Elderly shopaholic found dead under pile of clothes
Filed under: Extracurriculars, Retire, Shopping, Health, Insurance - Life Insurance, Insurance - Health Insurance
How should you spend your retirement money? For years, senior citizens have been overspending and accumulating more debt, according to a recent study by Demos, a non-partisan public policy group. Such overspending can lead to financial death, or as one unusual story shows, lead to complications with the other kind. The BBC News reports that, in January, Joan Cunnane died at age 77 of natural causes at her home in England. She had bronchial pneumonia and cancer and lived alone in unusual conditions.
Friends say that Cunnane was a compulsive shopper for years. After five search attempts, her body was finally found buried under clothing and other purchased items.
Cunnane started shopping to avoid neighborhood kids who once meddled around her home. She feared these loitering youth and spent the day shopping, leaving her home in the morning to come back at night, as though working a full-time job. She told friends that shopping made her feel good.
But years of accumulation filled her small bungalow to the rafters, and after a while, she refused to let friends in at all.
After the 2008 Christmas holiday, friends and neighbors no longer saw Cunnane go about her shopping sprees. Her disappearance caused one friend to worry. He visited her home and noticed the door left slightly opened. To his surprise, Cunnane's bungalow was stacked from floor to ceiling with purchases. He was unable to locate Cunnane and got no response. On Jan. 6, neighbors called the police, who made an unsuccessful search due to the crowd of items. They returned the next day with a truck and cleared out the premises, finally locating Miss Cunnane's dead body.
This is a very sad story with an important message: the elderly need better options. Many businesses target the elderly because they have the time and money, thus making them the ultimate consumer, much like teens. Community centers should be touted as alternatives for lonely seniors and provide financial planners to help them resist over-spending, especially when it comes to filling emotional voids.
My great grandmother is retired and now she visits the casino once a week with her friends. I think there can be better ways to use your money during retirement. I'll leave this open for discussion. Leave a comment.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
7-29-2009 @ 8:11PM
Laurie said...
This poor soul had a sickness in the head besides in her body. As for me, I will have to work until I drop, Some of us cannot retire.. ever! Lucky, those with good luck AND business acumen that help them to be able to retire and enjoy it., Plenty can screw it up like a long illness of a spouse that saps away savings and chance to save, or illness so that retirement is just disabled time, either caring for a sick spouse or being disabled oneself. Guess I will never understand those who gamble. I have better uses for my money.
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7-30-2009 @ 11:54AM
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7-30-2009 @ 12:31PM
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7-29-2009 @ 8:27PM
donahmar5 said...
I have a friend that is a shopaholic...she has no real idea of what she has packed & stacked away. It is indeed a problem, a mental problem, a compulsion.
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7-29-2009 @ 8:56PM
T said...
This is a very sad story as that poor woman had to face all of her life threatening conditons all by herself. No one even knew where she was.... Thats sooo sad. I think that this woman would have had more of a chance in her life if she would have had some type of intervention somewhere down the road with her health problems as well as her psyche problems which is demonstrated by her hoarding. This is a disorder very much like OCD. Wonder what the underlying cause of stress was that made her save everything. The shopping to get away from the neighborhood kids was an abnormal way to deal with her not feeling comfortable. I wonder if she could have helped if someone had been looking out for her. So sad she had to go all by her lonesome self. This should not be acceptablel in any society. No one deserves to be alienated and left to die alone. What a pity. I hope she is at peace and among the free spirits.
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7-29-2009 @ 10:06PM
Nancy said...
T, you sound like a very kind person.
7-29-2009 @ 10:05PM
Debra said...
My 73 year old mother goes to the casino at least 4 times a month...the day her check comes in...can't convince her that she is wasting her money...her friends go just as often and no one ever wins, but that doesn't seem to stop them.
Try to remind her of things she did before the casinos came to every town...but she says she can't afford them! Ironic, but true. With what she has lost, she could have gone on a cruise every quarter of the year...
Hope the casinos all fold due to the recession!!!! They are ruining old peoples lives.
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7-29-2009 @ 11:06PM
T said...
I would be happy to know that my mother was having fun with her friends and doing something that she enjoyed with her time and money. You should be happy that she is in good enough health to be able to do what she wants. Life is short and the older you get the more you realize this. Why do you care if she wins or loses? Maybe winning isnt everything to her. Maybe her idea of being a winner isnt the same as yours. The fact that she keeps active, enjoys herself, has a social life should be the things that you embrace. She is a grown woman she can do what she wants you dont have to agree with it but its not your place to decide for her and your opinion is just that, your opinion. Doesnt make it right!! God bless her, I consider her a winner!!
7-30-2009 @ 4:18PM
Kelly said...
It is not the Casino's fault, or the stores fault that the elderly come out in droves to spend their own money. If they are deemed well enough to live on their own, and are able to make their own choices then so be it. You can't blame the establishment for your mother's personal choices no matter how much you want to, nor can anyone else.
7-30-2009 @ 12:29PM
Frank said...
It is very sad that the elderly waste their money for a "chance" to win big at the casinos. It cost me $35.00 every time I go see my mother because she wants to eat lunch at the casino and wants me to play alongside her. I usually spend $20.00 on slots just to make her happy, but it is getting ridiculous when I can't just visit with her without her wanting me to go to the casino with her.
7-30-2009 @ 1:07PM
Mary said...
I think all gambling should be illegal. So many people who are in need buy lottery tickets with the hope that they will win, but never do. My mother would never have gambled in any way and neither do I. Gambling is wrong, we are not supposed to waste our money paying to try to win something.
7-30-2009 @ 1:27PM
Gammy22 said...
Puleez! As a senior, I feel we worked HARD for what we have and should be able to do whatever with it. My kids encourage me to spend everything (I don't) and enjoy my time left. Your grandma is having fun and you should be applauding her for not lonely and sitting in front of the tv everyday. Are you afraid she is cutting into your inheritance?
7-30-2009 @ 9:25PM
rose young -stewart said...
no way are any casinos going to go outta business do you think they are in business to give money away? If you do then you are a candidate for going to them
7-30-2009 @ 10:04AM
Bob Johnson III said...
Reminds me of the little squirrel in the Ice Age Movies.
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7-29-2009 @ 10:36PM
Linda Donahue said...
My mother was a shopaholic. She died @ a very young age of only 52 from an Angina Heart Attack. When she died we had no idea how bad the situation was, as she had 5 closets full of clothes. 1/2 of these clothes still had the tags on them. It was only in her last month that she revealed to me how lonely she felt all the time, despite her having 2 daughters, myself and my sister. It's just too bad that she couldn't talk to us, despite my sister being only 9, I was 26 and married with my own daughter.
It was later that I realized that she had been trying to tell me something when she had mentioned that she always felt lonely. She was married to a very dedicated husband as well, however, I always knew that she really couldn't talk to him about her feelings, and it was only a month before she died that she revealed to me her true feelings.
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7-31-2009 @ 4:32PM
Jane in Milwaukee said...
Linda!
That is so sad! Your mom suffered from an all-too-common compulsion. Acquiring stuff to mask or delay feeling anxiety. For the shopaholic it's all about trying to feel good about herself, deserving, "worth it." It's disheartening to know that despite having a little girl, a grown daughter, grandchild and loving husband, she still felt such loneliness. Wow, do you think having your sis so late in life was a factor in her emotional state? (I assume she's your birth sister.)
Best wishes.
7-29-2009 @ 10:40PM
marilynn fiore said...
what the heck do you care what your great grandmother does with her money? She probably worked a long time like I did after my husband died at an early age. I figure it is nobody's business how I spend the money I worked so hard for. I help out my kids and grandkids and enjoy buying new things once in awhile. I do not overspend because I have struggled all my life, but I don't buy my clothes at the Salvation Army either. You will change your tune when you reach your 70's and know life doesn't last forever.
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7-30-2009 @ 11:20AM
a feo said...
I totally agree. What does she mean that her great grandmother should use her money in better ways? Maybe, she means not use it at all and leave it to her or others. If that grandmother worked hard for her money, then she should use it for whatever or however she wants.You're right, It's nobody's business!
7-30-2009 @ 1:08PM
susan said...
I agree with you guys..If her grandmother gets a day out with her friends, has lunch and losses a couple of bucks at a casino...big deal!!
By thankful that she can afford to do it and that she gets enjoyment out of it..I bet there are plenty of things that this writer spends money on that her grandmother would think are waste. It's her money and let her enjoy, she worked hard her whole life for it...
7-30-2009 @ 12:11AM
Gaia said...
Addiction takes a lot of forms -- shopping, working, drinking, smoking, watching television, obsessively using a computer, game playing -- and of course drugs and narcotics -- turns out any of these done to excess can become addictions that can give us the "dopamine high" that will allow us to avoid owning and dealing with our emotional issues -- most people have them to some extent -- what about you?
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