Am I unreasonable for feeling a bit miffed off?

[PopGoesTheProsecco]

My mum is always pleading poverty. I do numerous errands for her because she says she can’t afford the delivery fees so can’t do online shopping.

When she was in a care home for a few weeks after a fall I spent about £300 on things that she wanted and got them delivered to her. We also visited once a week (2 hour round journey).

She offered to pay me back for the things I bought for her (but in the same sentence mentioned financial hardship, pension credit etc) so I said she didn’t need to pay me back.

Today I ran a few errands for her including to get her some perfume and to get £250 out of her account. She gave me a gift card to buy the perfume with (it cost £40 more than was on the gift card). So I paid the extra with her bank card - but checked with her first to make sure it was okay, (because she’s short of cash and I didn’t want to leave her short).

Next I got the cash for her. I took the option to get a receipt for the transaction so she’d know how much she had left (I was worried she could be struggling).

The receipt after the £250 withdrawal showed nearly £15k in her current account.

My partner and I have no savings and quite often have to ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ at the end of the month.

I’ve paid out quite a bit of money looking after my mum, she knows we struggle (despite us both working full time) and to find she’s got £15k in her current account has made me feel a bit hurt. Am I being unreasonable?

It's an old person's mindset. My mum used to panic about money until I pointed out she had 16 years worth of benefit money in her account - and yes it was allowed as it was conts based. She soon shut up when the realisation clicked in.

She should not be sponging off you, but on the ther hand, 15k is nothing for someone who can no longer earn. I'd be terrified if that's all I had as an emergency fund, and was living on pension and pension credit.

It's quite possible that her pension income doesn't cover her monthly outgoings, and that she has to dip into that money every month. That's really not a good position to be in, and if that amount is constantly reducing, would explain why she pleads poverty.

£172 approx per week is ok for some so long as she doesn’t have rent or council tax to pay which is likely given she is on benefit.
She has been able to save £15,000 - since when we don’t know.
you now know OP - just stop buying anything for her - simple - she may have money anxiety’s -

Really? With energy bills running at £300 or so a month? I don’t think £172/week is much at all.

@hellycat 5% on a Barclays rainy day saver (up to 5k). Nationwide do similar though you do need a current account. Both instant access.

Lots of flexible ISAs over 3% where you can draw up to 10% of the value three times a year.

Another thing the OP’s mum might be keeping savings for, apart from funeral costs, is an operation - where I live e.g. there’s a 4 year waiting list for a cataracts operation, 5 for a hip replacement, so anyone who can goes private. Though the perfume was an extravagance, so I understand the OP’s annoyance.

For someone on pension credits that’s not really a low income, I work in that area so know the amount people get, she’ll have no council tax to pay, is she getting disability benefits? I find it very strange as the last thing my mum would want to do it take money from me.

YANBU but I wouldn’t personally mention it. I would just be more mindful next time she pleads poverty that she does have a small amount of savings so I would be less generous going forward.

Thank you everyone for your responses and helping me to understand my mum’s POV.

Sorry it’s taken ages for me to respond. The whole family is down with some horrible chest infection (thankfully not Covid again - not got over the 2020 infection yet 😂)

How old is she? My financially competent older relatives - not parents - have said they have to stop themselves going ‘ooh everything is so expensive now’ and being too frugal. In their 80s but they realised it’s because they don’t buy as much or as often as they used to as they don’t do the stuff they used to do.
Talking to her about it is probably worth it - gently. She possibly won’t realise how much your everyday lives cost as she’ll think about your salaries but not necessarily about your outgoings

@PopGoesTheProsecco
Yanbu. Dm has income coming in. She's managed to save 15k but still expects you to pay for everything. Everyone seems to have missed that you didn't accept payment because she basically told you she was skint but if she's paying out a few hundred, she's not worrying about money. If she was she wouldn't be asking you to take money out and pay for things like perfume and gift cards. You have every right to be annoyed when you're being used...

But she didnt 'take' money from OP, OP bought her things she needed when she was in care after an accident she then tried to pay it back and OP said 'don't bother' because OP felt guilty assuming her mam had pennies to her name.

£15k in saving for an OAP who has to live the rest of their life on the nest egg (which could be 1 day or 20 years) has every right to worry about money.

Being finacially worried doesnt mean 'I have £1.05 in the bank to last me to monday when I get paid' it in this case means 'I have £15k with no more coming in that has to last an indefinate amount of time until my death'.

My DM was the same. Always pleading poverty.

She died at 60, and she had a £48,000 savings account that she was still paying into monthly.

My friends parents asked her to withdraw money for them too, and she found out they had £250k in their current account!!

Some people are just hard wired to take the piss.

Get cash up front next time. She is old, yes, but she is also being cheeky expecting you to sub her.

Older generations can have no clue how hard it is to raise a family in the current climate. It is a source of constant irritation with my in-laws.

now you know you don’t need to subsidise her. Ignore the holier than thou tribe on here, the cost of petrol and hence visiting family has become very significant. (I can remember when my parents died I spent over £1000 on petrol going down to make arrangements in a month. That was over 10 years ago and I shudder to think what it would be now.)

She probably is struggling in terms of her income versus her outgoings. If she’s needed to spend more than she had coming in £15k isn’t going to last her long. She probably does need to avoid buying expensive perfume.

I understand your stirred up feelings. Perhaps she thinks that as you have a partner you are a dual income family and doing ok.
Don't underestimate the wish to leave a little something for loved ones. Also a funeral could cost £5K. I am sure you want to spare your own dc those costs and want to leave a little yourself.
There must be a way to mention, 'Oh mum you have caught me before payday, can you transfer that £xx?'
It is very tricky and I don't envy you.

Does she have a POA with you in case you need to deal with her affairs? That's a lot of money to be sitting and earning no interest !

Of course you will always look out for your mom, help her with chores and shopping she can't do herself. But now that you know she has enough loney I would stop paying for her acquisitions. A good talk about her finances can do miracles.

15000 really isn’t much for a pensioner to have. So her roof might be fine, but there are several other expensive things that might suddenly need doing urgently in a home, new build or not.

The higher interest rate accounts are the ones that don't allow access to your savings. Given inflation and energy bills and the income that we know she has, I think it very likely that she needs to dip into that saved money every month.

£15k sounds a huge amount when you're younger and struggling with bills etc, but from my perspective in my mid 60s and no longer working, it sounds very little to last someone to the end of their life. Again, her monthly income is meagre, so she's not going to be adding to that rainy day savings at any point for the rest of her life.

Honestly, it's very scary when you get to this age. I didn't realise it when I was the one with the young family, and I wondered why older people with their paid up morgages wittered on about money. 30 years on and I totally get it.

Is she working? Does she have money coming in? If she does is it enough money to keep her going without hitting savings? If not, then £15k won't last 2 mins during retirement.

It sounds like the situation I have with my Mum.

I realised that she has lost all concept of money, when she stopped offering payment after asking me or my brothers to get her some shopping. When I raised it with her she said "If they want paying for it, they'll ask", so I now make a point of telling her each time I visit that she owes me X amount. If she doesn't have it at the time, I let it accrue for a little while, and either ask her for it when she goes to the bank, or get her to buy my shopping when we are next out together.

I live alone, on benefits and I do struggle, but she gets annoyed if I let her buy coffee or whatever when I finally manage to get her out - why should she pay? drive? whatever. Completely misses my disability and need to limit driving, as well as financial position, while she has over £100K invested, and several thousand in the bank. My brothers just suck it up, and don't even ask, or give her receipts, but I can't afford to do so.

I treat her when I can, but can't afford to pay for her pet food and day to day lifestyle choices. When i feel bad about asking her for it, that's what I have to remind myself. She is in the early(ish) stages of Alzheimer's and seems to have lost the ability to put herself in someone else's shoes. I don't know if there's also an element of worrying about her own future or not, but she never mentions it. It would be lovely not to have to worry about our own finances, but if we don't, no-one else will.

I think a lot of the older generation live like this. My Dad was always super careful with money though in his later years did go on little cruises with my DM & played golf a lot. But small semi detatched house (that always felt dark/cold) etc & no flashy car. When he died suddenly & then my DM died 4 years later we discovered vast amounts of savings squirreled away in various savings accounts. We were amazed tbh. I would just add OP that your Mum should move most of that money into a savings account so she gets a bit of interest on it as current accounts are usually rubbish. Plus it will be safer in a separate account in case she loses her card/gets mugged/her account gets hacked etc/she falls prey to a telephone scam etc. £15K Isn't a huge amount of money to last the rest of her life but she might also have other savings accounts knocking about (Post Office or NS&I etc v common with that generation). Make sure you get your money back when you buy stuff for your Mum in the future OP - don't let your own family go short x

But it’s not justification to guilt trip your struggling daughter into spending £300 on her shopping. OP has no savings.

Who do you think needs to be careful here?

OP’s mum gets Pension Credit so she’ll be getting at least £800pm.