Parents hoarding money

Yes it is. Things were tight for us when child rearing. It wasn’t until DC had flown the next that our financial situation improved. With retirement poking its head over the horizon, attitudes towards finances started to change. Once the mortgage was paid off, we were able to save more and spend more before knuckling down further with retirement in mind.

£250k which may seem a lot of money, is not a great deal if paying for care is needed. It’s not as simple a thinking about care/nursing homes. There are other costs associated with health and getting older, be it taxis to medial appointments, some private care such as chiropody, physio, carers coming into the home etc etc. Then there are additional costs around the home as you are no longer able to get on and decorate, do DIY, clean etc etc. that will obviously be very individual. I am not sure that anyone who had not retired, can fully get to grips with how it feels having a fixed income for the rest of your life and not knowing what your expenses will be.

I don’t want to make my comments political, but the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance last year, created fear for a lot of pensioners last year. Extra money had to be found out of a tight budget with some having to eat or heat. Whilst OPs DF is able to save more a month than most pensioners receive, there is still a certain mindset. Throw in the current state of the county and the increasing cost of living. When you are of working age, you can look to increase income, but very few can do that when retired. There is a fear that you will run out of money.

My parents were savers rather than hoarders. It used to frustrate me that they rarely treated themselves. They were always very generous to their children and grandchildren.

It meant more to them that they were leaving their wealth to us. I do appreciate that very much, but it was their money, I wish they’d spent more of it. They also made no use of ISAs or other ways to maximise interest. They had hundreds of thousands in regular bank account earning no interest.

The idea of having to pay for their care was anathema to them. Thankfully, they never did.

We never had any savings at all until 50-ish, then we paid off the mortgage, we now save 3k a month as the kids are grown and gone and the mortgage paid off and we both started pensions at 19 and 20. We also worked far more hours than 75 a week when we were young and were a four person household, DH was originally a HGV driver working abroad and I worked FT in an office.

Keep doing as you're doing and it will get easier, but for now I think your envy is unfair. At almost 60 we are now very comfortable, but for the first 5 decades of our lives we were most definitely not.

I was referring to cars homes which is 2.5% of people under85 and 10% after. So it's a small percentage.

Many people pay for gardeners window cleaners etc before they get old anyway

Same. I’m very worried about my old age, the thought of spending all the money and assets we have built up to pass to our children to help them in life on care home fees so I can sit there existing just waiting to die is awful.
Neither dh or I had any help or inheritance from our parents and we struggles hugely but have done well and we want it to go to the dc and also
plan to help them as much as possible whilst we can when they need it.
After seeing my grandmother with dementia I’d rather check myself out of life than live like that spending all the money that the children could use to make their life better

My husband is in a care home. It’s a charity and 25% of residents must be funded by the local authority. It’s a lovely place and the majority of the staff have been there for years. Not all care homes are awful and it’s not fair to expect people to be full time carers. I did it for 20 years - enough is enough!

boomers think the millennium are lazy and money wasters compared to them at the same age. They believe millennials value instant gratification over investment and savings.

I have to say i think there's an element of this & being disappointed in their DCs careers or lack thereof. My parents generation generally improved upon their upbringing, they accessed better education and in many cases moved from working class to middle, their parents were proud of them as the first to attend university or own a home. They didn't "follow their dreams", they looked for jobs that paid well. They lived extremely carefully to save money,

Then our generation have come along and we must seem entitled. We only want to do jobs that are exciting/fulfilling/glamorous, we expect to have fun now and save money later, there's absolutely zero delayed gratification. We borrow endlessly for lifestyle choices like the latest tech gadgets, branded cars, trendy home decor and holidays.

On here you often find stories of grandparents "hoarding" money and not giving it to their DC but there's often an undercurrent that the grandparents don't value what the DC would want to piss it away on

300k in ISAs will give you £1k tax free income at 4% - this maybe part of his income

Whilst the capital amount of 250k might sound a lot when you are partway through life it’s not huge in terms of an income vehicle in retirement (my point of reference for this is the early retirement group I am on)

Most homes are privately run and roughly half of them have a combination of self-funders and residents who’re funded by the state.

See, older people now in their 60s/70s actually lived very frugal lives and sometimes find it difficult to spend money. They were also not given anything financially from their parents/grandparents so this is something they're not used to. Care costs are horrendous and if he ever needs care his money will help to pay for better options than being in a council run home.

Some people are just so grabby and entitled, it's awful.

To the posters saying 'it's his money he can spend it how he chooses etc'. He may have amassed that wealth from being completely stingy when OP was growing up. If a 30 something guy refused to take his yound DC on holiday I doubt people would say 'it's his money he can spend it how he chooses'.

Growing up I had 1 foreign holiday and 1 trip to London in 18 years. We never went on day trips anywhere and never celebrated any events barring Christmas and birthdays. Now retired my parents enjoy lavish expensive holidays. However, they treat their DC frequently and help with school runs etc which is priceless. The lack of holidays doesn't bother me now as they are generous to DC and have built wonderful relationships with them through quality time more than gifts.

Sounds like OP father is an absolute scrooge. Imagine being retired for your entire DC lives but barely helping out or making an effort to build a relationship.

I don't know what kind of life your father leads but both my parents and those of ExDp were born into poverty, careful with money and saved (fear is a great motivator) but really saved money in later retirement as they did nothing. Literally nothing. No holidays (difficult, unwell) no expensive hobbies, little socialising. In both cases all the money gone in care fees. Mine burned through over £350 000 at least, probably more.
Ignore your dad - or maybe ask him if he can help your kids with a first car or Uni fees?

£250,000 is probably considerably less than 5 years in a care home. I can’t see that he can do anything else than put it away safely for his old age.

Honestly, I lost my mum this year and she had hundreds of thousands in the bank. I just wish she’d spent it all and done all the things she dreamt of rather than having a terminal diagnosis and being dead two weeks later. She thought she had time and she didn’t. So I do think you’re unreasonable to want the money spent on you , rather than encouraging him to spend it and have joy from all the hard work it took to get him there.

They do. But years ago buying a house was much more affordable than it is now. You could even do it on one average income, in some areas. There were no student loans and there was no legitimate threat to our working lives like AI is (to many people).

My parents have over a million, they live off my dads pension which isnt much until my mums kicks in. (Both early retirement) both are due large inheritances off their own parents. Its their money, they can do what they want. Don’t begrudge them for it all. However when I was a kid they took me & siblings on very expensive hoildays every year so maybe thats why im not grumbling.

It’s hard to start spending freely if you’ve not had much money in your younger days. We have a reasonable amount through sensible decisions, hard work and luck. We have helped the children and gc, but I have to admit I do worry about care costs now I’m in my 70s. Our money won’t last long as people point out and I too would like the choice of where I end up and for my children to inherit something.

Threads on here are full of it, shock horror a downstairs bathroom, shock horror, no ensuite, shock horror a dated and 'tired' kitchen, shock horror the kids sharing rooms until they're teens, shock horror a 'miniscule box room'

This is what I had growing up, its normal, nothing wrong with it but people are so expectant and entitled they literally cant see how much others didnt have.

It was the year of £20k per month round the clock psychiatric care that really drained the savings, and the fact that he’s now not just paying for his care home - he’s still paying for his old house, the costs and to make sure his wife is fed and clothed out of his pension as she doesn’t have any income of her own.

And his pension is indexed linked so it wasn’t always £100k.

But again - we are all so grateful that he was able to save that so that when he was in a mental health crisis we had all of the options available to him, because the secure NHS ward he was sectioned onto was not a pleasant place.

Exactly. Every generation has its problems.

People now expect to live in their 20s-40s as comfortably as those in their 50s-60s despite the latter putting in decades of additional work & savings. It’s ridiculous entitlement.

When did it become acceptable to boast about savings unprompted?

There’s a big difference between “we’re making the effort to save properly to make sure we can pay for care” as part of a family conversation about future planning, and banging on in the vein of “guess how much cash I’ve got stashed in the bank, isn’t that a big number? I never had it so good!” in front of someone that has much less. A feeling of resentment isn’t exactly unusual in that circumstance so I think it’s a bit unfair to be calling Op grabby when she’s effectively having it rubbed in her face.

Why is the latter acceptable when it’s a parent but not if it’s a friend? He doesn’t particularly sound like someone that wants to pay for care, and it’s certainly an only assumption PPs have made about his intention. Some people just like to have money and to talk about it because they tie it to their sense of self-worth.

Well he’s in a care home after trying to kill himself when he realised he couldn’t live at home anymore - so while I’m sure he’d love to be dead, without assisted suicide we’d prefer him to be spared the trauma of trying to do that again.

But actually I thought the same until I visited his care home - and it’s really nice and I’d genuinely move in there tomorrow. It’s more all inclusive resort than old people’s home!

I think you're going to get a shock in later life!

Its not the same cost as residential care of course, but you're likely to need that sort of intervention much longer in your life and a couple of private ops and interventions and day to day care and it will rack up

Dont be naive or money foolish, save now while you can

That assumes that everyone in a care home or assisted living (which costs a bomb) is living a limited life.

What about children who hav limited lives, shall we kill them off as well?

I agree with this. It’s not expecting their money or being grabby but it is a bit upsetting to have to listen to someone bang on about how much money they have. Times are different now- student loans, expensive property, cost of living. It’s not just a case of spend less, save more.