I have been taking care of my mom since 2006, with no income of my own as I care for her 24/7. We have been living on her social security plus a monthly gift from a relative. I obtained POA about a year ago. I have recently read in numerous posts here that if you have POA you need to be very careful to keep records of all financial dealings. I have not done so so far. (I discovered I have ADD in 2004, and no medication has been effective, so I'm disorganized and I'm terrible at managing my own finances, much less someone else's). Since I began taking care of mom, I have only rarely spent money on myself, with very rare purchases of a puzzle book, or a clothing item from a thrift store, plus small monthly payments toward debts I already had when I started caregiving. All other spending has been for mom, or for home maintenance, and several times a month we go out to eat (inexpensive places) and go to a dollar movie theater. We also have a gentleman living with us who, in lieu of rent does handyman work and auto repairs, does most of our grocery shopping, cooks dinner for us a couple times a week, helps me with computer problems, and on occasion keeps an eye on mom if I have to go to an appointment. This has been a very informal arrangement, and it would be pretty hard at this point to put a dollar figure on any of it. Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do about a whole year of not keeping good records, and how to start keeping better records now? Who will want to see this information, and when?
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