recognition

I've just returned from a two week stay with Mum. As anticipated, it was somewhat stressful for both of us, as Mum seemed to hit a new painful low every day. It became evident that she cannot do even simple maths ( of the 3-2=1 variety) or recognise important mail. This might explain why she'd kept covering letters as if they were important and mislaid her car insurance documents and MOT... Anyway, I've restructured her accounts in such a way that there is a "managing account" into which both her pensions are paid and from which all her Direct Debits go out. The remainder is paid by standing order into a new "spending account", which will be the only one that she deals with from now on. I've worked out that she really shouldn't be spending more than £1,160 a month. It may be a struggle for her at first, since she's habitually been spending closer to £3,000 (£300 on food and the rest on catalogue clothes, herbal miracle cures and charities). She's leaning quite heavily on me at the moment, as I think she's finally accepting that she needs some help.