I live at home with my mom. I pay towards bills and I help with online groceries every week. My father is gone and she is nearly 70 and alone. I know many people would jump on board and get on edge and tell me to move and get away from my mother. Rentals properties are limited in my area. So living at home it's not ideal but I make the most of it. I probably probably some security and company to my mom too.
Over the past few months I noticed some changes in my mom. The change that set alarm bells racing in my head the most was mutism. Some mornings when I get up or when she gets up, there's just silence from her. That silence can continue for the rest of the day. That can go on for a few days. There have been other changes too. There's definitely an OCD thing with her too. The cleaning with her is intense. Basically I am piecing it all together and I suspect maybe it might be dementia with my mom. I think there's something definitely not right. Unfortunately she won't be open for me into having a chat with her about this so I don't know how to proceed with my suspicions.
One of observations from my mom is that is lacks some comprehension. There were many parts of the pandemic and the guidelines that she couldn't comprehend. Then we were at a family funeral last year. After the mass, she treated it like a teenage disco. She went missing after the mass with some of her sisters and missed the rest of the funeral.
Lately she's not able to comprehend the energy crisis or the inflation. It's been in the news for weeks about energy costs rising. She wasn't able to comprehend this and adapt and make some changes against the situation like reducing the temperature on the washing machine, reducing the time on the machine, using the tumble dryer less, etc. We have a large kitchen window and it does let in light but the kitchen light is on all day. She won't turn it off. She's just not able to comprehend the energy crisis. We were doing an online grocery shop and she became angry at the cost of the butter the other night and started cursing Tesco when it probably wasn't Tesco's fault. That is the inflation but we haven't been into other stores to check the costs. I presume there's rising costs in every other shop too. She's just not able to comprehend this. I suspect there's dementia at play.
Anyways, moving on. I checked the metre box to read the units that we have used up so far for the past two months. The electricity bills are every two months. The units of electricity used are way up from the last bill. I suspect a lot of this is the washing machine usage. Her washes are usually always a 60 or a 40 with extra rinse added on. I think a lot of this could be reduced. There was a time in recent weeks where she took clean bedclothes from the cupboard and rewashed them again and washed at 60 with prewash and extra rinse. There was no need for half of that. I think she could have put that wash on at 30 without the prewash and extra rinse.
The electricity bill will be in, in a few weeks and to be honest. I'm dreading it. It wouldnt be too bad of the units weren't all that high. She doesn't know how to read her electricity bill and understand it and compare units against the last bill. All she sees is the final figure. What's worse is that she won't ever adapt or change to the changing circumstances and the rising costs of energy and living.
When the bill comes I pay half. I'm now thinking considering she's using more electricity than me would it be ok if I was to take the final figure and work out percentages. I think at this stage it's only fair that she pays 60% because she's using higher temperatures and longer washes.