Money Money Money

So we're far past the point where my grandmother can handle money. She squirrels things away, forgets where they are, and then passive aggressively accuses everyone in the house of stealing from her. It makes things awkward to say the least. Which made tonight fun.

To set things up, about a year and half ago, my grandmother used to carry everything including the kitchen sink in her purse. Seriously. Every scrap of post it note, prescription descriptions she no longer took, photos of babies that no one in my house recognizes. It was ridiculous. And when she went to the senior center, she would feel the need to go thru EVERYTHING in the purse, often looking for things she forgot. The worse part was, she had no method of keeping track of her money. Many years ago, someone at the bank decided to give her about 100 of those envelopes they sometimes put money in. In my house, you can find these envelopes all over her room containing anything from spare change to rubberbands to paperclips. She would also keep money in these envelopes. $6 dollars there. $140 here. $24 somewhere else. It was ridiculous. Added to that, whenever she received money from her children, she would often keep them in the christmas/mother's day/birthday card she received them in. And then hide the envelope in one of her 17 drawers.

As you can guess, inevitably, she would remember having some amount of money and putting it in plain site and then is disappeared somewhere. Or she would go through her drawers searching for the ONE envelope she remembered having the money. Did you hear me say 17 drawers. Do you know how much other distracting crap an old lady with Alzheimer's will find while searching 17 drawers? Usually at 1am. So clearly we had to make a plan.

Step One, i got her a wallet. It was important that it was a wallet she would like, because heaven forbid it was too bright, too boring or too fancy. (I really shouldn't complain, I'm ridiculously picky about wallets, and yay I just bought a new one in Vegas, its shiny!)

Step Two- Clear out her purse while she napped. I've learned that I simply am not a big enough person to handle her standing over me while I try to uncomplicate her life. At the end of the day, it's better for the both of us.

Step Three- Purchase and fill up not one but TWO personal address books. (Most of the post its contained phone numbers). One large one with nice big clear print (provided by her health aide as my writing mirrors that of a chicken) and a small notepad one, with the names organised by who she is most likely to contact to keep in her purse at all times.

Step Four- Developed later on. I realized that my grandmother was convinced that she would be robbed if she kept more than $80 dollars on her (are there crime sprees going on at the senior day care centers these days?), she started putting her money in a card in an envelope in a drawer thing again. Leading once again to $100 she would remember putting up which "SOMEONE" most have picked up and moved off with since its not in the place she is 100% sure she put it. So I keep it now, in one of my (very nice) personal wallets. And then I just replenish as necessary. She at times seems bothered with me keeping the money for her but then she constantly forgets that she has it. Or maybe I'm robbing her blind and she's watching me. Who knows? Depends on the day, the moment, the mood.

All this leading to today. She remembers having $40 bucks in her wallet and $20 on her dresser. Mind you, i went out of town for two days this week, but before that A. I took $20 out of her wallet for her to do laundry, telling her she had $20 left. B. My mother instead paid for the laundry (which is a whole other story) C. When i saw she hadn't put the $20 back in her wallet, I placed it in her wallet in front of her.

Of course when i come back, a magical $20 has disappeared. The money she had the on dresser (yup the $20 i placed in her wallet in front of her ) has gone missing. She doesn't know "where it could have gone off to". And the $40 dollar in her wallet was also missing. After trying to explain for 5 minutes, I gave up. I took $20 bucks out the pretty wallet secret stash and gave it to her to place in her wallet.

Interestingly enough there were no questions about where the money came from. In fact, its likely she thinks I just fessed up to having stole it. My mom would have continued to argue forever, but I figure anything that can be resolved in under 10 minutes is a win. I figure I gotta appreciate the small battle victories as I'm most certainly destined to lose the war.