I am her primary caregiver 24/7 lately she's been making some outrageous financial decisions?

I've used True Link, too. It was a lifesaver.

I was going to say I doubt that she would use a card of any kind but then she did use - or somebody did, might not have been her - a credit card, or at least the account, but not anymore, but I still think she thinks of that differently from a debit card that takes money directly out of her bank account, think she still prefers checks for that, but she did get a call this morning regarding a particular check as to whether she wrote it and she said she didn't but then can you always trust her memory but she didn't even check her checkbook but then even if she did could you trust her memory that she had written it down but the real issue is the number of the check, we believe it's out of sequence

There is a company called TrueLink that I use with some of my clients as a daily money manager. It is a prepaid debit card. It does have a small monthly fee, but it lets you set restrictions on the card as to where and how it can be used and it will send you an alert when it does get used. I can set it to text me every time it is used or only when it is over a certain amount. It allows the family member to have say in their own financial decisions, but has protections in place. It can also be replaced if lost or stolen and you don't lose the money on the card. I find it to be a great tool.

all those tips and pointers 1rarefind mentioned are exactly what I think has been begun to happen with hub's aunt and uncle; that's the one thing she hasn't wanted to allow me to do but uncle had had their son and dil; well, her, too, at the time; put on their checking account but as she's - or somebody - has seen her account she's seen all the money moving around, that I'd like to think, anyway, has been being put in a savings account, totally other than any of the accounts on the statement, to keep her from being able to deplete her extra money that's going to places that are a problem but she's having a problem with that

Guardianships are extremely expensive It should be used as a last resort because of the expenses involved, filing fees, witness fees, attorney fees. What if the guardian turns out to be someone besides you? I perceive that many eldercare attorney recommend guardianships without fully understanding the potential outcomes and the true cost of a guardianship.
Perhaps someone who has obtained a guardianship could spell out the costs. I perceive it would be a big help to us all.

That's right, debbsc! Elders and even younger folks are targeted by scammers. I recently helped a younger friend, who was scammed by the IRS over the phone. (The IRS contacts you by U.S. postal service ONLY).
This woman was very alarmed because she has an adult daughter with a major physical disability.

I recently walked in the door to find my mom on the phone with one of those scammers who say they're calling because there's a problem with your computer. They talk you into giving them control over your computer and charge you to remove the "virus." I was livid and let the guy on the other end know how I felt about him trying to take advantage of the elderly. She told him what I said about it being a scam and he hung up. She doesn't think she gave him her credit card number, but her wallet was out.

Anyway, I immediately asked her to hand over her wallet, which she did. I, thankfully, do have POA, so I'm just starting to take over paying her bills. She did something pretty crazy a couple of years ago, but we were able to finally put a stop to that with promises of putting her into assisted living, which is pretty much the only thing she gets emotional about.

She is currently in rehab due to multiple falls involving broken bones. However, when she was able to go grocery shopping with me, I gave her her wallet so she could feel "normal."

You don't say what her situation is like, but I think the idea of giving her a prepaid credit card with an amount that you feel is safe would be a good idea. Best wishes!

This is why I gave a few tips and pointers for you case you do need to take over her finances. Please read the post very carefully because there is some very useful information in there to make helping another person much easier. Special care should be taken when serious consideration is considered because if you picked the wrong person they can go from helping the person to helping themselves to all assets, including bank accounts and other such things as life insurance policies. This is why any potential caregiver must be completely trustworthy, because they're actually putting someone else in a vulnerable position of having to depend on them for everything, including finances. If your mom is that vulnerable, this is when bad things can happen to them, and you really don't want that to happen.

Mom isn't in her right mind to make ANY FINANCIAL DECISIONS!

Part two

If it upsets the apple cart they'll fight it, so definitely be prepared for a possible fight, and hopefully she doesn't outsmart you and pull something to stop you, which is another possibility. I'm not sure how the bank may also interfere unless someone speaks up and points out something. Even someone who's no longer competent and very confused can and up making a false claim that goes to the APS. You might want to be very wary of this possibility, this happened in my town. This happened before the person had a guardian, he went to his bank and made a false claim despite the best efforts to explain everything to him over and over again. Come to find out, it was like talking to a wall, and walls don't listen. Anytime you deal with someone else's finances, always be on very high alert because the person could very easily and unexpectedly pull something, even if there's no problem. This is why I originally suggested guardianship, because then you won't be caught unawares later if something happens and the person you're caring for pulls some kind of nasty trick to claim their money was stolen when you're joint on the account. Yes, temptation can stare you right in the face if you're not careful, but don't fall into temptatian and act on a bad decision to steal or misuse the person's money. This goes on an awful lot, and having access to extra money can be very tempting for some people. You may want to first check your own motives and vulnerabilities before ever taking control of someone else's money, because you really don't want to get in trouble when you must give an account to the courts and show proof of receipts and other possible records. This is why extra caution should be exercised when taking over someone else's finances because not all trustees are trustworthy

As much as I really hate to have to recommend this, guardianship is probably going to be your best bet. Guardianship will actually give you power over every aspect of the person's life, including finances. I really like the idea of collaborating with companies who are billing persons you're taking care of. If you can't get anywhere with the companies for any reason, you can contact the Better Business Bureau in the area where the bills are coming from and have them step in and intervene. I also like the idea of closing all of the major credit cards and not answering any of the junk mail or even those unsolicited phone calls. There's been an off a lot of hangup calls going around lately, but we can Google the words, "opt out". That will take you to the results and you can register your phone number. This will stop companies from calling you. You can actually register multiple numbers on that page, and last I knew, you got an email response to confirm your request.

What you may also want to do is start taking over the mail task. All you have to do is pay attention to what time the mail comes to your house and hang around the mailbox so you can collect the mail yourself. This will help stop your mom from falling for mail scams and spending herself broke. If you happen to have a paper shredder, definitely shred all of that junk mail so your mom cannot respond to any of the mail scams or buy anything through the mail. I would try this before having to go for guardianship. Another thing you can try (if she doesn't know anything about computers) is control her account through online banking. This is where a savings account will be handy. That way, you can sweep all her money into the savings account so that she has very little in her checking account, and she can just use her bank card for transactions. Only run that card as credit and not debit. If you must use the new chip reader, you'll still have to punch in your pin number, something I'm not fond of. If you can still slide the card in the slot, you can use that feature on the card reader and run it only as credit.

Another thing you can do is have your mom's bank account set up to where it cannot overdraft. How this works is if the money's not there after this is set up, the transaction won't go through, and the card gets declined until more money is loaded into the checking account attached to that card. This will protect you from going into the negative unless you send or transfer money electronically. You can set up automatic online bill pay for all of her bills, but what I do for myself is have a certain amount of money for all of my bills in a separate account, and all of my extra money goes into another account (so that I don't spend money meant for my regular mandatory bills). Having multiple accounts is what helps me most. I mark the back of one card so I can tell the cards apart, and the one with the marking is the one I use for my other transactions. Bank accounts can be controlled through online banking, all you do is sign up through a banker who can help you come up with an easy to remember username and password. Online banking really has serious perks because you can move money around between accounts after logging on to the bank's website. The bank will tell you the website link, that's the only banking site you should use for security. You can move money between accounts from the comfort of wherever you are when you login. What I would do if I were you is not use the banking website at a public Wi-Fi location, only use your own at home. Online is where you can safely, conveniently, and secretly move money between accounts, and online is how you can control your mom's spending. If she's not computer literate, she'll never catch on because she'll never know (if you don't tell her). If you bank from a mobile device, there's even less chance of her finding out what you're really doing. Things such as tablets and smart phones are your best bet, especially the Apple iPad, which is more secure.

Apple is pretty good with security, and it's very user-friendly since it's easy to use. If you can have a handle on your mom's money before having to resort to guardianship, chances are you might be able to avoid it depending on how it goes. Many times people don't trust others with their money because finances belonging to others can be stolen or misused. Therefore, I don't blame people for being careful with their money. One of our local radio stations recently said that Americans are starting to be more careful with their money, which is good. However, in cases where someone makes bad financial decisions, this is where someone trustworthy must step in and intervene. If no one does, the job won't get done and the problem will continue. The sooner you can stop the problem, the better. Your mom may fight you on this one because she may not understand, and people usually fight what they don't understand or what interrupts their agenda.

yea, Terry, and then it stopped me, maybe good thing, huh...I'm quite concerned about the bank issue, what I'd done was get up to check the bank statement and it doesn't have her name on it but not sure what they exactly means. I was helping my dad, at least in the sense of having my name on his checking account, and also helping husband's aunt and uncle but not in the sense of I'm not on their account. I don't believe they use bill pay, but instead have their payments on automatic, like we have some of ours, since they get paid just once a month, so it's not as big a deal to keep up with, like son/grandson, who had lived with dad and was getting his A&A to take care of him that also came in that way so was easier then to deal with, while now it's harder for all of us than them and my dad wouldn't understand a card at all, even though that's how his A&A was coming in but grandson just took care of it all and there was never an issue of ISF; he just didn't spend that much money; he even got to where he really didn't go to the barber, made grandson do it until and unless he just insisted he go and then I think he just took care of it; like I said they did call me, did just talk to husband's aunt and uncle's bank about their situation and they won't really deal with anything unless it's a big amount, like that $1500, unless you actually send them something in writing; I'm glad they changed the law to make it opt in rather than opt out regarding the NSF fees, even if it can make it a little more inconvenient; that was such a scam. I don't know if his church had the online payment thing; I'd never heard and/or thought of such a thing until our church started doing it, really strange now to see the empty offering plate go by. But like I said aunt did tell the bank about what she was dealing with and they quit letting him have any loans, still not sure about POA but pretty sure he still doesn't have a guardian but there are still other ways of things being done, which is what we're dealing with now but I think that's all over with, like I said, except for now, the credit card debt.

Another book I could write, (after 'Volume I, the Hallucinations')! 'Volume II, the Financial Side'. There are some good suggestions here in this forum, I will only say the scams, the scammers, the charities can come flooding in by entering Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. (This particular little missive from h*ll will expand and expand, until the phone rings 20 times a day with scam artists and there is a foot high stack of mail entering the house. So beware. Because no matter what you do, it will. not. stop. Mailing lists get sold to mailing lists. Mom or Dad will write 50 checks a day in small amounts if you don't watch out, and that will be hundreds of dollars of their much needed money gone. Gone.)

debdaughter, take a breath! Whew, that seemed like one long sentence. It sounds like you are really concerned about this bank issue. You are on the right track to have your name on the account and the ability to write checks but the online banking will help you keep straight on what's being paid and what isn't. It sounds like it's time to have a guardian step in for your dad and start paying all bills and handling all the money. From the wording, I'm not sure you are working on helping the husband's aunt and uncle or your dad or both. Either way, you still need one person to collect all bills and enter them in the online banking to be paid at the appropriate time. I use online banking all the time and when my bills come in (usually at the first of the month) I enter them in to be paid at different dates during the month depending on what money is coming in and what is due each week. You can click on the name of the company you're paying and it will let you know all the payments made during a year or more, & when you made them (in case of getting a double billing) so you won't pay a bill twice. Have a credit card that is called a pre-pay card, where you put money on it at set times and give to your dad to spend for incidentals like barber and make sure the bank will not allow any purchases if the balance gets below a certain amount. They can refuse to allow the purchase so there won't be an NSF on the account and cause a flood of NSF fees. You can set up a payment system that takes care of his church automatically thru the online banking that will send a check whenever you want and tell him that it's all taken care of so he doesn't worry about it. You can also let the bank know what you're dealing with and not to authorize any loans unless you or the person that is his guardian comes into the bank with him. Once someone gets a handle on all his debts, bill pay, loans, etc. it will be much easier for all concerned. good luck.

Put a stop to all her spending unless you approve something. Otherwise she will go deep in debt. You have the power to do that.

This is something been dealing with with hub's aunt and uncle; he's had at least 3 strokes and practically wiped out all their retirement funds, except for just enough left to fund their funerals and that's only because when his wife - or maybe when she stepped in - found out and told the bank about them and they came up with some reason to not let him have the rest, he was doing it to give to their grandson, which/who was the what he really cared about when it came to the money, at that point; he had come to live with them and the income he'd had that his mom had had set up for him dried up so he had no money and granddad couldn't stand that and he'd also taken out loans for him as well, until she also stopped that and they wouldn't let him have any more, so actually not really sure if the money was taken as well or used to pay off the loans or were paid with their income but at least don't think that's being done any more, just credit cards now but the day to day handling of money was always left up to wife but he handled the big stuff, which is why she didn't realize this was happening until almost too late but nobody thought there was a problem because memory wise he was still fine! They do have online banking now so what's happening with their account can be seen and money is being transferred out so it can't be spent, which is leading to some issues with the checks now. Thankfully, they've just qualified for help from the state/county.
When my dad put me on his checking account, to begin with, we didn't change the checks but then his bank got bought out by another one and they issued new checks with my name on them, which, for some reasons, we weren't really wanting, but turned out to be good because they then would call me when anything questionable would come through, which is probably what needs to be done with them, but guess the issue is what's considered questionable - $1500 probably would be, like in the recorder case, where $50 at a time probably wouldn't be, what we're dealing with, like termites rather than big chunks at a time but question - you're supposed to tip the barber? not sure I ever knew that; don't think that's something dad ever did! and he definitely hadn't balanced his checkbook and don't think they do either, but then neither does my husband - both dad and aunt have the bank help them do that, which somehow dad's did get out of whack but somehow either was to his good or at least didn't cause issues when he had it done, just that grandson took him in when he had it done and took the receipt with the balance, which he wasn't supposed to have and the bank definitely called me about that but he was the one staying with dad and had been filling out his checks as well, including the one for his church and letting him sign it, at least as long as he was bringing it up, not sure he was sending them in once he quit going.

Inability to manage finances is an early symptom of dementia and is, sadly, one that often is not notices until it's too late. After a LONG struggle, I took over my father's accounts and found that he had nothing left and lots of debt. We still don't know exactly where the money went.

My advice – figure out what makes your mom 'comfortable' about her money and set up a solution around that. It took a lot of painful trial and error (and even more money squandered) before I took a look at what my dad really cared about when it came to money.

If your mom feels unsettled if she doesn't have some money in her wallet, then make sure she always does (and protect the rest from her access). If she likes to charge, get her a special debit card (I used True Link) that lets you can load up with an allowance and can block certain merchants (like shopping networks or shady 'charities').

Your mom just wants to feel like things are not out of control even though her ability to control them is gone. Be sensitive to what makes her feel OK.

Don't wait!

We let Dad think he is in control of his finances. We do fill out his check for church and let him sign it. Even with ALZ and at 91 he is a wiz with numbers so we let him balance his check book. He does not believe in using credit cards in the grocery store but we make sure to slip money into his wallet when he goes. We make sure he gives an appropriate tip at the barber( and then we supplement!) . All these little things add up to Dad still feeling like he is part of his daily life. We issued a new checkbook with my older brothers name on it, as he is then POA. We have informed any broker , etc that he might think he is going to call that they should not disagree with him....just listen, agree and call the POA. I think your statement of "outrageous" financial statements is curious....what type of purchases? Better make sure that she cannot answer the phone and get caught up in some scam. I have started to tell the phone callers that the person asked for has passed away. Also watch that solicitation mail that scares all the seniors. Throw it away!

As Babalou said, it's not all about memory.There are many types of dementia and many stages in each.

ADcaregivers gave some excellent tips. Sometimes a small amount of money in a limited account can help control spending for awhile. Eventually, handling money at all becomes impossible and caregivers need to protect all accounts. I gave my dad outdated credit cards for his wallet just so he felt he had them. That was a temporary solution but most are.

I want to address MotherDuck about her feelings. Many people hate what they consider "lying" to their parents. This isn't lying. This is about compassion for someone with a broken brain. The article below may help you accept this need:
https://www.agingcare.com/articles/validation-therapy-for-dementia-166707.htm

Great answers and comments from everyone about a common, frustrating problem.
Take care of yourselves,
Carol

Dementia is often not just about memory, it's about the ability to reason and see the consequences of one's actions. this skill is often termed "executive functioning". My mom, who has vascular dementia from a stroke, routinely scores very high on Mini-mental exams, which examine memory and things like mental math. But she can't reason her way out of a paper bag, thinks her NH keeps getting sold (anytime she sees someone in a suit) and that there are floods in the basement (the facility doesn't HAVE a basement).

Get your dad to a qualified neurologist who specializes in dementia. My mom was worked up by a team at a rehab hospital; there was a nurse, neurologist and neuropsychologist, each of who did their own testing and came up with a joint diagnosis.

Thank you for that ADCAREGIVERS. Dad has always been rubbish with money & mum used to have control but we lost her he's now living with us. He had a memory test & scored 90%! However, it is getting worse now so maybe he needs another. Will speak with his doctor.

This is an ongoing problem for us. Dad tried to spend £1500 on a recorder recently. Fortunately the shop were very understanding, cancelled the order & refunded his money. We then had to talk with him & explain that they couldn't get the instrument he wanted. My parents brought us up knowing right from wrong. We hate to lie but equally don't want dad to run out of money & into debt! This is do distressing & we don't know how to handle it!

If unwise financial decisions are a major departure from her usual patterns regarding money, then it is often a sign of impaired executive decisionmaking or the ability to make decisions about the future or plan ahead.
Unwise decisions are often the first sign of memory loss. Unwise financial decisions are extremely common in those with memory loss. In fact, unpaid bills and spending money unwisely is the first place that memory loss shows up.
Since you have the POA, you should begin to take control of her financial assets, especially the liquid ones, such as checking, savings, money markets or anything that can be turned into cash easily. You should close her credit card accounts with the exception of one with a low balance and low interest rate.
Another step is online billing for all her accounts. Then you can see when problems occur. This is particularly important for a debit card account. If possible set up a separate account for her debit card and fund it with a small amount. Then she won't be able to charge large amounts.
You may think that my suggestions are radical. But bad financial decisionmaking is very common. I have witnessed it in every client in my dementia care business. It is one of the most common sign of Alzheimer's disease.
You should request a memory test from her doctor. You need to know what is causing her unwise spending.
Given the cost of care for persons with severe memory loss, you need to gain control of her financial assets ASAP. The cost of care will go up, even if she lives with you.
Good luck and keep us posted.

I see from your profile that your Mom's medical issues are related to heart/stroke.

Curious what are the outrageous financial decisions that she is making? Does your Mom have any memory issues?