There is no way we are paying for this

[Edenviolet]

Had a conversation with dh today about our parents/grandparents and what will happen when they are older.

Dh wants to start putting money aside now so that he can 'chip in' for care home fees for when his DM or Dgm need more help/carers/to go into a care home. I told him that we will not be paying towards it. We have four dcs and especially as far as mil is concerned I will not pay for anything for her (she has caused us no end of oroblems in the past)

Dh thinks I'm BU but I'd rather be saving towards dcs futures not for care home fees?

It's a moot point surely? Your DH won't be able to save enough to cover the full fees, and since his DM and DGM have no property/savings, he won't be able to have choice about their care just by topping up their own contribution. So his having saved a portion of the costs will be irrelevant.
In general if you've been able to save he might be able to cover the odd one off piece of equipment etc, but that doesn't seem to be what he is thinking and doesn't need to be 'earmarked' now.

All emotion aside - this is pointless.

You have £150 spare each month. If you saved for this for the next 10 years, scrimping on everything - it would give you a pot of £18,000. My grandmother's fairly bog standard, bupa care home was £400/ week. So you would then burn through your 10 years of careful saving in 45 weeks (or much less, as I'm sure the price will have gone up substantially). At that point, the state will take over. As it would have been clear from the outset you had nowhere near enough money to make a difference, you would already have them in a care home the state would be happy to pay for. You might as well rip up tenners.

what about living your life now ,i would be spending our money on us and our kids , days out , holidays , his parents should be the ones paying for their own carers/carehome , i would feel guilty taking a penny off my kids for things like that when im old.

I worked for bupa, of course private take state funded residents. The only ones who had to pay a top up were those who moved out of area so from skegness to nottingham etc

My Mum would not have let us pay for her care. She would have said that any spare money should be used for our children's benefit.

If you must offer a compromise....

You have £150 a month spare.
Put half away for emergencies like new boilers or car repairs
Take the £75 thats left and divide by 6 - 2 adults and 4 kids.

Thats 12.50 a month for each person for "luxuries". He can use his to fund his DM/DGM if he wishes, but you wont be taking him to the pub with your/the kids money.

This is the only fair way to deal with this. He can save his share and you save your share and keep the kids share separate, secure fund. #

Also put that emergency money in a separate secure account, so he cant dip into it.

After a year, when he has £125 saved, remind him that will only cover a days care for both DM and DGM.

Your DH is being totally ridiculous.

actually it will be £150. SO thats slightly less than 3 days care, split between 2 people.

My mum is in LA-funded care. She started off in a basic but nice St John's care home and is now in a frankly luxurious-looking BUPA one, due to changing needs. All funded by the state. No need for top-ups, which I'm not sure are ever necessary? The resident either pays the whole lot themselves, or the state does

Both my mother and mil would be horrified at he thought of this - they would both tell us to spend our money on ourselves.
Your DH might be well intentioned but it's a bit ridiculous

There's a reason children are known as dependants! You don't know what is round the corner and will need to ensure you can meet their needs in the future. You are quite rightly wanting to save for these eventualities.

YANBU to think that saving for future possible care fees for MIL or DGMIL is not necessarily the best use of your limited funds.

More because it is absolutely not a given that either will ever need a care home. If carers are required in their own homes, and they do not personally have the funds to pay, then SS will pay. You will not receive a better level of care by paying - I work for a care agency, some clients are privately funded and some are SS funded. The only difference is private calls tend to be a little longer (30 mins instead of 15 mins for example), as the client chooses how long they would like rather than having SS telling them how long they are allowed.

The same care is provided - just a longer call is much less rushed!

In your position, I would rather be saving towards helping the DCs out when they are older or just towards your own rainy day pot.

However, if it was something DH really wanted to do I would probably just go along with it TBH. Better that than him having a huge regret in years to come that he could have saved a little each month to help out but didn't. As long as it is clear that the money remains yours & DHs and returns to your joint savings if a care home is not needed.

Personally, my dad died at 66 and my mum at 69 - both from cancer and both in hospital. Like Branston, I would love to have to be considering care homes.

I started reading this thread last night, got distracted and have only come across it again. Don't know if it has been mentioned but your DH is deluded if he thinks that saving £150 a month is going to help much with long-term care for elderly parents. FIL is currently in a care home costing £1200 a week, some around here cost £1400. While it is admirable of him to wish to help out, he would need to save for 8 months just to afford one week's care!

Hedgehog
Its about time your DH extracted his head from his nether regions and faced reality. He has 4 children with disabilities who may well need funds to pay for medical needs or simply towards university. Additionally, his health is not brilliant, you might need the savings to bridge the time when he can't work but my not be getting much by way of benefits.

He seems to live in a state of constant denial on the true position facing your family.

(I am not even going to go into the previous behaviour of your MIL).

I don't know your back story like some of the other posters here, but have you asked DH how much he thinks you'll all be able to 'chip in' if/when the time comes? Exactly how much of your spare £150 per month does he think you should be putting aside and what will it pay for? Demand answers. Not "well we'll save now and think about that another time" - nope, not an option. What precisely do you think you'll get for your £150 a month? What research has he carried out into the cost of care homes in your area? What does he think you'll contribution versus what the state will fund? Does he think you'll be helping MIL avoid hostel level accommodation and enjoy 5* level accommodation? (Also, has he considered that there's no direct correlation between the cost of a care home and the quality of it). Has he ever actually been in a care home? Or visited one in the area where your MIL could end up living? What, specifically, would he be happy to see your DCs go without while you save for MILs care? £150 is fuck all in the world of residential care. Absolutely fuck all.

£1000 per week has been mentioned as a cost - that's pretty basic and probably the sort of place you wouldn't want your relative in. Try £1500-£2000

Hedgehog your husband is such a doich bag! Either that if he is fucking thick as pig shit, which seems likely the more I read of your posts.

Expensive holidays, time off alone, leaves you with all the children etc etc. You don't have enough money for the things your family needs now let alone pay for bloody MILs care home.

You need a second car so you can take the kids to appointments etc while he is at work. You need to pay for respite care. Both if those rank WAY above MILs care home fees.

I was initially touched by your DH's concern for his parents - but thought him a bit naive as to care costs. However, hadn't read OP's other threads or otherwise aware of the back story.

but could YOU live with yourself if you let your mum or dad live in a home where they were treated cruelly? A home which was pitifully short staffed and your mum or dad were left in wet bedding or covered in faeces and/or vomit, where a cup of tea was shoved down their throat twice a day, they were out to bed at 5 due to lack of staffing

I have worked in most expensive homes in an expensive area and I can assure you, the above were just as much of an issue as the others.

You do not get what you pay for, they are all run as a business and as a business most will cut corner, most have high staff turnover and most, the care your relatives get will be down to each individual staff member.Which can all change if someone leaves or someone new comes in.

Anyway op, of course your not being unreasonable, yes its brilliant he wants to help her but he cant do it at the detriment of everyone else.

As his mother has no savings she will be entitled to assistance from her local authority, she will pay the majority of her income to her local council, they will then pay up to the level they will pay in her area - this is called the "expected to pay rate" (EPR).

Some care homes accept the EPR and thats the cost covered.

Some care homes do not accept the EPR and a third party top-up is required from a family member, this is probably what he wants to save for. It can vary from £50 per week to as much as £400/500 per week for example

Some care homes that accept the EPR are bad and some are lovely.

Some care homes that require 3rd party top-up are bad and some are lovely.

The fact you pay more for the care home does not automatically mean it is better.

You should get him to look at some that take the EPR as he will probably find ones that are perfectally ok and won't require him to have to chip in, taking money away from your family when it is not needed for him to.

It wouldn't enter my head to stick my Dad into a state home, because my parents spent the first 20 years of my life supporting and caring for me. The beginning bit involved night feedings, poo explosions, night time potty training, cleaning up pureed food off everything within my reach, the memorable time I had diarrhoea at the dinner table, caring for my every need, physical, emotional and financial. My Dad still to this day helps me out (and indeed cleaned up poo explosions off my own daughters when they were tiny and provides free childcare now). And there are people who would put their parents into state homes after all that??

It's easy for me to say all this, of course, because my Dad has made ample provision for his old age, just as I will make provision for my own.

It is gravely irresponsible to coast through life and find yourself at 70 with no assets or means of support, and expect that your children will pick up the slack, but if you HAVE, then that's what they have to do.

If you are a neglectful parent, then all bets are off. There's even a bit in the bible that says that if you don't provide your child with a trade, or the means to acquire a trade, then your child does not have to support you in your old age. A rare bit of solid good biblical sense!

I agree it is irresponsible to fail to provide for yourself in old age, but the responsibility falling to the DC to bail them out financially isnt what they HAVE to do at all. That isn't what you have children for. It certainly isn't what I had them for.
YANBU op. Be realistic.

Is there any such thing as a state care home these days NotYouNaanBread? Aren't they all mostly private and take both state funded and privately funded elderly?

Another point is that the ops husbands way of thinking leads to a vicious circle. He pays for his parents and in turn he has no money to fund his own old age and he will presumably expect his children to help him out and so on and so on. At some stage someone has to take responsibility for their own lives.

"It wouldn't enter my head to stick my Dad into a state home"

That's all very well, if you happen to be able to afford around 50K a year to pay for a private home. Or, as in your case, your dad has made his own provision, which is after all what many on here are suggesting.

What options are there for families without that financial fortune? And who may not be able to have a parent to live with them due to space or work commitments?

Well said, clam.
Anyone who has not been placed in the horrible situation of having to make these heart breaking decisions cannot possibly make such an unequivocal statement.
Do you think we do this lightly? That we don't wish there was something we could do?
My father suffered from multiple physical and mental issues as he grew older. For the last year of his life he had paranoid delusions (had to be sectioned at one point), could not walk or talk, was permanently catheterised etc. He couldn't even swallow liquids: they had to be thickened or he would choke. It would not have been safe for him to be at home with my elderly mother because there was a risk he could become violent. I have to work full-time and my Dad needed 24 hour a day specialised care.
So tell me: exactly what was the alternative? Sell the house out from under my mum and use their life savings to put him in a non-state funded home?
No - I had to make the best possible decision that would mean both of my parents were safe. And it was bloody hard.