<prompt> Human: My Mom recently revealed to me she and my step-dad have only saved like 15k for retirement. They are both in their mid 50s, and have stable jobs, but still cant manage to save much due to their substantial debt. Most of their debt is tied up between parent plus loans, car loans, and some credit card debt. They have a mortgage but did a cash out refinance in 2010. I have questioned her about retirement savings, and she has quietly acknowledged that they will most likely be relying on me and my 3 siblings along with their meager savings. Here are my questions: How can I help them save more aggressively? I feel they most likely wont listen to me and will have too hard of a time trying to change their habits.What can I do now to help them when they are retired? I was thinking possibly saving for a duplex for them to live them in retirement, and having them look into a reverse mortgage.For context, I am 24 years old with a steady job making 65K a year. I have less than 3k in student loans and 4K left in a car note at 2 interest, but besides that no other debt. I am currently maxing out my HSA and saving 13 of pretax in a 401K that has a balance of 10K.Assistant: For whom did they take out the Parent Plus loans? Was there any talk about that child paying off that debt or did your parents take it out expecting to be solely responsible for it?Are they religious Christians? Might seem an odd question, but I have found anecdotally that introducing those who describe themselves as religiously Christian to Dave Ramseys books seems to be about the only way to force people to change their financial habits without them already really wanting it themselves. Something about the way he wraps financial advice up in Christian themes and by aligning himself with churches to host some of his classes just really seems to be able to pull a certain type of person in.Otherwise, you can sit down with them and approach the conversation starting with a I love you both and Im worried before talking about how you want the best for their future. Dont mention it in terms of yourself or your siblings - again, anecdotally, that generally starts a more defensive dont worry about me, then! reply.Most likely the result will be shrugging you off. Getting your finances together generally has to come from a desire within yourself and trying to reason, cajole, or force someone to do it wont have great results.What you can do is decide exactly what sort of support you are willing to provide when they cant work anymore. It seems you are already starting to think about that with this duplex idea. But sit down and think about it thoroughly and, most importantly, run some numbers to see what you want to be able to do compared to what you can do.You are not alone in having parents unprepared for retirement. You can check this sub for various examples. There are many paths forward from here. Some questions to ask yourself as you start looking into this:- Am I willing to have my parents live with me from when they retire until they pass?- Am I willing to have them live near me, just not under my roof, such as with a duplex or a mother-in-law unit in the back?- How about sending money to them to support them living where they are?- Will I send them money regularly on condition they allow me to sit down with them to budget or even unconditionally?- What is the maximum amount of money I would send them?- Will I pay their bills directly or would I be comfortable sending cash?- If they refuse to consider a reverse mortgagedownsizingbudget review, will I still be willing to help?- What will I both want and expect my 3 siblings to do?If you look through past posts on this topic, you will see people have many different responses to these same problems. Some would offer a room in their house, but no cash. Some are willing to only send some cash each month, but not have them under their roof. Some will hinge help on being given total control of their budgets. Everyones situation is different. I wish you luck.Human: Thank you for the reply. Its interesting you asked about religion, because they are steadfast in their Christian faith, and they judiciously tithe 10 of their take home each year. Personally I feel this is unwise, but I am not one to questions my parents religious devotion. I will look into the Dave Ramsey stuff, that seems like a great suggestion. They took out the parent plus loans to send my sister to college out of state. I believe they are paying something like 775 a month on that alone. The expected pay off date is at least 5 years out if I remember correctly. There has been no talk of my sister paying them back, but perhaps I should bring it up with her. My other siblings and myself went to college in state so they carry no loans for us. Again, I appreciate the response. My reason for posting is actually rooted in seeing the uptick of other people in similar situations. Because retirement is still 10-15 years off for them, I hope some prudent planning can minimize the financial stress for them and my siblings. I think I good first step will be to seriously talk with my siblings about how we can best prepare themourselves for the future ahead.  <response>: Damn, if they are tithing ten percent, Jesus needs to cover their retirement, not you! Seriously, they cannot afford to continue that. 