What we’ve tried to do with her money is ensure she has cash in her purse, she likes to have £200(!) but we’ve reduced it to £100, which she seems satisfied with, we take her shopping weekly, so she can buy magazines etc but taking her, for say, clothes is a nightmare because she’ll pick up anything that takes her fancy and then have a tantrum if you advise her not to buy something. If she picks up two of the same thing and you say, you already have that mum, she insists she wants two! Same goes for magazines, plants, ornaments, books etc. She gets lots of those online gift magazines, owl barn, pia, culture vulture, and if she has access to her account she will buy not one thing but lots of things, a jumper in every colour, a pair of earrings in every colour, you can see the pattern. If they don’t fit or she doesn’t like them she hides them. We’ve tried to stop the catalogues and she started buying things from the weekly magazines she gets, then you get a new rush of gift magazines. As for treating herself, we try but with her compulsive spending one thing is not enough. At the shop she routinely will spend £40 a week on magazines and books. The books don’t get read (the magazines sort of do) and she frequently chooses the same ones she bought last week. Going shopping with her now causes me panic attacks, and my brother refuses to take her.
Crikey
@Glokta, you've got to hand it to your mum, she is one serious shopaholic and what a nightmare for you!
Yesterday I was reading
@Grannie G's forward post from 24th January 2011 'Compassionate communication with the memory impaired' which has such a lovely flow and reminds us of the importance of kindness and dignity (if only!) and may give you some tips on how to approach your mum's frantic behaviour.
So that you don't get upset, if you can stay shtumm to avoid tantrums in public and give your mum free reign to buy what she wants, can you keep the receipts and return the items for refund later.
Does anyone know if you can apply reverse psychology to a PWD - along the lines of " I know you have a jumper like this at home mum, of course you should buy another if you want to, in fact, why not buy two just in case". Normal thinking would be should I / shouldn't I, but is this a case of a dementia brain not being able to make a rational decision - sorry if that sounds a bit waffley, need coffee!
If you tend to shop in the same places, could you have a quiet word in advance with the staff? These days many shops (attractions, cafes etc) include dementia awareness training, here is the perfect opportunity for them to practise what they have learnt.
If the pleasure for your mum comes in the 'getting' more than the 'having', if you smuggled out her collection of magazines and then presented them to her the next week as new, especially as you say she tends to buy the same sort, would she twig they had been recycled?
I don't know what the answer is with the catalogues that come in the post, when my (housebound ) dad was alive, he was swamped with those and he spent a fortune on 'tat'. I hope other people can offer advice on that subject
Just to add, and tying in with another thread regarding drawers full of knickers, the same was true for my parents, sorting out when mum moved in with us, we gave black bin bags full of packets of knickers and socks to charity. The well known company (vultures) who sell to the elderly seem to have had my dad's bank account details and once a month a repeat order of underwear would arrive. I wish I had known then what I know now, they fleeced him for hundreds.