Parents hoarding money

[Antisocialg1t]

Speaking to my Dad today and he boasted he saves £2,000 / month and has well in excess of £250,000 sitting in the bank. He was lamenting not having enough places to put his money without paying tax. He also stated that in retirement he's never had it so good compared to his working life.

I can't help but feel resentment. I think this stems from the almost daily grind of raising two children (15 and 13), always wanting the best for them, and sacrificing constantly. I'm hugely motivated by the fact I strongly believe that adult life is going to be harder for them than it was for me and hugely more difficult than it was for my parent's generation. I just can't reconcile feeling how I do about my children, and knowing that my dad thinks very differently about me and my family. It has brought to mind how little he's ever done for my children / his grandchildren, despite being retired for their entire lives. It's also brought into sharp focus how much of his time he's used to save and hoard money, rather than give more of himself.

But I feel huge guilt because this has come up because of a conversation about money.

Anyone else in a similar position?

I have nowhere near the wealth your Dad has squirrelled away but I do the gifting. It's £3k from me to DC every year. I have 3 DC and so they get 2 x £500 each per year. I wish the gifting amount was higher as if happily gift more. I also pay for holidays for DC if they come with us it costs them nothing, meals out together, family activity days to include DC and DGC. I send pocket money and holiday spends money for DGC too. I help ds out with car payments occasionally if he gets a big bill. I know I will be hit with inheritance tax so want to pass on some cash now

NC for this. @Antisocialg1tI completely agree with you. I think some of these posts are very ironic as well because it is actually the parents being selfish and grabby. Supporting your family and giving them the best life possible is most people’s main motivation for working hard and saving. The idea that there is no responsibility for other family members is so alien to me, and I am sure the Venn Diagram of those who have had very minimal involvement with their grandchildren and said it’s “not their job”, and those who are hoarding money while their family struggles, has a huge overlap.

My father lives in a house worth around £3.5m and has several more in investments. Meanwhile, I am a lone parent to two children with disabilities and am very unwell myself now with a progressive illness. I work full time in a professional role but entirely from home now as my mobility is very limited and struggle immensely to cover the mortgage, bills, specialist childcare and medical costs for my children. I can’t change jobs or seek promotion because I’m so unwell, despite being very ambitious and working extremely long hours before having children and unexpectedly ending up a lone parent in my mid-30s when my children were tiny.

My father refuses to help us, despite having bought my sibling a house outright in his 20s (who is able bodied and has no such difficulties. He is now married, mortgage free, no children and two full-time incomes coming in). Medical advice is that if I carry on as I am, pushing myself beyond the limits of my health, my own illness will progress faster and then I may not be here to see my children into adulthood (they are still at primary school). There’s nobody to care for and raise them but me. This keeps me up at night.

My father retired over 20 years ago and has done nothing: no charity work, no volunteering, never looked after my children even for an hour. Weeks go by without him even asking how we are. He could take so much pressure off me financially and transform our lives with no effect on him whatsoever but he doesn’t. He is now terminally ill but I presume he’ll have left everything to his very unpleasant wife and made no provision for his children or grandchildren.

He certainly isn’t prudent with money. He spends lots on a new car every 3 years and many, many holidays, until he became ill recently. I think he simply does not care about his family and I cannot ever imagine behaving in such a way to my children if I am here when they are adults. The end of his life approaching doesn’t seem to have made him reflect on it all, at all. Clearly he’s happy to die knowing the precarious situation his only grandchildren will be left in. I think some people are just incredibly selfish and have no moral compass.

Fair enough, but if he didn't want to be in a care home (like a lot of people wouldn't), then there must be a way of stopping it without having to go to Switzerland.

Why should he do something that he would not have wanted to do when he had capacity?

This thread is depressing.

I was raised in poverty. That's why it's so important to me to help and support my adult children. OP's dad's behaviour and comments are self-absorbed and uncaring.

The depression of wages in real terms and the increase in property prices is something NO previous generation has had to battle, no matter how many older people (I am also one) come on here and post how tough things were for them. It's simply not the same, but a surprising number of older people simply will not face this fact.

But why would they? They are in good health and much of it is in assets? They could live another 20 years. My mum I could easily see going into her mid 90’s, like her parents. She’s 74 and in perfect health, not on any medication at all. To be honest their friends are much wealthier than they are and they don’t consider themselves to be rich at all. This is clearly absolute madness but still, would be nice to be taken out for more than a cup of tea occasionally.

It’s his choice. I don’t understand why everyone expects their parents to spend money on them, my parents have never given me a penny and I wouldn’t expect them too. None of my grandparents ended up needing to use money for care/care homes because family have provided the care. Not all people end up needing carers or a care home, many of us won’t even make it to old age.

It’s their money, they can do as they wish with it.

My Mum is frequently trying to give my sister and I money, but I keep telling her to keep it. My husband and I have a good income, my sister earns more like minimum wage but she gets by. My Mum is already in her 80s with a Parkinson's diagnosis and I fear she's underestimating how much it will cost for care. Her house is probably worth 800k, but I think that would vanish very quickly once care is needed. It's a tricky balance for everyone.

Dad is always telling me how much he can gift us tax-wise. My sister gets it (she asks) but I never have…

As my dc would say, that sounds like a you problem.

If you feel entitled to it, then ask

They could start passing on / getting rid of assets and passing it down the line. Obviously they don’t have to and it’s their choice but it’s unlikely they’re going to ‘need’ that much. If they have invested they are presumably earning interest? They could downsize to make their home easier to heat / clean and more comfortable to live in. Not many people are travelling abroad in their 90s so expenditure would go down.

Of course they may have to pay for care homes but they’re unlikely to get through 5 million. I’m not saying get rid of it all but surely they could spare the odd 10K or so.

I’d be much more concerned that he’s got 250k sitting around not properly invested.

As posters have said it’s only about three years in a care home so consider that.

To the poster who suggested her father in a care home with Alzheimer’s should have taken a way out before he needed a care home, I suspect that’s not very easy. You don’t know how bad you will get, when you do reach that point youre not mentally capable of ending it and probably not physically able either. The assisted dying bill, which I doubt will get through, won’t cover this anyway. I wish it would. The idea of living for years physically and mentally frail is horrifying but I feel at least if I can pay for a decent environment and care at least I’ll be as comfortable as possible. If someone would hand out a pill to stash until I really have had enough I’d be very grateful!

I have to admit I'm having a perspective shift I never foresaw. Now that I'm in my 50s and my DH (who is a little older than me) is starting to talk about retirement, what seemed like a lot of money when there was a reliable income suddenly looks a lot smaller in the scheme of the rest of our lives. Not helped by none of us knowing how long we might live for.

It's his money and his time. They are your children, not his. He is under no obligation to spend his retirement money on your children, it wasn't his decision to have them, it was yours.

Boundaries on the GP relationship are a parental right and duty (from Gen X)
Absolutely, but then you can't moan that GP are not willing to share all their money with GC they never got the chance to truly bond with. I say that as a Gen X too.

In a way this would bring some comfort, if it wasn't for potential care home fees.

My parents have next to nothing, but my in laws are in a good position. Who knows how much they'll have to spend on care, but hopefully we can manage a basic amount of care between us as we are all local - and they deserve our help.

It bring me a little peace to think that any inheritance they leave we hopefully won't 'need' - they're still quite young and hopefully live a long time - and that we'll be able to help the kids with that inheritance.

The difference here I suppose, is that if we went to either of our parents and asked for financial help, they'd help us to the best of their respective financial abilities. We don't ask.

These are the people who downsized to a more expensive house. Trust me they know what they’re doing and at this point it doesn’t involve sharing. As I said earlier my dad was an FD in a bank. He is very financially savvy. I’m not worried about care homes,

That is so shit!

My parents are the most generous as they would never have £250k saved because it would have been distributed as much as possible. I will do the same for my children and grandchildren.

Ultimately it’s a sign of how UK society has deteriorated. This is not how family works in most of the world where people would be ashamed to see their children or grandchildren struggling financially while they lived in comfort.

I think attitudes of the current generation of adults towards their own children and grandchildren will be very different generally given they’ve been on the receiving end of this supreme selfishness from the current generation of pensioners who have impoverished society in so many ways, in terms of values, money and living standards for subsequent generations.

Well this thread has just strengthened my resolve to never discuss how much money I have with anyone ever.

@WhichTeam Whilst date of death is unknown. Do what we did, projected income, interest rate variables and inflation variables versus years lived. Plus what it costs to run your life. We can look at the financial overview and adjust. We are fortunately above our projected income this financial year due to investments doing far better than expected. Obviously we could not throw in potential legislative variables that tumble out of the heads of whichever idiot is in charge politically.

Sorry @MellyBM but what funds retirement is working people, their taxes & labour. The current retirees funded their parents' retirement (parsimoniously). Their own retirement is now funded (with exorbitant generosity) by their children. It may be normal (for the current generation - not for their parents or previous generations) but I don't see that it's desirable that retirees, with fewer outgoings, fewer caring responsibilities, and no economic activity, should have more money than people who work.

I know retirees who will be on a final salary pension for more decades than they were in work, when they were paying mortgages and holidaying annually I e. Not saving scrupulously. It is impossible that they have funded their own retirement. It's impossible to accumulate more money in savings than you earn, unless your savings are acquired outside work. In which case, it's not you who has generated the money. You've just acquired it.

But in other parts of the world children and grandchildren would all help to look after the parents which doesn't always happen in the UK, and you can tell it won't happen much at all by the threads you see on MN.

I hear ya Op! my mil is the same lots of properties and rental income and not short of money at all
Gave us 1000pounds as a wedding gift and went on and on about how it was so much money!!

My own granny gave us 500£ and shes not got a lot - she saved up for a year to get us that money and it was a lot for her - I didn't even want it - but she said she wanted to see us enjoy the money do something nice with it and tell her about it! our whole lives she saved up a bit of her pension to give the grandchildren money for their holidays or birthdays - it was never much but she basically just always gave all her money away as she had the - can't take it with me attitude!

My parents are pretty generous too - but again dont have much spare but will pay for my daughters swim lessons for example - my dad paid for the solicitor fees and the movers for us when we bought the house! all much appreciated

I just dont get it - cus i haven't bought myself clothes or anything for me in so long cus i use the money for my kids! Id rather my daugher have a day a theme park over half term then a hair cut for myself for example! I can't understand not wanting to everything you can to help your kids

There are plenty of ways of seeing yourself off if you want to. It’s exactly what I intend to do if I get a diagnosis of dementia. I’m hyper vigilant and monitor myself constantly as there was loads of it in my mum’s family so my diagnosis will be an early one if I get it. It’s nothing to do with money for me, there’s no way I’m putting my son through what we went through with my mum. Once is more than enough for anyone.

My parents died with a lot of money, despite spending time in a very upmarket care home. As a result my son owns his house outright. We’ve helped our kids in the past but currently none of them need it, two of them have far more money than us.

A lot of older people have in the back of their minds that they will need money if they should have to go into care. Residential care is not as expensive as nursing care or dementia care so I can definitely see why people hang onto their money rather than dish it out to family.

Two relatives in care at the moment are costing nearly £14,000 a month in care fees which the sale of their property and any savings will be funding.