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?

Maybe it's a CoL thing in that she's noticed her money isn't going as far as it used to (lower income since DF passed, increases in bills) however, if she was well organised, she'd see a significant increase in interest received on any savings she has.

You say you haven't been to her house for a while and it sounds like she discourages you. Could she not want you to see it for some reason - she's not coping, so it's a mess, or it's crammed with things she's bought etc?

You also say you don't think she's a victim of a romance scam, but are you sure she's not met someone on one of her holidays? I have a colleague who's a similar age and apart from the fact that she's childfree so not your DM, there's a lot of similarities - still works because she likes it, a bit dippy with life/money - tbh we're all desperate for her to retire because she's hopeless at her job, can't get her head round much of the technological developments of the last couple of decades and very slow and now she's got a lot of excess money because she has her state pension, salary and work pension, she goes on lots of long haul holidays and has met the love of her life in a far away country. Her closest colleagues are trying to warn her that it could be a scam and while he appears to love her too, he could be playing the long game, have several women on the go etc, but she won't listen.

But on the matter of the utility bill, you say you 'fixed it at £150 pm' but that sounds like the direct debit amount not the actual cost and also doesn't sound like enough for a 5 bed house especially if she uses the heating sufficiently, so she could have been getting letters telling her that the DD needs to increase and that could be something she's panicking about?

But again, without a full run through of her finances, everything is speculation as to what her position is and whether or not she is justifiable 'skint' so you need to tell her that she either needs to show you all her statements etc so you can help her, or stop moaning at you like this because you have enough on your plate coping with your own life admin/mental load without her offloading hers too.

If she doesn't want to disclose the details to you, there was a paid money coaching service advertising/being talked about on MN a few months ago, I can't remember the details but she sounds like an ideal candidate, but again, she'd have to give them full disclosure and act on their advice for it to be useful to her.

I find this a insult to people who are actually struggling with money. Some families only have £1500 coming in a month at best to support everyone

Give your head a wobble OP go round and find those bank statements or tell her to shut up about it.

All saying its a illness, really how have we diagnosed that without ever meeting this person?

Sounds like it could be an anxiety problem rather than a money problem. Is she worried about spending too much and not saving enough to pass on to her relatives?

Sounds like it could be an anxiety problem rather than a money problem. Is she worried about spending too much and not saving enough to pass on to her relatives?

@mrsnoodle55 it isn't the state widows' pension, it's the spouse's occupational pension. A lot of the public sector and other occupational schemes pay the surviving partner about half of the deceased's pension. We have a demanding joke here that DH will grease the stairs. If I end up in the op's mother's position, I'll have:

My occupational pension
My state pension
Half of dh's occupational pension (won't be much as he will only have been public sector for 10/15 years.
The income from the draw downs and reinvestment of DH's private pension scheme.

I don't want it to happen :(

You mention state pension and widows pension which is confusing me. There isn't any widows pension anymore. When my dad died 10 years ago in his eighties my mum also in her eighties didn't get a widows pension but a proportion of his state pension as she hadn't worked after marriage and had paid what they called the married women's stamp
Is your mum receiving part of your dad's state pension. After the changes in 2016 not sure how it works when a spouse dies

If you're used to having money and don't have to think about what you spend it's really easy to fritter it away. You get the £40 gel Mani at the 'nice' salon rather than the £20 one at the cheaper place everyone else goes to. Regular cut and colour, blow dry for a meal out. New outfit every time, but from Hobbs etc not Matalan.

Full disclaimer I now live in a high income household (not super high income but on the comfortable side of things and I am the only person I know who doesn't get a regular cut and colour because I don't come from a high income background and I can't fathom spending £100s every few months but some people see that as genuine running costs, essential bills if you will.

I would be really firm that you're happy to sit down and work out where the money is going but you're not going to listen to crying on for no reason, rinse and repeat. Absolute worst case scenario she has assets to sell.

Step back and let her get on with it.

she sounds awful

Rail

She wants you to give her even more money, whilst you can't afford a holiday yourselves and do budget.

Have you tried saying to her what your monthly income is to give her a wake up call ?

It may sound harsh but I'd develop a few lines to use and don't say anything else "DM if you're prepared to show us your bank statements and all your DDs we may be able to help you. Please remember your income is already higher than ours and we have two DCs a mortgage and a pension to pay into."

Try redirecting her when she talks about finances or put the phone down "DM I've told you I can't help you. Lets talk about something else."
If they switch off her Sky - so what - she can watch normal TV still. For her phone she can get a cheap PAYG or monthly SIM.

How is her health? Is it possible that a fixation like this, and anxiety, could be early stages of dementia?

I think they mean the widows part of her husbands private pension, which some private pension providers still do. Often a percentage of what the deceased spouse was getting

It just sounds to me like she’s manipulating you and likes the attention, in a histrionic kind of way?

I would keep it really simple. Tell her that unless she gives you bank statements, you can’t help her. She should be capable of calling the bank and requesting one even if she doesn’t know how to use online banking, surely??

My dad is like this, incidentally. Has never really had financial responsibilities as he’s always lived with his mother. He worked full time, but basically never even thought about money management. Just bought whatever he wanted and accumulated debt.

I took over his finances for a few years when he was ill. Anything he had, he spent. That’s basically how he operates. It’s probably the same for your mother. Without seeing the statements, there’s literally no way for you to know. So I would stop engaging on it unless she gets herself together and provides them.

I was going to say dementia - delusions of being poor are common.

You mentioned you don't visit her often as you find it difficult. It may be helpful if you could make the trip to discuss with her face to face. Or have her come to you for a visit. In your position I would definitely want to be sure that she's not being scammed ot taken advantage of.

Well I think you need to go to hers and log on to internet banking.
Or drive her to her bank and get a statement

You see her every week? Then you sit her down and log into her baking, or take her to the bank for statements. And simply say until you see the statements and can figure out where the problem lies you won’t discuss finances anymore. She’s spending somewhere, I’m inclined to think she’s living outside her means. £50 here and there added onto t@he shopping for a new top etc soon adds up. She’s likely not skint as her income suggests she can manage this but you need the proof. Put your foot down and don’t engage with it until she provides it. We have a similar family member, she’s minted just most of its in savings (easily accessed) but she frets

It does sounds like she’s attention-seeking a bit - she doesn’t actually want/need help as evidenced by not providing her statements. But she does want the soothing noises and sympathetic for her supposed predicament.

There could be a shopping addiction in there too. My Nan had a great pension and monthly income, but when she died it turned out she was in debt and her cupboards were full of bags and bags of expensive bags and clothes, all with tags and some moths setting up shop. The shed had KitchenAids in every colour, rusted to hell! Such a waste of money and we had no idea.

Is saying she's broke a ploy to get you to give her money?

My mother was poor, but hardly had any outgoings as everything was paid for (rent, coucil tax), but was still feckless with money. She would spend all her money in one week, despite knowing a phone or gas bill would be due every 3 months and would never budget to cover those bills, but would get upset and look to the family to help her out!

I took on power of attorney for my MIL when she was increasingly anxious about money - she was confused (mainly due to untreated UTIs.

Her state pension was paid into a PO account and she hadn't ised it for at least 10 years - £48000.00 sitting there paying no interest. She also had multiple direct debits to the same charities - four for cancer research and six for Dogs Trust. I think she would see an ad on TV and donate forgetting she had already set up DDs. She had mobile phone contracts for phones she no longer had and her house insurance which was auto renewed was absolutely extortionate. Her widows pension from my FIL had been stopped as she hadn't replied to letters asking if she was still alive.

It could be something like this

Without seeing her bank statements, you simply don't know.

I'm querying the £450 a month for a car- is this a credit payment or for fuel?

I'd be asking to see her bank statements and investments, but I'd also look at this another way.

Is she crying for help and using the money as a red herring?

Is she depressed?
Is she mentally unstable?

What work does she do?
If she is getting her state pension she must be at least 67.

She has a LOT of money close to £40K a year.
Yes, she will be paying tax on this, so there is its net value to consider.

Can't you go and visit and ask to see the paperwork?

When you said you fixed her energy bills, the fixed rate is the unit amount and the direct debit. It doesn't generally mean she can use what she likes. We have a 4 bed detached and were building up a large debt with the energy company over winter, as our bills were more like £600 a month and the direct debit was £120ish. Obviously we made the decision to have our heating on, but your mum may have done the same and had to pay some large chunks for that. I appreciate that doesn't fully explain it though. But just generally if you are used to not thinking about what you are spending, you are likely to pay more for everything.

I would sit down and do a budget with her when she’s not in a tizz. No one can think straight when they are stressed and all over the place. You won’t get any straight answers then.

Yes, objectively she is had a lot income (from my perspective) but try not to bring that up or shame her. Anytime can get in a tizz with money regardless of income. None of us are taught it, it’s hard to figure out and quite stressful.

It’s great that you both have a relationship where you can talk about these things though. I try and empower her rather than do it for her, though- you don’t want to find yourself responsible for her budgeting. That’s a stress on you.
Good luck

Are you the poster who keeps posting about your Walter Mitty brother asking for money for random stuff like handwriting tests?

What relationship does he have with your mother? Is she giving him money? It strikes me that you seem quite enmeshed in the financial affairs of family members.

It sounds incredibly frustrating but I think the only way you will get to the bottom of it all is to go to her and physically get all the paperwork, statements etc. Maybe then bring it back to yours so you can have time to go through it all. Then get her over to talk about it and put in place any cancellations or internet banking etc that will make it easier.

She sounds quite spoilt and selfish and if your father did everything about money she is probably feeling overwhelmed and panicky. My mother would have been the same. Never did anything financial. Dad did it all.