‘I want to be other people’s cautionary tale’: how do you financially prepare for a parent’s death?

Author Beth Pinsker discusses the documents that matter more than a will – and why so few of us have them As a certified financial planner, Beth Pinsker had spent decades guiding clients through retirement and managing ageing parents’ finances. Yet when her own mother fell ill, she was caught off-guard: transferring funds on behalf of her mother and exercising her authority as power of attorney were logistical nightmares. If she found caring for her mother’s affairs this complicated, Pinsker wondered how people with less financial knowhow managed. “There’s just a lot of moving pieces, and it’s impossible to think ahead and cover everything, because life is just too complicated,” she said. Pinsker wrote her 2025 book, My Mother’s Money: A Guide to Financial Caregiving, to help others avoid some of the headaches she experienced. She says that while no one wants to think about death, a few simple preparations can spare your children pain down the road. “I want to be other people’s cautionary tale,” she added. “And I want to prepare for this [myself] so that my children don’t have to do the same hard things that I had to do.” The Guardian spoke with Pinsker