Ways to Financially Support Aging Parents

According to Metlife and Caring.com, 25 percent of adult children nationwide are spending money on their parent's care with 32 percent of those adult children spending $5000 annually for their parents' expenses. According to elder law lawyers and financial planners, the best way to provide for aging parents is through annual gifts. The law allows each individual to give $13,000 a year per recipient with no gift tax consequences. Another method is to create a reverse mortgage. If a parent owns a house, the children, as the lender, can essentially pay the parents, the borrowers, for the value of the house in monthly increments. To avoid a slippery slope of parental excess spending, the children can charge an IRS-approved interest rate of 1.19 percent on the reverse mortgage.