Financial issues in mild dementia

sunshine5 · January 2022

DH wrote a check and later stopped, resulting in $35. Fee. He told me American Express have provided him a free gold card, resulting in $200. Annual fee that I could not cancel. I mentioned to neurologist, he said keep a close eye on finances.

DH writes checks and carries credit cards with him. How do I tackle this situation. He gets angry when I ask him to do anything logical. Told him we may need home care services down the road, he thinks he has lot of money/ he doesn’t. Any one went thru this? Very tricky !

sandwichone123 · January 2022

I did take and destroy credit cards fairly early on, which caused some issues later when I tried to pay the bills. Instead, I suggest taking and locking up credit cards until you can get the accounts cancelled. I did buy a safe that opens to my fingerprint and put it in a place I don't think dh will look. While my dh has pretty easygoing through all of this, there were some testy moments around my shredding his cards. I also changed the passwords to his online accounts, which allowed me to cancel one card online without having to talk to anyone (using the chat feature). I have also removed his checks.

RobertsBrown · January 2022

Hey Sunshine5, this is a four-alarm emergency.

I called and got replacement cards, but did not give one to my gal. She still had cards, but didn't realize they would not work.

I did this because the world has people in it that are looking for weakness and will happily abuse your spouse. You are protecting him, don't doubt it for a minute.

My spouse spent our mortgage payment, by check, at her chiropractor's office on a weight loss scheme similar to Weight Watchers. They had known her for years, and I would have called them friends. Beware. My situation resolved OK, because I can be dangerous. You may not be so lucky.

Checks are a harder story. I opened a separate account for bills and paychecks, but kept 'enough' in the joint account for most basic shopping.

You can't be too paranoid here. Dementia and money do not mix.

Ed1937 · January 2022

Sunshine, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. It must be resolved one way or another. My wife always gave to several different charities, and we receive mail almost daily wanting more donations. I gather the mail, and she never sees those type of correspondences. She could not write a check to them if she wanted now, but she would ask me to send money. And she can't use a computer, so that part is covered. Finally I disconnected our landline because I caught her giving someone personal information. I hope you find an answer.

ElCy · January 2022

My husband is also early on but spending money very differently than before. He goes grocery shopping every day and spends about 80.00. He buys an incredible amount of pastry. Also takes out cash daily from ATM. I know he does these things because he is bored and just wants to get out of the house.

I recently had the bank limit the amounts he can spend daily on his debit card and limit the amount of daily withdrawals.

I moved savings account out of his name as well.

Rescue mom · January 2022

You have to get control of the money. He can lose big amounts that you will need later to help pay for extra help.

Often you can put old or sample cards back in their wallet and they won’t notice. Or the cards can be “lost,”, you’ve called to report it and now “waiting for a replacement”…..same with checkbook. Change the passwords/codes on any internet or ATM cards. Some banks will let you set a small limit on atm withdrawals.

Open a new checking account with just yourself. Move most money into that one. Leave a little money in the old one that he can access. If he notices or runs out, tell him you’ll take care of it “later,” or when you can reach the right person, or when the weather allows you to go see about it, etc. Rinse, repeat.

The board has has many many stories of people whose LO spent/wasted huge amounts of money before they got control. Don’t let that happen to you. He may get angry for a bit. But they forget fast. And sometimes we just have to do things to protect them, even if they don’t like it at the moment. As you did with rules for your children when they were little.