Advice for the elderly

JodieR

I've picked up a very different type of client recently. She's a lovely old lady. Phoned me in a panic thinking that she's meant to be paying tax, it turns out that her state pension plus interest plus small dividends are comfortably within her personal allowance so I explained this to her and said she didn't need to do anything and was ready to leave but she was so worried and anxious about her finances and asked if i could 'work it all out for her'.
I spent a few hours there last week and got it all in order. The issue seems to be that she has too many bank accounts and gets in a muddle as to what goes in where - there's money being transferred here there & everywhere & it's all very confusing to her. I suggested a way to simplify it which made perfect sense in my head and I thought I'd explained it well but she just didn't seem to understand what I was saying and even the thought of changing her system seemed to get her stressed.
I really do want to help her and she seems to trust me enough to listen to me, but I clearly lack the communication skills to get through to her - does anyone have any advice as to how I should go about this? Do letters work better than speaking? Do I need to include diagrams and colour code everything or is that more confusing?!
I did suggest getting her son involved but he lives far away and is going through a difficult time so she doesn't want to bother him.
Any advice would be great!
Thanks

Pete12

Whilst your client's wish not to bother her son has to be respected, the involvement of a close relative is likely to be inevitable (as it is for most of us) so the question is - "should it be done sooner rather than later?"

Considering your client had the presence of mind to contact you, if some form of power of attorney is to be arranged the opportunity to do this exists.

However, great care needs to be exercised because your client may have (unrevealed) personal and/or material reasons for not discussing the matter with her son.

Pete12