Does dad have a condition- wastes hundreds of pounds on things he will never use

Sapindus

I have known hoarders who behaved like this over the food especially.  They just can't bear to see waste, maybe because they have gone short in the past.  And it could become a health issue for your dad.  The other things aren't so worrying.  If it gives him pleasure and he can afford them, why not.  But you could gently start taking things off the other end of the conveyor belt, as it were - ask if you can have one of the coffee machines, suggest he passes the books on to a charity shop when he's read them "to make room for more", etc.

There is help available online for how to deal with hoarding. 

BungalowBel

I help out an elderly lady.  

She no longer cooks and I buy her sandwiches which is what she mainly eats.

Nevertheless, she still orders a large amount of items from a (very expensive) frozen food outlet in Scotland (we live in the Midlands).  Then she finds there is no room in her freezer so she chucks out most of the stuff she bought last time, or gives it to me.  

Things in her fridge go out of date or go off.  However, she still buys more.  Either myself or her niece do her shopping.

I have no idea why she does this.  The only thing I thought was that she might not want to accept that she is no longer the person she used to be, who cooked herself good meals with expensive ingredients.

She is 87 and on the whole quite 'with it'.