Mom is writing checks to sketchy organizations when she barely has enough money to live on. Any suggestions?

I am a strong proponent of people paying their way. Mum should be paying room and board and her cell phone bill. You should not be subsidizing her basic living expenses while she has an income. If you are paying her way, you are in effect making all these donations.

How does Mum get the cheques into the mail? Does she take it to the mail box? If no, then you could intercept the mail on its way out the door. I know some may criticize me for this suggestion, but it may be a solution.

The other option is to intercept the mail when it comes in. Getting a PO Box is one way of doing that.

Mum had a friend who was suck in this donation loop and when Mum became POA, she sat down with her friend and discussed which charities were important to her and made one annual donation on her behalf. Then Mum tossed all the incoming requests.

Kblanchat74,
Are you her POA or legal guardian? If not, you should try to make that happen.
Are you on her checking account?
Again, if not, you need to make it happen.
The PO box may be a good idea.
You can weed out her mail.
I understand it's hard, but if there is anyway to find her checks, put them away for safe keeping.
Perhaps give her the checks for her Church and Alzheimer's foundation.
With Alzheimer's/ Dementia, she literally is not in her right mind. You have to be her "right mind "!
She's blessed to have you looking out for her!
Hang in there!
God bless!!

My mother did that until my sister gained full authority via the POA and took away her checkbook and all forms of ID. She just snuck Mom's purse out one day and we never addressed it with Mom ever again. But to this day even though Mom is dead and gone I still get letters from the environmental organizations she sent check after check to.. sometimes three times a month to the same one. Do yourselves a favor. Get the POA and do not wait for a scam thief to take everything she owns.

I can’t believe the huge amount of mail that older people receive and the stories they tell will break your heart. . It’s no wonder that we fall prey to scammers. I believe making donations to charities she holds dear helps my mil feel like she has a small amount of control over a life with her increasing dementia. We sat down with her and got a POA and chose certain donations to be made. We write the checks. She seems to be at peace with that setup. I like the idea of opening the gifts and giving those to her. Makes the day a little brighter to receive a gift, doesn’t it?

I hope you have POA. If she is in early stage of Dementia you may still be able to have her assign you. The other option would be guardianship which is expensive.

Get the mail before she does. If you have to set up a PO box for just her, do it. Then u pick up the mail. If a stamped-self addressed envelope is included, put all paperwork back in the envelope circling where Moms address is and in big letters..."take me off your mailing and phone lists". If they don't send an envelope, email. Put the address in exactly hoe they have it. Tell them Mom has Dementia and is on a very limited budget. She cannot afford to send u money.

I cut back on a lot of Moms mail this way.

When Mom came to live with me I did an address change. It used to be, they would not forward junk mail. Well some of these junk mail places got smart and started using first class mail stamps. Then I thought, oh good, only the companies I made address changes to will be sending mail. The junk mail will be going to old address and after 18 months the PO will not forward. WRONG! Somehow the charities were able to get the new address and I started getting mail. Complained to the PO, not their fault, utilities fault. I guess its just new technology but those charities were quick to change Moms address. Not that quick when you ask to be taken off their mailing list. One charity said because they were a charity, they didn't have to remove Mom. I told them they were wrong. If I request to be removed, they must do it.

I still get mail occasionally. If junk I throw out. If sent first class, I write deceased on it. Maybe thats what u should do, send back "deceased". PO only sends back first class mail. Junk mail gets thrown away.

Hi all! Thanks so much for your responses! It makes me feel so much better. Couple of answers - in February we got rid of my mom’s car due to safety concerns. I assume she got her stockpile of stamps prior to that time. She also must have checks hidden in her room because I keep taking them and she appears with another checkbook :) She has expenses aside from household (long term care insurance, life insurance, Medicare supplemental plan, debts) that she pays from her social security. And now I have an aid who comes a couple of times a week to drive her places for her sanity. That also comes out of her Savings above and beyond her SS. She is not in a good financial situation to pay much more. Oftentimes she writes checks and they come out of her savings because the account doesn’t cover it. I manager her finances (as much as I can but she doesn’t help!!). I should have explained the big picture! I think I will try a P.O. Box, and use my POA to cancel any checks on her account. Thank you thank you!!

First step is to stop buying her food and paying her phone bill. If she can afford to "donate" money she can afford her bills.

I used to work for a large non-profit (a legit one) and it was my job to communicate with donors. Charities always use a CRM software that manages donor information. In that software, it's possible to mark donors as No Mail, No Calls, etc. plus make notes about the donor. We would occasionally get calls from folks in your situation dealing with an elderly person. It was our policy to ALWAYS refund the donations and make an alert in the software for future. Call the organizations so they at least mark her in the software. Have the mail go to a PO Box.

First of all.... Do you realize that you are enabling her check writing behavior? Do you have poa? If not, get it...Then,
get her address changed to either your p.o.box which would be free to her or her own p.o.box which you have the only key.
Next....go through your mom's room ( perhaps on one of those days she is out ( or not) and find all the checks. You have every right to be in that room because it's your house and sounds like dementia going on so you need to take charge!
Put the found checks either in a safety deposit box or better yet, destroy them and get a debit card that only you have a pin# to.
Now...Make sure she has cash only on those days she's out having fun.
You need to charge her for rent
( which includes property taxes, homeowners insurance), food, her1/2 of the utilities etc. She should be paying her way... not out there like a child throwing her money away on candy.
If she demands a debit card, the bank will give her one but it will not be set up to work. Then the bank needs to be instructed and shown your poa not to let her have withdrawals. They can simply tell her she doesn't have access to her account.
We done this with my mom. It took a month of her complaining but stand your ground and tell her that she needs to pay the bills. If there's $ left over she can pay the scam artists out of her fun $$, but when she's out of fun$ there will be no more till the following month..meanwhile you could throw her a legit charitable donation request from the mail to contribute to...or NOT!!
Good luck, stand your ground and be strong!