I’m ready to handle my 92 year old mother’s finances. What’s the best way to ease into this without taking control away from her?

No, keep her billing address just as it is. My Mom handed me over her finances little by little. First excuse was her handwriting was getting sloppy. So I wrote the checks and she signed them. Then it was her signature was unrecognizable. I was on her accts and POA so no problem taking over from there. It was funny though, I reconcile statements with just a piece of paper and a calculator. Mom always used the the form the bank includes. She told me one day she looked at her banking info and could not figure out how I reconciled the statement. She still had enough with it to question me.

I also got her in the habit if she answered the phone and didn't know the person calling, she was to say "My daughter handles that" and hang up. All her utilities and any other regular bills had my phone number if Mom failed to pay her bill. My POA was filed with every doctor she had.

What I did with my father at first was to just have him put all the mail in a basket and then when I would stop by to visit a couple of days each week we'd go through it together and sort out the bills from the flyers and advertisements and the letters begging for bucks. Then we'd sit at the kitchen table while I got out the checkbook and we would pay the bills "together". At first I'd fill out the checks and have him sign them so he felt like he was in charge and then later we'd just sit and talk while I wrote the checks and got the envelopes ready for mailing. This worked for a long time and finally when he went to assisted living I changed his mailing address to my house and I sorted his mail and paid the bills without him being involved. You will need Power of Attorney to sign the checks but you should get that no matter what. Using autopay or having things auto charged to her credit card, which you would then pay, is also an easy way to make certain you don't overlook anything. I now have all his stuff on autopay or charged to his credit card and I just need to pay the credit card bill and review the bank statement so it doesn't take much time at all and I have a good record of what was paid, when, and how much.

Are you assigned as her financial PoA? If not, this is recommended. Go to the bank with her soon (before she becomes more "incapacitated") and have her make you joint on her checking account.

Please prepare your mind that as she becomes more forgetful and her cognitive challenges increase, she may become paranoid and accusatory, as often happens. So, there may be no "easing" as is hoped for. My suggestion would be for her to have a debit card attached to a bank account that has a controlled amount of funds in it (small amount). So when she wishes to spend she can use that card but when the money is gone before the month is up, it won't get replenished. I would go into her mail and sort out everything that is an appeal for money (or go online and begin taking her name off mailing lists) or have the mail all go to you and you can pass it on to her after vetting it. You can print out and show her monthly statements so she can see where her money is going (my mom does this).

Depending on her financial health, if there's any chance she might need Medicaid in the future, you need to be aware of what types of transactions Medicaid will scrutinize since many states have a 5-year "look back" time frame for the application. You can easily inadvertently cause her to be delayed or disqualified if you don't handle transactions (above a certain dollar amount) properly so be sure to go to the website for Medicaid and read up on this.

I did online bill pay, not auto withdrawal. I had to send a bank check monthly, takes less time then writing a check. This worked great for showing my dad how his money was being spent and for anyone that would have questioned my handling of his funds.