My mum has thrown away over £150 worth of makeup and medication

@nostyleandnoclothes exactly ! And it's little bag of emergency things you have compiled .....even if I am nowhere near having to need a puff, if I know if don't have that pouch I start to think I do....plus over the years have narrowed it down to absolutely what I would need to get by for 24 hours without access to medication.

All very well, but it wasn't an accident, was it? You can't accidentally throw away a bag that belongs to someone else, it was a choice. She didn't want it cluttering up her room so she threw it away. An accident would be if she dropped it getting out of the car, or left it behind at someone else's house. In fact YOU accidentally left it behind, but it would be reasonable to expect her to look after it if she found it until she next saw you, not chuck it away.
I think she should replace it, she deliberately threw it away. She knew it wasn't hers. She could have asked you if it was yours if she wasn't sure. It's quite an aggressive act to do what she did, I'd be really annoyed if I was you.
Just think, if you found a bag left at your house after a friend or family member had visited, would you throw it away? I certainly wouldn't, I'd be texting them to tell them in case they needed it urgently. Why is she being such a cow to you?

Just go and look in the bin see what can be salvaged

Is her house usually in a mess? Can’t see why she’d scoop up a load of things and bin them at one time otherwise.

Make your mum.go.through HER bin. Just because she's careless and able to replace stuff, doesn't mean you are. Or she owes you for replacements. Might make her think twice in future. She sounds awful 😔

Yikes - what a careless/thoughtless thing to do.
She definitely needs to replace it all - I’d be mortified if I’d done that to my daughter.
If she doesn’t replace it all I’d put myself up for adoption!! 🤣

@emptynestling i second that WOW

Is there a chance she has kept it for herself and just told you she has chucked it?

Well her options are to look in the bin or channel your dad and just replace “because it’s easier”

Wow!

OMG I also have a little pouch that I swap from bag to bag....has my inhaler, anti hists, paracetamol, eye drops and my favourite lip balm...I would be gutted if that happened, I cannot understand why a grown up person wouldn't even go "hmmmm....should this go in the bin ? Since it's not even mine ?" I also get anxious if I leave it behind, as even if I don't need it I want my inhaler within reach at all times. I think it's massively disrespectful and mean OP.

It sounds as if the pouch was left amongst a collection of things set aside for throwing away. It's a bit strange but not impossible. At the moment I am collecting items for the charity shop on the chair by the front door. If any visitor left their favourite scarf there it would be a goner.

I'f she can afford it that easily d be sending her a bill or a shopping list.

Hey OP, your parents sounds bonkers and also loaded - I would never believe this is the first time this happened. Just get your mum to pay for the new stuff, like she always does!

But TBH you dont seem to be much different. I would be straight at that rubbish bag if it had my £150 worth of make up in it!

@nostyleandnoclothes so are you even going to ask/tell her to either get it out and check if anything is salvageable or to just transfer you the money, or just moan about it and about how wasteful they are in general? Plenty of pp have asked if you're going to ask her to replace the items or to give you the money for it but you haven’t replied to them at all and have just kept repeating the same thing in each reply, about how they are wasteful and careless and keep buying new things. They can clearly afford it so what’s stopped you from asking her? Why didn’t you just ask her for the money when she told you she threw it in the bin?

And the medication isn’t even worth including in the total as that can be replaced so cheaply (you do know that you can just buy double strength ibuprofen, don’t you? And as you said they’re only the same as two normal strength anyway). Paracetamol, generic ibuprofen and antihistamines you can get for about £1 each. And yes it’s annoying but dithering about it instead of just doing something about it isn’t going to resolve it. You could have already sorted it out with her.

How did she know she had binned it though?

She didn't deliberately throw it away, she apparently swept it up with some other 'rubbish' that was lying around. It is odd for anyone to have so much rubbish just sitting on the side, but there we are.
If it meant so much to me, I would go through the bin. Put on an old shirt and long gardening gloves, get one of those 'grabbers' and fish things out one by one into a large bin liner. You'll be outside, it won't be that bad, and when you find you item you can just dump the bin liner into the bin. The pouch may have been messed up, but it may be fine, and the contents are hopefully untouched.

When my mum started doing things like this, it was the very beginning of dementia.

She sounds like she can afford to replace it. It’s all going to be melted and ruined now anyway, all you could save is the bag and wash it. I can see why you don’t fancy doing that, I wouldn’t want to either.

Well that is rather your loss then!

That's not normal behaviour. Nobody just scoops stuff up and throws it in the bin without knowing what it is or checking through it first. Make her go and get it back out of the bin anyway, it will teach her a lesson.

I’d go through the bin.

Go round and tip the black bin out on their patio or drive, find the bag, then leave.