial Medical Transport 866-409-5549
• TLC Medical Transport 949-830-7433
• US Transcare 949-340-6770
• City of Anaheim Senior Wheels (Anaheim residents only)  714-535-7171
• Brea Express (Brea residents only)  800-581-7433
• Costa Mesa Senior Center (Costa Mesa residents only)  949-645-2356
• Fish of Fullerton (Fullerton residents only, not wheel chair accessible)  714-533-3113
• Korean American Seniors Association (some North/Central OC cities)  714-530-6705
• Huntington Beach Senior Outreach Center  714-960-2478
• Tailored Residential Irvine Paratransit Service (TRIPS) (Irvine residents only)  949-724-7433
• La Habra Shuttle (La Habra residents only)  866-557-7433
• Sally’s Fund (Laguna Beach residents)  949-499-4100
• City of Laguna Woods (Laguna Woods residents only)  949-639-0512
• Dial-A-Ride (Lake Forest residents only)  949-461-3450
• City of Mission Viejo Senior Dial-A-Taxi (cannot be OCTA ACCESS qualified, other qualifications)  949-470-3061

If you know of any other programs, please be sure to share for the good of others in Orange County by adding a comment below!

photo credit: jinxmcc

It’s the beginning of the year and I hope you made some sort of New Year’s Resolution. For many of us, we looked back at the previous year and are angry with ourselves for not doing something right. I can’t tell you how many times this has something to do with managing ours, or a family member’s, personal finances.

We intended to do one or some of the following:

• Setup a workable filing system for all the paper
• Setup a place to pay bills where everything is handy so that the boring job gets done faster
• Automate using Quicken or some other software
• Use online bill pay more
• Research, with the intent to reduce or eliminate, some expenses (can’t I get a better deal on my phone?)
• Talk to our aging parents about  allowing us to help out (because I’m fearful I may have to help them some day, in some way)
• Just plain pay our bills on time

Well now that the New Year is upon us and we feel thoroughly disgusted with ourselves, what should we do? Keep things the same? No way! I say, there is no time like the present, to pick one thing and get started. Take a step forward. (You can do this even if it isn’t the beginning of the year!) Someone once said that “Planning without action is futile, action without planning is fatal.”

So, how do I take action???

1. Create your own personal list of what you really want to change.
2. Look it over and for now, choose ONE thing to focus on.
3. Do the research, make the call for help, or purchase those supplies this week. Take some action on your one thing. Getting started is critical!!

People think that managing and getting their finances in order is really hard. It really isn’t once you have a system and the right tools in place. The hardest part is getting started.

Trust me…I know it takes motivation and courage. I hid my head in the sand for the longest time with my own stuff. You’ve got to be ready to see the numbers and possibly have the uncomfortable conversation with your spouse or family member. I personally know when everything is out in the open, and I have a scheduled approach to ensuring my finances are in flow, I am more at peace. I want that for you too.

If you need a little nudge or have questions about getting started, feel free to make a comment, send an email or call me. We’re here for you. Sign-up for our email list as we’ll be sharing over the next few months how to “take the hard out of” managing your daily finances.

I know you can do it!!

Debbie

Jill and I are excited to launch our new company, At Home FinanceCare LLC. The name fits our focus on the personal financial side of life. While we’ve been helping small businesses for over 15 years with their accounting and operation needs, many of our clients have asked us to also take over managing their daily finances and other personal affairs.

We’ve found that people asked for help for several reasons:

• They are busy raising families and/or running a business and have no time to keep things properly in order
• The affairs generally involve a large trust with multiple assets and the finances are downright complex with all the various accounts
• It’s time to automate and use software like Quicken or QuickBooks to be more productive and these seems out of their comfort zone
• They’ve developed some health issues that make remembering what to do or even just writing out checks difficult
• The medical bills are out of control and need to be organized and reconciled (even though there is money to pay them!)
• The warning flag is waving to get their affairs and wishes properly documented so no one has a mess on their hands if something happens to them.

Yes, we see these same issues in many businesses. But in a business, there is more order and preparedness. Why is that? Is there more fear that the IRS will audit you so you’d better have your act together? Or that a business is supposed to be productive and organized to be effective? Or if your clients saw your mess they wouldn’t buy from you so there goes your livelihood?

Managing your life affairs can be complex and takes time, especially if you are already busy. I’m convinced though that if we treated our life more like a business, by putting some effective systems in place, we’d be less stressed and feel more in control.

The best place to start is with our finances. Actually, it is one of the easiest areas to systematize once you know how. Hopefully with better management controls and understanding of our money, we’ll have more of it in our lives.

Stick around with us as we share information with you about keeping your personal affairs in order. We’ll be sharing case studies, resources and our personal perspectives that have proven helpful to others.

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If you have a question you would specifically like answered, don’t hesitate to send us a note using the Contact Us screen!

Have an effective day! We look forward to helping you establish peace and order in your financial house.

Debbie and Jill