She lives on her own and is okay driving herself as long as it’s her usual pattern: church, gym, grocery store. I am on her checking account and also a medical POA so I have access to monitoring her finances and can stay in the loop from her doctor visits. She writes lots and lots of checks to political and charity groups every month, totaling near $1000. She has a backup account and is drawing from it to support this check writing. I don’t live with her so I can’t monitor her outgoing mail. I’m at a loss what to do. Her testing diagnosis was not dementia as we thought. How do I put a stop to this without completely taking over guardianship, which is more than I can handle at this point?
Unless she is super rich.
Anybody in late 60-70 can expect to live another 20 years or so with costs increasing of ALs to 7-10 thousands per month having 1 million is not that much today.
Also, find names of charities she supports and if they are even are good ones which often does not matter if there is not enough money.
Most people support one or two with small contributions.
My husband and I when we were working and strongly believed in educating girls in disadvantaged countries supported education for two girls in Haiti and Chile. I am proud to say we helped one to become a doctor.
And sometimes we gave to Doctors Without Borders as we felt they do important work. Many charities I would not support as they spent 95% on admin and only 5% on good causes.
I am confused. You posted this under dementia. You put in your profile that you are caring for a mother who has dementia.
Yet you tell us above that "her testing diagnosis was not dementia as we thought".
Because the answer to your question is utterly dependent on your answer to the question above, the information is crucial.
Your mother is living alone independently, driving and having her own life. You say testing proves she has no dementia.
If this statement is true there is not a single thing in the world you can do to stop her from giving her money away whether she throws it away gambling, gives it ALL to her church or gives it away one check at a time.
If your mother DOES have dementia, then you currently can't do anything with a MPOA. You would need a financial POA and your burdens would be horrific, so watch what you wish for. You would have to take over your mother's accounts as the only signator as POA, give her a small spending account, take over payment and accounting on all bills, housing, activities, find her placement and get her care so that she is safe and secure and her finances protected. If she has not conferred POA (general and financial) upon you I caution you to watch what you hope to get because it is a dreadful burden to force a loved one into care they don't want.
Interestingly I have a friend late 70s who writes checks all month long and gives money away right and left. She has a child, an alcoholic from whom she is estranged. She has written a will that gives her home and the home she inherited to people who work for her. All perfectly legitimate and her choice.
Wish you good luck, but if your mom knows what she's doing she can do it. I wouldn't even ASK were I you. The money will be gone. The consequences to her will likely be dire should she ever need to pay for care to remain in home, independent, or have good living facilities. But there you are.
Let Mom choose THREE charities.
Let Mom choose the ANNUAL amount for each.
Decide when this will be paid eg 1st of Jan or 1st July.
Look over her accounts together.
Consider having 3 accounts.
1. Weekly expenses
2. Once a year/bigger bills
3. Savings
Decide which one will be for weekly small bills. This is the one your Mom will be in control of.
Only feed this account with enough to cover each week's expenses. Mom can be independant with this account.
The other two, you will use TOGETHER as Mom's behaviour has shown she requires supervision with her finances.
I don't blame you for being alarmed at this. It is definitely a likely sign of early cognitive problems. My MIL and Aunt both did the same thing and if you read on this forum you'll see it's a very common early symptom.
I have to ask: were you in the room with her when she was tested? Are you privy to the test results in her portal? Or are you getting the test result info from her only?
There are other cognitive tests that can be done, but through a neurologist.
You can consider vetting her incoming mail by having it go to a PO Box that you control, then will need to deliver to her after you've gone through it (I have done this, but it's a pain). You can tell her it's because of "postal theft" in the neighborhood.
I know two people whose families assumed they were fine to be driving. One ended up on interstates for a couple of days and had a minor accident with a curb, so the police called family in the middle of the night to come get him 80 miles away. The other drove around for a while, ending up 8 cities away from home. He stopped at a rest stop that was actually a condo guard shack and was caught peeing in it.
Start thinking ahead so you will be prepared for the next step.
I've unsubscribed from almost all charities, as well. I figure that the best thing I can do for those in need is try not to join them. If I don't make my Final Exit in the reasonably near future, I will need every penny to pay for my own long-term care.
Also, how is your name also on moms checking account if you do not hold financial POA? If your name is on that account, you should be able to close it out entirely or reduce the balance accordingly.
I recently learned that it's not always possible for only 1 of the 2 joint owners to close the account on their own. This certainly was true at WF here in MN. They wouldn't let me close an account I had with my adult son without both of us agreeing to it.
If the OP closes the account and moves it, the new account would have to be in only the OPs name and there's a risk this would appear as gifting... Reducing the money in the account is a strategy but if the Mom is in denial (or has memory issues) and continues to write checks then she'll rack up a hefty overdraft bill. My MIL had $900+ in overdraft fees by time we figured out her memory issues.
Taking her checkbooks away only resulted in her calling the bank and ordering more checks. We found boxes and boxes of new checks (each box had multiple boxes in them). This situation is actually a pretty tricky one if there's no FPoA and no diagnosis.