Have you planned the end of your life? If you're middle aged.

[VillefrancheSurMere]

I'm 42 and my Dad just moved into a care home with Alzheimer's. Mum still at home but elderly. My family was always very unemotional and I went low contact years ago, but have stepped up contact a bit since my fathers illness. No word was ever spoken about how their lives would end, no contingency plan for what care they might put in place. According to my mother they just thought they'd stay in their home! But have never had a conversation together. All very stiff upper lip.

It's been quite stressful looking for care homes and arranging the finances. My mum is refusing to engage in any conversations about the future in terms of her own care needs. I am assuming they don't have funeral plans and that this will fall in me when the time comes. I recall my mother planning her mothers funeral and finding it a burden.

I have a young DD and am determined that I don't want her to have a burden of arranging our care or end of life decisions where at all possible and within reason. Time to look into things and get some plans locked in (myself and my DH).

I've no idea where to start or how to go about doing this. Care homes are awful and I've seen all my grandparents and now my father simply decline and waste away in them, despite the extortionate eye-watering costs involved. But what other choices are there unless you're Richard Branson?

Have you arranged your end of life care options, funeral etc well in advance of when you assume / hope they'll be needed? Are there any one-stop shops for this kind of thing?

I can't help suspecting that other countries do this stuff better and that the stiff upper lip mentality in my family has been deeply unhelpful. But it's time we started to take responsibility.

Not really is it? I mean, I'm 50, healthy and financially stable. If I die suddenly, my kids/DH will plan my funeral. That's normally what happens isn't it? I don't need a funeral plan as we can afford it without one, and I don't really care what they do with me once I'm dead.

Definitely worth thinking through the options, doing LPAs, will etc, and talking to your family about your preferences. I don’t see how you can make a set plan, however, as there are so many variables. I definitely won’t be moving to a retirement home while I can avoid it.

I don't want a funeral. I just want to be cremated and scattered wherever my kids want to put me.

I don't want to live with dementia so will look into my options if that happens.

My partner has planned his funeral, every song etc. Very ott.

There are the obvious things you can and should do to make life easier for your family after you die long before you consider yourself 'old' or infirm, such as wills, and powers of attorney. After all, death or sudden life-changing injury or illness can happen at any age. Similarly, you can have some kind of funeral plan in place. Make sure that your adult children are aware that these things are in place and know where to access them if and when the need arises.

As you get towards late middle age, start giving some thought to where you might live ina few years time, whether your current home would be suitable if you could no longer drive, and if you lost your mobility. A lot of elderly people end up pushing this so far down the road that it never happens - by the time they can no longer cope in their current home, they no longer feel either physically or mentally able to move to a new place where they have no friends. My mum is in this catagory now. She bitterly regrets that she and my late dad didn't move in their 70s, while still in good health and active enough to make new friends. In their mid 80s, it was too late

As for care itself, that is hard to plan. You simply never know what care you might need or even be able to get. The whole care system is on its knees right now. Who knows what it will be like, what care will be available, in two years time, let alone in several decades time when you might actually need it. That makes it pretty hard to plan for now beyond trying to make as much financial provision as you can - if you can!

All of this, including the final paragraph, is excellent advice.

I always find it interesting that when dementia is discussed we all say we’d be on the first plane to Dignitas.

But actually it’s vanishingly unlikely any of us will.

My dad and all my other friends’ parents who’ve succumbed to this dreadful disease never once mentioned suicide once they received their diagnosis.

You’d be surprised how strong the will to carry on regardless actually is. 😢

It's so variable. The one thing I would definitely do is when you retire is move to somewhere where you don't need to drive. DPs and DPILs both moved to large villages/small towns with GPs, vets, shops, banks, village halls, active WIs, visiting cinemas once a month, etc etc all within walking distance. As it happens they can still drive in their eighties but it's a great insurance policy, and handy when they have health conditions or weather which temporarily keeps them off the road. Not an issue for me personally as I don't drive and you'll never take me from inner London anyway.

I'm afraid that when someone says their plan for elder care is "Switzerland" I hear "La la, I'm not listening". It's (currently) a viable plan for things like motor neurone disease, and may well become legal for that sort of condition in the UK as well, but unless you already know you've got something like the Huntingdon's gene, the chances that it'll be relevant to you are pretty slim.

I’m on my way to next of kin’s funeral now.
Things that have made it easier:
List of funeral arrangements, knowing the priest and relative’s wishes. Money. As I’ve notified banks they’ve offered me access to money for funeral, not taken them up on it but good to know I could. A friend is in the same boat and has a had to pay up front £10,000. House in good order- bequests and where there weren’t bequests no family haggling.
Not easy- lots of paperwork when sad. And I don’t know how that could be avoided.

I'm early 50s and dh is early 60s. I have an Advance Directive and am going to pay for my funeral and burial plot in two years when I get my pension. Dh will probably pay for his at the same time, but I don't know whether he'll set up an Advance Directive. We have Lasting Power of Attorney set up and wills.

I'm also trying to encourage him to get rid of a lot of the hoard that he has. The garage and loft need sorting through and he agrees it needs doing. He's not as bad as he used to be.

The pils never made any provision apart from wills and refused to discuss things and it was very stressful. Dh ended up having to make all the decisions and it was difficult because he basically had to take charge of her life even though she had no dementia, she just wouldn't face up to things.

DH arranged his mum's funeral during the start of covid. It's not hard at all. He's glad his mum didn't buy any plans so he can just arrange whatever that's easiest for him. I don't care what funeral I got at all. I'll let my children know that. Haven't thought about anything because by the time I'm planning to die, around my 80s, everything would have changed.

The funeral arranging was literally google funeral homes, fill in a few online forms and then book it.

We downsized from a rural location into a town centre with everything on the doorstep so if for whatever reason we can't drive (my dad was a menace in the car and should have had his license taken away), then it doesn't matter. We can walk to everything including doctor, dentist, shops, everything.

Also planning to move again in 10 years into a flat to avoid any future situation with not being able to manage stairs.

I want to avoid the total nightmare situation my parents caused with stubborn refusals to face up to reality. No way will our kids have to put themselves out and start running themselves ragged.

Not bothering with pre-paid funeral plans as they're often a rip-off. Am happy to be put in the recycling bin or cremated and have my remains blasted into the sky in a fancy firework. (Yes, that's a thing!)

My mum asked repeatedly to die when she had dementia. She'd always said she would rather die than end her life like her mum, but she had a good quality of life - until she didn't, and didn't have insight or capacity just huge distress.
At the end of her life I was able to make decisions for her that didn't prolong her life, so for me having an advance directive, LPA for DH, and enough information for him to know the post death arrangements was essential

I arranged a funeral for DM a couple of years ago. The money was available in savings, and it was all pretty straightforward. I'm very glad she hadn't made any arrangements because they'd have been negative and driven by depression - direct cremation with no service probably. We had a free hand and were able to have a beautiful ceremony which gave comfort to DF and my aunts.

My nearly 90 Yr old step father said when he got a terminal diagnosis 'I never thought this would happen to me'.......he never really accepted that he was going to die and had nothing sorted so all fell to me. Since then i have made it as simple as possible for my children, there is a file with all details of where savings are, will and even a leaflet directing them to the company I used for direct cremation. I hate funerals and prefer my children to have the money than waste it giving it to a funeral director! Not sure that I could bear to live in a sheltered flat though, they always remind me of battery hens in little cages🙁

I made my first will at 40, needs updating now as circumstances changed (now approaching 50). After spending the best part of a year sorting out my mum's affairs - she died unexpectedly at 70 last year without anything in place at all - I intend to do the following in the next few years -

-update my will
-set up LPOA for finance/health knot sure who to put on there, will wait for dc to be over 18 I guess)
-'death cleaning' as pp mentioned. Don't want to lumber my kids with sorting out all my excess crap. I think this will be a life-long task.
-downsize, eventually, to something much more manageable, and can share some of my assets with my dc while I can see them reaping the benefits. I don't want to be as stubborn as my mum worrying about keeping on top of the garden whilst watching it fall into an overgrown mess because I can't manage it any more
-simplify my finances - I'm not very well off but I've got a few accounts spread about. Need to streamline into one current account instead of 3, savings accounts in one place, pensions organised etc. I do have a PRINTED OUT document with all of my accounts on, plus gas/electric/phone/insurance/mortgage providers on with contact numbers, this needs updating.
-start an account for funeral expenses. I know that banks release funds for this purpose but my DGPs both had 'box funds' to cover funeral fees,joint accounts with a dc but joint access only (until death)
-living will or whatever its called.
-notes about what I want at my funeral. Choosing music for my mum's was one of the hardest things.

I think it's the best gift to leave your survivors, not having to wade through years of crap and paperwork.

I wasn’t actually being glib, I meant it. I watched a relative die of dementia at a relatively young age, and it’s not for me.

That information is quite upsetting, actually.

But do you want them to agonise about each decision that they make for you? What sort of coffin, burial or cremation, flowers? Wake?

I've just had all that with my mum - she refused to even contemplate her own death so we'd never had that discussion. I find that a very selfish (if understandable) position.

So far I only have a Will. Which does state some funeral wishes. You can have a letter if wishes put with your Will also.
But I am planning on making LPA's in a couple of years.

Life insurance is another option or a pre paid funeral plan.

Trusts are an option but you have to be careful as I know there are new rules on Trusts and your prime reason can not to be avoid care home fees.

I have made a will that is all, and my preference for burial.

I don’t see how you can plan on Dignitas, if you get dementia. Many people simply can’t understand or accept that they’ve got it - for the simple reason that at any given moment they can’t remember that they can’t remember anything - if that makes sense.

My Dm was told by her GP that she had Alzheimer’s, and seemed to accept it (doctor to her being = to God) but by the time she’d got home 15 minutes later she had completely forgotten and angrily denied it if we tried to remind her. There was nothing wrong with her! And it wasn’t ‘denial’ - she genuinely believed it, because in her head she could still manage all the things she used to do.

I would just add that all care homes are not awful - my DM, my FiL, and an aunt all ended up in CHs that were very good. We did take plenty of time visiting a lot before choosing, though.

As for our own plans, after far too much experience of dementia, dh and I have added paragraphs to our Health and Welfare Powers of Attorney, to state that if we should develop dementia, or any other condition where we are unable both to care for ourselves, and to speak - with full mental capacity - for ourselves - then we emphatically do not want any life saving or life-prolonging treatment. Palliative care only, please.
We are confident that dds will abide by our wishes - so no ‘striving to keep alive’.
This is something everyone can do.

m afraid that when someone says their plan for elder care is "Switzerland" I hear "La la, I'm not listening". It's (currently) a viable plan for things like motor neurone disease, and may well become legal for that sort of condition in the UK as well, but unless you already know you've got something like the Huntingdon's gene, the chances that it'll be relevant to you are pretty slim.

100% this. My aunt hoped to go to Dignitas after being diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer but of course by the point that she was ill enough to want to die, she was far too ill to travel. Even where it’s practically possible, a large proportion of people who’ve planned to end their lives choose not to in the event- it’s hard to know how you’ll feel when it’s all in the abstract. So even if you think you’ll end your life, you really need a plan B as well.

I want to avoid the total nightmare situation my parents caused with stubborn refusals to face up to reality. No way will our kids have to put themselves out and start running themselves ragged.

I think this is so important. It's simply not fair to leave a complicated situation for children when they themselves my be reaching middle age/have beginnings of health problems/their own family.

I have funeral cover because I live in a country where it's really common. So I pay about €80 a year for me and the kids. When I die it's one phone call and the undertakers sort everything. DH is still on his mum's policy. She is 91 and in a nursing home with advanced Alzheimer's. One of the requirements actually is a funeral policy.
Other than that my family know I prefer cremation.
We have wills.
I'm 48, once the mortgage pays off at 65 we might downsize I suppose as this house has lots of stairs and nowhere to have a downstairs bedroom.