Loved one insists they should have more money. Is this part of Alzheimer's or is it something else? Any ideas on reassuring her?

For my mother, who has moderate dementia, it was useless to try and calm her down. It wasn’t until she handed over all responsibilities for her checkbook and bills, did the CONSTANT worry go away. Then, it just switched to being obsessed with something else! ;-)

It is part of Alzheimer's, or at least of loss of cognition generally. It's related to an all-pervading sense of confusion and uncertainty that makes the person feel insecure and uneasy, and money - being one of life's headline subjects for all of us - often becomes a focus of the feeling.

I well remember finding my exceptionally capable, independent and financially literate aunt distraught during one routine phone call, having convinced herself that she had made a dreadful miscalculation about her lifetime annuity and would be homeless by the end of the month. Knowing next to nothing about her finances myself, I referred her to her lawyer DIL and my banker sister, and between the two of them they managed to spot the key point she'd overlooked and talk her off the ledge; but it did take time and all their expertise.

I'm guessing that you don't have power of attorney or presumably you'd be using it already. That makes it difficult, but paying the bills yourself is not the answer. Not only can you not afford it but also it is ethically wrong. Your mother is not an idiot, nor a pauper, nor a charity case and you shouldn't treat her as such.

It is useless to try to calm her down, because even though you manage it on the odd occasion the fear is going to recur - possibly building up to several times an hour. What you need to do is catch her on a good day and work out a system for you to receive all her bills and pay them from her account. How far developed is her Alzheimer's Disease? If she's not too far down the road it might still be possible to create a POA.

I would get all her bills you can on autopay. I take care of everything from Wisconsin.. my mom is in Tucson,...I have it in her credit card which gets autopayed thru her checking. That’s a start to solve that problem. You may not be able to solve her money fears,I suggest , to continue showing her the statements keep them in a folder and show them to her. If she frets more reassurance and change of subject.
you could make a copy of statements for yourself and keep a file in her room with originals so she can resource them , it might give her a feeling of control...

I think that it is part of Alzheimer's but, it is also something that I have seen all older people do. They don't have a current concept of how far a dollar goes. So between the muddled mind of dementia and the lack of reality of how much things cost it is a perfect storm.

You need to stop paying her bills though. Set everything up to pay online, not auto pay, my personal opinion if there is a problem you play heck getting your money back. Set everything up online so you have access to all of her bills and opt for paperless billing. But use her money and her account for her bills. Nothing is going to change her reality about the missing money, so don't damage your own financial situation by personally paying. Especially if she ever needs Medicaid, because that money will never be repaid to you.

Sometimes we just have to do what we need to and then repeat that we know to our loved ones. Especially with the out of control inflation we are seeing right now a dollar doesn't stretch anymore.

Online banking is a godsend!! I can't even remember the days of sitting down to write out checks for bills--just remember the stress!! Now you can set up autopay on almost everything, and the rest can be dealt with anywhere, anytime. I'm never late on a bill--something I can't say never happened with a mailed check!

After I do my bill pay, I print the transactions out and file them in a binder. EVERYTHING that gets paid, autopay or me doing it gets printed and saved.

If your mom can SEE in black & white that bills have been paid (keep a copy of everything in a binder for her to see) would that maybe quell some of her anxiety? Does online banking make sense to her?

My mom still writes about 5 checks a month for bills. Then she has cash for things like groceries, haircuts, eating out. She doesn't trust online banking, but that's OK. She's still able to balance that checkbook.

First of all, get a Power of Attorney. Then arrange for ALL BILLS to be sent to you, not to her ever again. You pay all the bills and do the paperwork USING HER MONEY - never use your own. That is all you can do. Do not let her handle the bills and the money and don't you pay it out of your money. You must get tough and get a POA and take over. She is controlling you - unacceptable.

Does she have dementia? If so, yes this is very normal. There is a severe feeling of loss of control and fear of "what could happen". And often enough people become obsessed with financial matters.
Clearly she cannot handle her financial matters now. The POA should take this over and pay her bills for her from her own accounts. You should never pay out of your own unless keeping careful receipts, diaries, records, notes to be compensated when able.
It may or may not be useless to calm her down. When I acted as POA and Trustee of Trust for my bro I had bills mailed to me and paid them from his account as Trustee or POA. He had a small account of his own to do with as he pleased. This was his REQUEST to me when he was diagnosed. It prevented a world of confusion. I sent him a monthly accounting of all assets into his account, of his assets total, and of all bills paid that month. He kept them in a notebook and would take it out and look at it; it was enormously relief to him to have at his fingertips.

Best thing to do is have all her bills paid by Auto coming directly out of her Bank Account and they will all be paid and no one has to worry about them being paid or late charges.

It seems she has anxiety and possibly dementia. Only an evaluation by a doctor can diagnose these problems. Please talk to her doctor who may recommend an evaluation in his/her office or may make a referral to a geriatric psychiatrist. The doctor can prescribe medications that can help with early dementia and anxiety. Now would be a good time to streamline her finances: automatic bill payments, checking online bank statements for unusual activity...

If she does not have powers of attorney for medical and financial, you need to have her visit a lawyer and get those legal documents prepared NOW. With POAs you can help manage her financial and medical affairs when she is diagnosed as "mentally incompetent." Unfortunately, it appears she is soon going to be unable to handle her finances at all.

When my father was in AL I would leave him around $50-70 in cash for things that might come up. He told me he would prefer I kept the money at my house but I couldn't find it. He tells me he just counted it a few days ago and it was over $15000. He insisted he had that kind of money in his room and no matter what I said he refused to believe me. After 20 minutes of arguing I just started looking for his lost money. That seemed to appease him.