To not understand what she’s spending it on

[Idlovetoknow]

It’s my mother. She’s a pensioner and a widow, but she working. She cannot deal with her finances. She’s been on the phone tonight weeping over how much of a dire situation she’s in financially, but I don’t see how.

income from work: £1100 (after tax)
state pension: £800
widows pension: £1600 (think this is after tax too)
private pension: £200/300 (she was wooly on this)
so total income around £3600 a month

No mortgage, no rent, no grounds costs.
council tax £200 a month. Power £150 (let’s say 200 to round up) food and pet food £400, car £450 petrol £100, health insurance £200, phone £50, sky £50, pet insurance £80- that’s £1300 at an absolute max

i don’t understand. She’s not being frauded or taken advantage of, but i don’t understand. I try to talk to her for instance tonight when she rang frantic over money but she gets into such a tizz she can’t tell you anything. I’ve asked for months for all bills and bank statements to go over expenses but she can’t produce them

Anyone any ideas?

I doubt romance scam… but my brother, he’s a Walter Mitty little bastard but this is just speculation

Could she just be giving the money to someone else? Like another family member, neighbour, friend, colleague or carer?
Does she go shopping during work hours for stuff? That can really add up if you aren’t paying attention.
Subscriptions could be another issue.
Would she consider giving you power of attorney so you help more?

She sounds very emotionally immature.

Did you Father take care of the finances and your Mother just spend spend spend ?

Not much you can do if she's not being truthful OP.

Ah, if the cars on £450 PCP presumably she had to pay for servicing and insurance on top. That's about £1200 for me.

I have heard op that sometimes grief is harder in relation to an unhappy marriage than a happy one. People grieve for what they didn't have as well as for their loss.

Might she need to downsize and how big is the house. Our combined utilities and council tax came to about £10k last year. Does she pay a cleaner or gardener too?

I doubt she would to be honest, she’s just too up in the air to manage things properly. She’s like a teenager. I think she saw an advisor and did the opposite and now isn’t happy with the outcome and wants me to fix it but dh and I knew she saw an advisor and asked to see the suitability report and she’s Not let us see but that’s because she wanted me and dh to give her the financial advise in the first place (neither of us are advisors)

You really need to get to the bottom of this in case she is being scammed.

Good point, @wwatersprites . In addition, if she's nearing retirement from work she'll be fretting that she'll be losing over £1,000 a month.

there’s no additional costs for servicing for her cars, the dealer does it, but she gets them fresh out of the factory and normally don’t need to worry about services for 3 years. Insurance where she lives is cheap and she pays annually, £500 a year tops.

she won’t be able to manage downsizing mentally. She’s got another house she just let rot because it’s too much, she won’t be able to sort out getting a valuation and packing up the house, it’s too much for her.
no cleaner no gardener, she loves gardening. House isn’t mahoosive, it’s 5 bed. One is a study and one is a second living room. But it’s still big, but I fixed her energy, saved her a bit because she was paying £250 before

This.

Yeah that’s pretty much it.

she’s not texting saying she won’t be able to afford her phone bill and she’ll have to cancel sky. I can’t fathom why

You really need to make the time to visit. If for no other reason than to see the conditions she's living in and do a full welfare check on her. She's struggling, be it through grief or loneliness or something more sinister and something is amiss.

OP, I don't think you've mentioned how long it is since your DF died, if it's a relatively short period of time, do you think this is a cry for help, maybe made out of loneliness. Obviously she still has a job, but when she goes home, she's presumably alone, until bedtime most evenings, unless of course she has a very active social life. Could she in a weird way be angling at coming to live with you, because she 'can't manage her money?'

Alternatively, as others have suggested, has she fallen for one of these romance scammers who prey on older women, telling them that they don't know how they lived until they met them, flattering them, etc. until they gain their confidence enough to start asking for money? I've seen so many programs on TV about this sort of thing, and she does sound like she could be a prime candidate.

Either way, I think you need to pay her a visit, I appreciate that this might be difficult with a young family, but just in case she is being scammed, I would make this a priority, even leave the children with your DH/DP, while you go to see her if necessary. Then, be firm with her, that you want to see her bank statements, and if she doesn't have them, then get her permission to speak to her bank, she can easily give this over the phone, or go online with her and download her statements. There really is no excuse for her not being able to get them, and until you know where her money's going, you can't help her, or on the other hand, get her to see that she has plenty of money, and that she doesn't need to worry.

Op I mean this kindly but I think you are getting drawn into her craziness here. You might find a reason in her bank statements if you get a chance to look at the hard facts and figures, but I suspect this is more a combination of:

Never managing her money as an adult, ever.
Your father's income drop.
Her wildly unrealistic understanding of how much is "skint".
Some sort of mental disorder, whether that's in built or new, who knows.

I'm not joking about the mental disorder comment - if she can't understand how to shop around for better deals on stuff like insurance, fair play if she struggles with the internet, but come on - my 85 year old gran understands enough to ring up a call center to get an insurance quote! And the first class tickets and many,many holidays and demands for you to fix her financial situation.. despite having a post-tax income many working people would dream of!

Honestly it sounds like a mix of a deep seated mental health issue which has been exacerbated by your father's passing, and now she's turning to you to indulge her craziness, without actually having a genuine problem or any information supplied that you could use to help her.

Is she possibly also lonely on top?

What's REALLY going on here?
Why is she putting you in this position when your job, your children should be your focus?
Why is she demanding more than a rational Share of your energy?

It sounds exhausting.

She loves work, she won’t give it up. It’s only 20hrs a week and it’s local, she runs the show there, something to do

I don't think it's about the money. I think it's about having to make her own decisions. She reminds me a little of a friend of mine, who misses having a bloke to do all that. But my friend does manage, though she has a tendency to ask for advice and then ignore it or do the opposite. She is incredibly anxious, afraid of making the wrong decision.

And if I or another woman friend offer advice, she will take the contradictory advice from a man any time.

This was my first thought having read all OP’s responses - early dementia. Not only the baseless money anxiety (she probably has plenty in the bank) but also the irrational inability to provide proof. She has become fixated but without any real evidence. How old is she OP? Any other recent quirks or anxieties? It’s not a nice ‘answer’ for you but looking into the possibility and maybe chatting to the GP would be my first port of call.

I think this

Unless some bloke or ‘friend’ is fleecing her

does she save or have funeral plans/life insurance she pays into? My DS has savings but never touched it he'd rather life on beans amd toast for a week beofre payday rather than dipping into his savings

she won’t be able to manage downsizing

Well if she has genuine money issues (to be determined) tough luck. You seem to accept that she "can't" handle downsizing, or comparing bills, or whatever. You need to take a step back here - Don't you see how many teenage style "I don't want to to that" excuses you've shared?!

Is she if mental sound mind or not?

Yes?

Then she needs to get a grip and start living life like an adult.

It might hopefully just be the case that your late father dealt with all the finances so she had no idea how much things cost nowadays and is horrified opening her bills herself.

I only say this as my colleagues parents divorced a year ago and (even though she is rich) the mother freaked out the first year as in her mind the cost of everything, like utilities etc should have been similar to what they were 40years ago. She would see the shelf prices go up in the supermarkets but she would never actually see her monthly statements with it all added up and it freaked her out when she did. She cancelled gardeners, window cleaners and all sorts.

On the other hand, my mother is a compulsive online shopper and I wish my father would only show her their monthly statements so she would realise how much her outgoings add up to 😫

Maybe if your mother could compare a current bank statement to one before her husband died it might give her more confidence in her financial situation.

Could she be withdrawing cash and hiding it in the house?

Unless you can have a look at her bank statements you aren’t going to be able to work out what’s going on.

shes 68, she’s always been like this though, very up in the air. She broke down sobbing in a car dealership because she couldn’t have both a £600 a month car and 5 holidays a year (btw these holidays are 2 weeks at a time and she’d never lower herself to stay in anything less than 5 stars… maybe a 4+ boutique hotel maybe, she’d treat herself to 1st class here and there too)

the car she could afford but it was when my dad was alive and I think he’d have gone nuts as it was a real midlife crisis car

My Mother was like this. Turned out she wanted attention and used a pretence of 'being worried about money' to manipulate us.

She used her pretend money worries to get out of doing anything she didn't fancy and to force us into provided care for free, alongside cleaning, DIY etc.

I am no contact with her now.

Hmmm ok not sure then!