Hi,

I have been the representative payee for my father for the past 5 years. We are looking at investing a set amount of his monthly income that he receives from private disability. Since much of his financial status is out of sight and out of mind for him, he sometimes spends more than what he should be. I've gone over this many many times and he seems good for a month and then will do it again 2 or 3 months later. What I want to do is set a hard limit for him so that he cannot go over the limit. He has a checking account which we keep a low balance on ($300-500 a month) but when he uses it as a check card he's gone over that and the bank ends up charging him an overdraft fee. Right now he already has a credit card but it has a high limit which we use for specific things such as dental bills or other costly purchases which will be paid out of his savings account later on. So my question is this..

Is there any type of VISA credit card or something similar where you can set a limit, and once that limit has been reached the card will be rejected? An account that provides a monthly allowance and nothing more. Or a credit card company can provide a card with a low limit? Maybe that is unheard of nowadays with the common theme of many people accumulating enormous amounts of debt..

Much of this can be remedied by him exercising self control over his spending, but I've tried so much and it doesn't seem to work for long. It's not like he goes out and spends a few thousand bucks on meaningless stuff, but it is small spending here and there which seems to add up. It is frustrating that I have to act like the parent for my own father but that's how it is. Any suggestions for enforcing a monthly allowance would be much appreciated. Thanks!

use a prepaid and fund it monthly to the set max you want and remove the old credit card by getting a new one and cancel the old, the situation is much like that with children who go off to college, you want them to have a safetynet but the risk is the charges through the debit cards, I would kill the ATM card as well or have a restriction added so that no overdraft is possible (some banks allow that).

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Visa and MasterCard offer lots of prepaid debit card choices which sound like it would be perfect for your situation.

Their fees vary greatly so you will want to read all the FAQs before agreeing to them.

I'm actually freelance writing for a company that offers a MasterCard prepaid debit card called 'Mango Money.' The system won't let me send a URL for their website through this post but it's simply MangoMoney dot com.

What's great about the Mango card is if you get a card and you set one up for your father, you can transfer money from your card to his, online at the website (free) AND by your cell phone if you like (there is a 50 cent fee for this).

Of course, you can transfer money from his checking account to the debit card as well. Mango doesn't charge for this transfer but your bank might, so be sure to ask them. You can also do direct deposit and that's definitely free.

I've been using the debit card for 1.5 months now as a tool to budget my personal spending. It's been challenging for me to stay on budget because when the money is gone, it's gone!

I think a pre-paid debit card like the Mango Money card would be perfect for your situation. Check it out!

If you do a pre-paid card, check out walmart as it is FREE to reload in stores

you can get vida gift cards that allow you to remotely add cash to them