[limey]

It's the dementia. My mum was the same. She could have made her house comfortable, she could have taken taxis to go shopping once a week, and socialising too, but she though she had to hoard every penny. It's the dementia.
That being said, I also think that dementia strips away all the social veneers we have learnt to apply in order to get along, and does reduce a person to their core personality.
My mum was very anxious about money, distrustful of men and pretty scared of a lot of things really, but put on a stupendous act of being confident and capable for all of her adult life, which crumbled with the dementia but I just didn't see it because she'd been such a strong role model all my life.
My dad was shallow and selfish - which we kind of knew all along, anyway.