Poor financial judgement and clutter

alzsarah2

My DH has early stage dementia and has been making donations like crazy, both political and charitable. They are not huge amounts but they can still add up to a fair bit of money. He is very susceptible to the pleas for donations with messages of urgency or matches of donations. He still has capacity to make decisions but I fear that he is too gullible and this is getting out of hand. I have tried putting him on the do not send list but it has had no affect on the number of solicitations coming to him. I try to get to the mailbox before him but he usually gets there before me. It's a source of conflict, stress, and anxiety. He gets angry if I try to convince him that he's given enough. He has so much paper clutter it's driving me insane! He piles everything on the guest bed and insists he has to deal with it when we are having guests who will be using the guest bedroom. Boxes of paper keep getting shoved into the closet. The clutter is invading other rooms in the house. Anyone dealt with this issue?

Thanks,

ALZSarah

MaryG123

Do you have some accounts of your own that he can’t access Alzsarah2?  This will certainly get worse, and arguing will not help, as his judgement and reasoning is impaired.  I would move most of the money out of your joint accounts, if that’s what you have, and put it into an account that he can’t access.  You can also call the bank and lower the limit on any credit card he has.  I took his debit card out of my husband’s wallet a few months ago.  I’m so sorry it’s come to this.

alzsarah2

Thank you for your response, MaryG. That's helpful advice. I am anticipating this becoming much worse and will be in touch with his investment advisers. We do have separate accounts and only one that is a joint account for household expenses. I have his POA but he hasn't quite reached the point of being incapacitated for that to take effect. I will see if I can talk with the bank and credit card company. I think my roller coaster ride is just beginning!

alzsarah

Iris L.

The solicitations will keep coming.  Get to the mailbox before him and destroy them.

Iris

Quilting brings calm

If you live in an area where you can get a post office  box, do so.  Then submit a change of address to the post office.  I think the form allows you to change the address for everyone living at the house.  Gradually switch everything to automatically come to the PO Box.  You can send letters to most companies to get addresses changed, and you do not need to have signatures in the letters.   That will solve the problem of him getting the mail. Although it requires you being able to get to the post office.  

Regarding the clutter, whenever he falls asleep in a chair, take a few minutes to go into the bedroom and collect junk papers.  You will need to take them straight to the outside garbage bin in a grocery type plastic bag so that he never sees them disappearing. A little bit every day will help. 

M1

I went through exactly the same thing, my partner was a sucker for animal charities as well as the firefighter, police, and veteran's associations.  I had to turn the ringers off on the phones (she never used a cell phone that much and never had a smart phone), take away the computer, hide the mail, take away her credit cards, and literally took checks out of the mail and tore them up.  There are some "do not send" lists that are more effective than others, I don't remember the details now.  Fortunately our mailbox is 1500 feet from the house, so it was pretty easy for me to volunteer to make the walk (she has a bad back) and beat her to it.  Then I would detour by our barn and throw away the trash mail in a barn garbage can that she never used.  And she was old school enough that most of her donations were by mail, by check, so that I could stop them before they ever went out.  But in 2018-19 (right as things were going seriously downhill) she probably give $50K to animal charities before I could stop her.

If your husband likes to deal with paper, that may be to your advantage (despite the clutter).  Let him go through it and then remove some of it when he's elsewhere, I doubt if he'll miss it.   If he makes donations by mail, offer to mail them and then tear them up like I did.  At some point you'll realize that just like he doesn't have a handle on how much money he's doling out, he also doesn't have a handle on what mail he is or is not getting, or whether the phone ringer is on or off (my partner never did realize that one, that was a suggestion from someone on this forum that worked like a charm).  Hope you are handling the bills, as said, and limiting the amount of money he has access to.  Hard to realize it's time for that, but it is.  I was eventually successful at taking over all of the finances by teasing her that I was functioning as her executive assistant.  

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Battlebuddy

  My husband presented in a similar way when first diagnosed. He was having issues with paying bills and organization in his office. He was the bill payer and I had no idea that he was overpaying and underpaying various things. 

   We sold our house and we’re packing up. He just couldn’t figure out how to pack up. There were boxes and papers everywhere. 

   What I didn’t understand was that his executive function was being effected by the Alzheimer’s . Your husbands ability to use executive function is being compromised and he really doesn’t understand how those papers being on the bed are in the way. I would say be very patient with him , and try to guide him to another way to lay the papers out. He can’t tell you , my brain can’t catagorize things so I’m using the bed to help me. 

    This is the beginning of you becoming his “ back up brain” . That’s what we called it in the beginning. But more and more you will have to move from being his back up brain to taking over things like finances. Often these things have to be done behind the persons back which is a whole different way you will have to go. But as others have said, it’s easier than going broke  

Ed1937

I don't have anything to add to the already good suggestions you already have, but I would say you need to try whatever works because you need to get a handle on that NOW.

ElaineD

CLUTTER!  My DH has five pairs of shoes around his recliner, and 5 more in the bedroom in front of his dresser.  Every table near his chair is piled high with stuff he's been looking at (like an archeological dig).  The kitchen has half eaten boxes of pastry on the counters which are dried out.  

Clutter makes me crazy.  It is established fact that clutter reduces your sense of well being.   I know that for sure!

I'm disabled (braces, walker/power chair) so I can tidy up his clutter.  And I've always respected his 'domain' so I might put away shoes, but wouldn't have touched his stacks of stuff.

I consider this an opportunity to practice letting go and acceptance.  But the clutter is absurd.  It runs in his family (11 children) to put everything on display, hang stuff edge to edge on the walls.....and that's what's going on in our tiny 800 sq ft apartment.  Recently I was organizing a large credenza (I can sit in my walker and do this) and I made the mistake of asking him what he wanted me to do with a stack of framed documents he has dragged around since we left Boston in 1994!

Well, now the framed documents are stacked on top of the credenza, with one large one propped against the wall.  And another document is on the table outside our door...along with at least 15 paintings (hanging outside our door) he made in the paintings class here in our Independent Living, and the Christmas decorations he made in another class.  He also has his family reunion picture on the wall and two model tractors (he's into tractors).

I keep repeating that this "isn't my circus, not my monkeys' and that I don't need to be embarrassed, and that I can ignore the clutter.

Had to vent about clutter, I guess!

Elaine

Rescue mom

I delayed dealing with clutter and finances way too long, because I thought it would upset my DH with Alzheimer’s. But truly, they (mine and others in IRL support groups) don’t notice that things are no longer there—if they don’t see them being taken away. 

All much like M1 said.

My discovery was almost accidental, but I realized no, he does not notice these things are gone. Same with bills, solicitations etc. If I got it first, he never asked “why didn’t this come.”

 If he got it, he’d say he was handling it. (He was not). But if he never got it, he did not notice. Same with most finances, I made sure I did it, without him knowing. His credit cards, checkbook etc.,  “got lost,” and were quickly forgotten. (I did replace his cards with fakes or expired ones, so it felt and kind of looked like something was there. He never noticed or pursued).

 I threw out boxes and boxes of old paperwork. If he did not see it happening, he never knew. A couple things he asked about, I said I didn’t know and would look around. That was the end of that.

As long as he did not see me actually moving (or paying for) things, he never noticed they were gone. It was stunning to me at first that he did not notice, didn’t “see” the empty spaces left. But he didn’t. It can take some effort on your part, and doing little bits at a time, but it’s much like “out of sight, out of mind.”

ElCy

Since you have POA you can put a lint on his debit cards as well. Also, freeze all three credit reports. Sign up for post office informed delivery with post office so you can see what’s coming every day and better yet, have mail delivered to POBox.

Belldream

This has been such a helpful post for me and I appreciate all the suggestions offered. My DH is I am guessing middle to late stage AD. We are young, he has early onset. He has kept every memento and important to him piece of paper his whole life, along with having many things from his deceased mom and dad. He woke up one morning unable to walk and his mental status deteriorated that day and hasn't really recovered. He didn't tell me what to do with many of these things. It is overwhelming to me to go through it all. I will take it day by day, little by little, as you are all saying to do. I hope to see a large portion of floor someday!