To think we have to accept that we need to use savings to fund care in old age

[LastDuchessFerrara]

My parents died before reaching old age but I'm now watching family and friends caring - in one form or another - for older relatives.

Many seem to be in denial about the fact that savings, pensions and, in some cases equity in their home, needs to be used to enable their relatives to continue to stay in their homes or go into care.

"But they've worked all their lives!" they cry in protest. Well, yes - and now that money needs to be used in their old age.

It's really focussed my mind on how any money I accumulate might not be spent on amazing holidays but paying for cleaners and carers.

I'd be interested in views but please can this not be a "boomer" bashing thread. I know plenty of impoverished old people and plenty of entitled non-boomers.

Very few people are actually net contributors to the tax system, something like the top 10% of tax payers. The rest of us take out more than we put in, even if we have "paid tax and NI all our lives".

One problem is that once in a care home and the responsibility of the social care services what happens is they are responisible for the person's well being. So, in real life they would fall down stairs, get lost in the garden, get colds, flu, fall and break their wrist and lie for hours before being helped.
In a care home they are pampered and cossetted -- this means they have no independent life but that doesn't matter because they are 'safe' - so then they live way longer than they would normally.

I don't know what the answer is - people are ridiculously critical of care homes, the NHS, care workers - but look at the covid situation - the old people are imprisoned for their own wellbeing. Maybe visitors should be allowed and if they die they die.

Watching my parents does make me think: fuck it, spend; borrow.

Dad had minimum wage job up until retirement. Mum worked properly from when I was 10. Neither has private pension. They bought a tiny house in early 70s, which they are still in now. We were seriously skint until my teens. Everything 2nd hand etc. No holidays. Every purchase agonised over.

Jn spite of that, they (mum) was terrified about not having enough and not leaving anything for us, so she constantly put money away here and there. In the 20 years since I've left home, they've spent fuck all on the house or, from what I can see, had any fun. For what? To give their kids and grandkids an inheritance? I'd have they'd actually enjoyed their time, because now it's all going to go. Mum just to comment on the neighbours always having new car/furniture etc. But maybe they were right- spend it all while you can appreciate it.

Everyone says they'd rather their families just offed them than live in long term care but how many people would actually be willing to kill their parents or grandparents?

My mum always said she'd do herself in if she got dementia, but now she has it, she doesn't know she's got it. I just hope we're allowed to choose for ourselves when I'm that age.

We do need to stop turning down continuing health care for those who are entitled but who don’t know the system/how to score points/how the assessor will try and turn them down

There are too many businesses and individuals making ££££ out of elderly care.

Care Homes are closing - the above is just not true.

24 hour care by anyone requires a minimum of 3 people - so that's 3 wages. Feeding someone for example, prob takes a minimum of half an hour, so 3 times a day 1.5 hours. Showering an elderly person - an hour? so thats 2.5 hours for one - maybe 30 in the care home so that's 75 hours a day just to achieve that.

But then the moth, the choices for being cared for you as you wish, and being independent as much as is possible, in your most vulnerable years, are massively slimmed down. I agree with spend and enjoy what you can but having seen what I have in the last ten years, I am glad my DPs have had the choice they did to stay in their own much loved home, where their friends and FC and GC can visit, while paying for the care and home modifications they needed.

Pinkyparrot I've worked in care homes for many years, mainly super duper private ones.

They are like conveyor belts. Everything has to be done as quick as possible. I assure you, a shower doesn't take an hour even when hoists are involved.

And no matter how much the residents pay, the staff are still paid a pittance.

I think part of the problem is that people see NI as a kind of ‘savings pot’ that will be used to pay for them when they are old, when that’s not how it works. What gets paid in now is used now, to fund people currently using the NHS and care homes etc. There is absolutely no guarantee that any will be available when a person in work now retires in a few years time, it all depends on the tax receipts at that time. I can’t help thinking that proper education at school about how it all works would help!

I'm not surprised that your PIL are worried about inheritance tax, it has to be paid before anything is inherited.

yes, but the IHT threshold is quite high, so a meaningful amount can be left before any is taxed. £325k.

Care homes should be regulated more thoroughly. The prime concern should be the welfare of the inmates, whereas of course at present the only concern is how much profit they are making. Residents are charged a fortune, staff are paid a pittance, facilities are poorly-maintained. The only winners are the fatcat owners, who are raking it in.

@Pukkatea

I think like everything - eventually it will be accepted, but for now it's rubbish for people who had the goalposts moved. People for whom previous generations did things a certain way and they lived their lives assuming they could do the same - saving for massive retirement funds and investments on houses etc on the assumption they could pass it on to their kids and then find at the last minute they can't. The next generation will be in a completely different position (the real ticking time bomb is that the current batch of 20-30 year old won't have any property to sell to fund care when their time comes).

I'm not clear that the goalposts have been changed. There has never been a guarantee that people would be able to leave money to their children.

I think there area two main changes:

1. fewer elderly/infirm relatives now live with their adult children (not as true in some communities, I understand ), so need to be looked after in care/nursing homes;

2. more elderly people own their own homes and hope to pass them on to their children.

As an example of this being nothing new, neither of my parents (born in the 1920s) inherited anything from their parents (born in the 19th century). In both cases their houses were sold to fund annuities to pay for care.

If it was all abotu making a profit there would be loads of care homes and we could choose which we wanted. There is not much profit hence crap choice of homes.

If you can pay you do have more choice
I would rather my DPs had the best of care and left me nothing
Hate hearing people talk about their inheritance when the person with the money is still alive

[quote Alaimo]@oneglassandpuzzled But why is it not fair? Do the essential workers who have spent their lives working in low-paid jobs not deserve decent quality care? Do I deserve better quality care than the admin assistant who works down the corridor from me simply because my hourly wage is twice as high as hers? Do I deserve better quality care than my tenants even though they are the ones currently paying my mortgage?

I don't work disproportionally hard. I'm lucky to have done well in school which enabled me to get a decent paid job. Then I had some further luck (inheritance) to get me on the property ladder. I fully expect to sell my home to pay for my care in old age and to help pay for the care of others who have not been so fortunate, and I have no problem with that.[/quote]
It isn’t fair that care is charged at a higher weekly rate for self-funded carehome residents than it is for local-authority-funded carehome patients was the point I was agreeing with.

AlwaysCheddar
If I get a stage where I don’t have a clue what planet I’m on, id rather someone put a pillow over my face than pay thousands on a grotty nursing home.

My mum has told me the same.

Funny how many people glibly say this and how relatively rarely it actually happens. The reality is none of us know how we will feel. It’s easy to say just kill me or whatever but when you are actually faced with the actual end of your life it is basic human instinct to preserve it at almost any cost. I once heard a radio interview with a woman who has lived in an iron lung for over 50 years. Most of us would say we would never want to live like that but this woman wasn’t even particularly depressed.

Before everyone starts chiming in about how their gran or uncle committed suicide rather than live a diminished life — I’m not saying it never happens, just that it’s a very small fraction of the usually healthy and young-ish people who claim they would do it.

It's always been obvious to me. The wailing people do when an elderly person needs care and has to sell their current home to fund the home they will be moving into astonishes me.

My DM said to stick her in a home when she got old - due to her DM being a burden for many, many years on her DSis, however when the time came she wouldn't go. Did eventually but it made me the wicked DD.

Everyone says they'd rather their families just offed them than live in long term care but how many people would actually be willing to kill their parents or grandparents?

Quite. That's why I said what I did upthread. Try being the child/relative in this situation.

Are care homes really that different?
I know someone who worked in a council run one and the residents seemed to be very well cared for - lovely food, nice rooms, entertainment, days out etc.
And when you actually get to the stage of needing full time care do you want more than that?

The expectation of inheritance is ridiculous. "He worked all his life to leave me a house"... uh what? So he should have his housing funded by the state at the end of his life in order that you get to inherit? Why?

@TakeTheCuntOutOfScunthorpe

Care homes should be regulated more thoroughly. The prime concern should be the welfare of the inmates, whereas of course at present the only concern is how much profit they are making. Residents are charged a fortune, staff are paid a pittance, facilities are poorly-maintained. The only winners are the fatcat owners, who are raking it in.

Trouble is no one wants to hear this.

I've been treated terribly in my working life. 12 hour shifts where you are expected just to do everything as quick as you can. No time for any real care or attention (apart from when families visit, I've had managers who are so shit that they will pretend to have been playing cards for hours with a resident themselves to make the place look good).

Staff turnover where ever I've worked has always been awful because of terrible managers squeezing you dry, poor conditions, long hours, no sick pay, being forced to come in when Sick by managers who won't believe you are ill.

I've worked with some people who are bordering on abusive (yes, I complained and got sacked for doing so, no one gives a shit).

I've worked at one of the top chains in the country. I wouldn't board my dog with them to be honest.

So don't think that paying £700 a week gets you any better care. The surroundings might look nicer. But you will still be treated like a number on a conveyer belt.

@AlwaysCheddar

If I get a stage where I don’t have a clue what planet I’m on, id rather someone put a pillow over my face than pay thousands on a grotty nursing home.

I agree that using savings to support care is reasonable, but I’m furious that the option of euthanasia available for cats and dogs is not for humans. I want the choice to end my life on my own terms if I choose to do so, and the fact that all I have available are potentially botched, painful or unsuccessful methods is infuriating.

Just to make it clear as some haven’t got the point: if you are a privately funded resident you will pay more for the SAME home place as a local authority will pay for a resident.

So you are subsiding the local authority by not only paying your own place but contributing towards someone else’s.

That isn’t fair. Of course we should pay for own care but savings used have already been taxed and then you are effectively taxed again.