Spending downsizing cash

[CueilleLeJour]

I'm really not sure if I'm being unreasonable here.

Mum is 87 and downsized a few years after we lost my dad. She bought a nice little flat and had £150K from the sale.

Growing up, we never had much money and dad kept a close hand on the purse strings. Mum was left with a comfortable but not huge pension, and some moderate savings which she has spent over the last few years.

Since downsizing, she has basically had access to more free money than she's ever had in her life. In the last year, she's spent nearly half the £150k. Mostly on the flat - new kitchen, bathroom, carpets, furniture, professional decorating etc - but also an expensive holiday. It's clearly been an amazing feeling for her to have all the money she could dream of and spend it without my dad's disapproving eye peering over her shoulder. Part of me thinks it's great and she should just enjoy it while she can.

But part of me is really alarmed at her getting through half the proceeds in a year, and I worry about possible future care needs. My BIL's mum is 90 and has been in a care home for 3 years and it's just burning cash. They wouldn't let her in without proving she had 2 years of costs up front - which I think was about 140K.

My mum is just convinced she won't ever need a care home, and I know she's better off than many people who have nothing put by. It's also really none of my business, it's her money to do what she wants with. It's not dementia or anything, just someone who has never really had to make financial decisions having a whale of a time splashing the cash.

But am I right to have a little anxiety about it all?

YABU You only live once, she's right to spend it while she can
YANBU It's a bit reckless to spend half your downsizing profits in the first year

No I’m not childfree. I have a great deal of sympathy with those who are and subsidise the rest of us.

No I’m not childfree. I have a great deal of sympathy with those who are and subsidise the rest of us.

But they're really not subsidising the rest of us! Your kids (and everyone else's) will be paying their pensions. It all evens out (roughly)

They’ll have paid for their own pensions several times over by the time they get there.

They’ll have paid for their own pensions several times over by the time they get there.

It doesn't work like that. Workers pay for those who are currently retired. If other people didn't have children then there would be nobody to pay the pensions of the retired child free (and everyone else)
So paying for those kids education is a financial investment into all of our futures.

It's amazing how little people know about how it works. Just imagine a future where everyone is over 80. Maybe they need to make one of those dystopian films so people can see why we need people to have children.

You could in fact - purely from a financial perspective - argue that not having children is selfish as you're effectively relying on other people to spend their money raising children - because let's be honest kids are expensive, and they cost a lot more than just education - to hopefully ensure that the child free (and everyone else) is supported in their old age.
I mean it's bollocks obviously, because nobody selflessly has kids for that reason, but just to look at things from the other side.

I know that. Add up all the tax a childless person pays in tax over their working life - and beyond - and it’s perfectly obvious that their input is cumulatively much more than if they’d had kids. MN s obsessed with net contributors, the childfree have a flying start.

The thread has taken an interesting turn to consider the morality of tax and care provision, but it's really not what it was about.

My feelings are that if roughly 1 in 4 has to pay long term care homes, that cost should be shared. So every older person with a house should have to pay some of the value of their home, but no-one should have to pay all of it. Which probably indicates higher inheritance tax, but that would be deeply unpopular with core voters so will probably never happen.

But our theories on funding care are irrelevant as my mum has to live in the system as it is now. And the system as it is now is much better for those who have some cash to give them some flexibility and choice.

I read a facebook post from someone my age whose slightly older husband has become disabled through ill health. She is exhausted. There is a chronic shortage of respite care and the quality of in home care is patchy and often incompetent. So they manage within the family if they can. But she is soooo tired.

I am very clear - if it comes to that, I will do it. But I am fully aware of what being a carer can mean, and it's not something to take lightly. The odds are against my mum needing long term care, as most people don't. So she is entirely entitled to spend her money however she wants. But there is a slight element of taking a gamble with her future.

This thread has been really helpful and I am working hard on not worrying about her future, as she definitely isn't. I am not in the least trying to control her spending. She is a grown adult and totally entitled to make her own choices. But I am allowed to have a private opinion (she certainly has lots of opinions about our choices!) and I still believe she is being slightly reckless in a way that is not unusual in widows of her generation who never had to take responsibility for financial management.

My brother is in his mid 50s and is terminally ill. He came out of the hospice yesterday to live with our parents who are in their 80s. They are caring for him as he can't live on his own. He has a tracheostomy and is tube fed. He made his will a couple of weeks ago and we decided it would be better if he left his small estate (about 220k, a house) to our parents. My dm said that will go towards their care home! Hopefully they will never need to go into one but I did think it was a bit strange saving for that when dm has always said she wouldn't want to go into a care home and I'm pretty sure df would rather kill himself. Oh well it's their money.

Maybe they find the idea of a care home they can choose more acceptable than the local council making the decision.

I'm sorry to hear about your brother, that must be hard for you. And very hard for your parents to be caring for him in their 80s.

Many people say they would rather die than go into a care home, but unless you are prepared to go to dignitas or find another way to end it all, you don't actually get that choice. By the time you are so infirm that you need a home, you are very unlikely to have the ability to plan and carry out your own death.

What they are really saying is "I don't want to get frail and dependent". Well of course none of us do, but that is the reality of hyper-ageing. It's understandable that people want to deny it but it's going to happen to a significant minority of us.

Many people say they would rather die than go into a care home, but unless you are prepared to go to dignitas or find another way to end it all, you don't actually get that choice. By the time you are so infirm that you need a home, you are very unlikely to have the ability to plan and carry out your own death.

What they are really saying is "I don't want to get frail and dependent". Well of course none of us do, but that is the reality of hyper-ageing. It's understandable that people want to deny it but it's going to happen to a significant minority of us

Unfortunately I agree with this. With the addition that plenty of people refuse pretty much any professional help which then almost holds family members to ransom unfortunately. Meaning you constantly have to drop everything and rush over for the latest crisis.