Future-proofing for a childfree old-age

[musixa]

I've been thinking a lot about this subject lately, as my own elderly parents are needing more and more support from my sister and me. Simple things like replacing household items, setting up a new appliance etc. are getting beyond their capabilities; their house isn't being properly maintained and so on.

I'm wondering what others are considering - of course my ideal would be to be one of those elderly people who is as sharp at 80 as they were at 18, but I have to be realistic based on what genes I have inherited.

My best idea at the moment is sheltered accommodation either rented or bought and maintained, warden-managed. A bonus of being without children is that there are no worries about retirement properties being 'impossible to sell' after death and of course, whatever cash my current house might be worth is at my disposal to release by selling or releasing equity.

What are your thoughts?

Our friendship group has several childfree couples for one reason or another. We are considering getting a big house together and pooling our money for a home help type person. A sort of housekeeper/repairs organiser/technology hooker upper etc.

Not when we are in a state to need proper medical care, just when we need that extra support

The issue is of course if we buy, or even to an extent when we rent, what happens when one or two of the couples need to sell up to move to a nursing home/die etc. So we haven't worked out all the flaws in the plan.

But some type of commune anyway with some extra help essentially.

Put a link in when you find one 😊

I’ve looked at co-housing in the past, but you generally have to buy in, and I’m unlikely to ever have the money for that having becomes disabled at a youngish age and unable to work more than a few hours a week.

I’ve seriously been considering euthanasia as can’t see how I will afford or be able to live. Almost wish could be put into a convent like families used to do with widows / unmarried older women, but even they want younger fitter members than I am!(not to mention my lack of religion!)

Having been through hell with my now deceased DPs, I have explored multiple options. I am widowed as well a child free. The following options are in likelihood of what I will actually end up doing.

1. Move in my mid-late 70s to sheltered accommodation that has a care home attached (known as close care). I want to be healthy enough when I move to get involved with the local community and my fellow residents and get my flat set up as I want it. I found a fabulous place in the end for my DPs that did all of the above. Horrendously expensive but I am lucky enough that I should be able to afford it. I have factored this into a formal financial plan that I have drawn up with an IFA chartered financial planner. I hope not to need the care home, but if I do, I will still have my new friends and neighbours nearby. Also useful if you need to recover for a couple of weeks from an operation, you can move into the care home.
2. Live in carers staying in my own home. However I worry about the isolation of seeing no-one but my carers and there being no oversight of them. That said, I am getting more antisocial as I get older, so I might be quite happy on my own.
3. Live independently until I suddenly drop dead of a heart attack (family history).
4. Euthanasia if it’s clear my quality of life is going to be shit and I get a chance to do something about it (my DM ended up bedbound with dementia)
5. Commune type set up with friends with facilities to install live in carers. A couple of my child free friends have been talking about this option for years, but at present they have partners and I worry that one of us will be eventually left on our own. I might encourage them to move to option 1 with me instead.
6. Find younger, healthier hot new DH who adores me and looks after me lovingly until my dying day.

For those of you who may not be able to afford some of these options try Googling for Almshouses near you. There’s a fab one near me for single women on lower incomes, you can even still be working and live there.

Also there are some charities that if you can afford x years of care in their care home then guarantee they will cover your costs if you live past the point when your money runs out.

Have a closer look at HA provision and also at almshouses. I've been trying to help my child free brother with a plan, and that's his. We looked at some and they were very nice. The qualification criteria are much broader than for working age social housing, too.

For a 'final' home, I'd be inclined to not go for Mcarthy & Stone due to the service charges. Also if you decode to sell - say too ill to remain there - they insist on first refusal on selling, and if you sell demand a huge cut - which could affect the ££ available for you next level of care.

For your house I would look carefully as to whether you could safely live just downstairs ie downstairs toilet and shower room - and have potential for a live in carer live upstairs OR space for one of those ' through the floor' lifts to sensibly connect you to upstairs. You can then turn the bathroom shower room into a wetroom and that'll be a lot easier.

This thread is so great to see on Mumsnet and also has given me a real sadness.

I'm not sure I'm preparing as well as I should financially for my old age and while I still have time (I'm 36), I do feel sad for my future self.

Not sad enough to have kids(!) but sad nonetheless. And if I'm honest, a bit scared.

Find younger, healthier hot new DH who adores me and looks after me lovingly until my dying day.

I would actually be open to an explicitly transactional marriage with a congenial younger man or woman - they look after me in return for inheriting the lot when the time comes - I wouldn't be bothering them for sex, just companionship and doing things around the house that I might no longer be able to do, making sure I'm not ripped off by tradesmen etc. I'd probably do it as a 'civil partnership' rather than a 'marriage' if it was still an option by then.

These retirement apartments are often impossible to sell ... avoid

It's hard to shore up a pension when so much money is going on daily costs - at 36 you do have time on your side, even a small extra pension contribution has plenty of time to mount up. If you can afford it, I'd start doing something extra towards it now as it will probably make you feel better.

Don't be sad, all you can do is live the best life you can - none of us know how long we will live. Use this sadness as an impetus to put in place some planning and preparation, but don't waste your good years worrying about what may never happen.

You're 36 years old, you have at least 30 years to save into a good pension, maintain good health as best you can, keep your mind sharp and form a decent social network around you. After that it's pot luck how it all ends up.

Same here. Bloody ridiculous 🙄

I worry about this too, but know that having kids is no guarantee they’d help/look after me in old age. I also hope that I’ll save significantly more money by not having them!

@Whatevergetsyouthroughthenight that close care option sounds really interesting, thank you.

Buy several 3/4 bed flats in a block, share between 2-3 couples, sell off flats as needed

Get a ‘geriatric au pair’ in as house sitter 😁

I actually bought a house with a ground floor bedroom and bathroom (aged, ahem, 43) as I don’t want to move. I have a couple of other bedrooms upstairs so current plan is my best friend (mum of 3) will move in with me. Whichever one of us can manage stairs gets main bedroom, other gets downstairs, we get a young lodger in the other room to help us out 😁

Having children is no guarantee of having such genuine help though. I’ve seen it in my own family, with some of my siblings utterly unwilling to help as our parents aged and needed more care. I see it every single day at work, as I work with the elderly.

I think to some degree over-planning is a waste of time and effort as none of us know what the future holds and something unexpected might blindside us and render those plans useless. But I guess being as financially secure as possible, and in as ‘age-proof’ a home as possible are two practical doable things. This is the main reason I bought a bungalow at 32… I want this home to be the only one I ever buy, I don’t want to downsize or move later in life so I bought one I could stay in long term.

I like @musixa's idea of a transactional marriage - I seem to recall years ago a man in France doing this. He couldn't get around so had a taxi driver and ended up marrying the driver's daughter just that reason. I'd be slightly worried about them wanting to anticipate their inheritance, though. 😉and I don't know how you'd go about opening the subject with someone.

I think to some degree over-planning is a waste of time and effort as none of us know what the future holds and something unexpected might blindside us and render those plans useless. But I guess being as financially secure as possible, and in as ‘age-proof’ a home as possible are two practical doable things

Agree with this - and keep the planning you do make flexible.

Your comment about the feeling of insecurity and impermanence is something which nags me also. I don't live in the UK, and while I have some inheritance money it isn't enough to be able to afford to buy. I rent at the moment, and don't mind doing so, but when I get to an advanced age I don't want to be at risk of having to move, possibly several times. I wouldn't qualify for social housing until I whittle my savings down by quite a lot. I have no objections to paying market rent if I can afford it, but it is the threat of not having a place which is guaranteed to be mine as long as I need it which is the worry. I really think some thought is going to have to be given to this, and soon, given that there are many people who can't afford to buy their own property.

A previous lodger of mine who is retired herself (she's about 60-ish) is a live in companion for a woman in her 90s.

As she lives there for free, she gets paid for X amount of hours of help which is things like grocery shopping, driving her around, organising things, etc.

Then she also has a cleaner.

I also suspect that there will be options available that don't exist yet. As things stand there isn't a massive child free portion of the elderly...

By the time we are elderly the demand will be much higher and the market will respond to that in some way.

By the time we are elderly the demand will be much higher and the market will respond to that in some way

They need to get a shift on, I'm 69 in two weeks!

DB lives in Aus and until she retired, DSil ran an RSL retirement facility, which had independent accommodation, supported accommodation and hospice. We were having this chat as DM had had to go into palliative care at another RSL. His opinion was that the ageing of the boomer generation is going to create a huge cultural shift in the way the ageing are cared for - they are outspoken, they don't have the deference to putting up with what they're given that some of DM's generation had, they demand value for money and there are lifestyles that aren't the one man/one woman couples that will need to be accommodated. They're also living a lot longer.

I'm not sure I see the UK being ready for that shift in culture.

@musixa @Summerhillsquare I like the idea of a commune too, for childfree people/couples. Ideally a mix of younger and older people, but I can foresee several issues, other than getting everything set up. What is the younger people have children? DO they then need to leave? And what if anyone starts a relationship with people with children? I am in the first stages of thinking about this.

To be honest, I am not against a mixture of people with and without children, as it would allow for more flexibility, as long as all lifestyles are accepted and supported. The one example of a commune I know of involved several childfree people and one couple with children living together after buying a house and that seems to work well. I also know of communal houses in the Netherlands that have existed for decades, that use a system of people buying in and selling their part when they leave.

This sort of living setup seems much more common in northern EU countries. I think if we want this to happen, we will need to do it ourselves, as people did in The Netherlands, Denmark, etc. I can find more examples.

I am intrigued by this possibility, as I can see that many countries have not put any thought into living arrangements for older people that work. And it we rely on industry/commerce to sort it, we end up with awful no-win constructions like care homes for profit/ retirement properties for profit.

This is exactly what I have done. I was widowed in 2008. In 2021 I decided my house was unmanageable for me long term. I had various health issues and really needed early retirement. So I sold the house for £305k and bought a 1 bed bungalow outright for 126k. It is small but big enough for one person. It was built in 1984 so reasonably modern and requires very little maintenance
It is close to the town centre, general hospital and great public transport. Drawing on the equity from my house and the PIP I receive is providing sufficient income currently. I will start receiving my state pension in 2026 when I am 66.

Food for thought.

As a retired childless person of a certain ahem, age (oldie), I am living in the house and area that I am very happy in. Mortgage paid, and utilities are minimal really. I have a car, but if I didn't, everything is within easy reach by taxi, bus, tram. That includes hospital, doctor, dentist, pharmacy, and so on.

I thought it through when I took early retirement, and got all the big construction jobs done then, kitchen, bathroom (wetroom shower), new heating system etc. Made the house low maintenance, got rid of the clutter, got a chap in to do the garden who is still going strong etc.

It's an older house with only one bathroom upstairs. It's absolutely fine for me, but I am in the process of having a downstairs loo fitted. Putting in a shower area downstairs is not feasible without a very expensive extension, so that's not happening. I can use a chairlift if necessary to access the upstairs wetroom.

I have a room downstairs that is used for my hobbies and doing things on the desktop PC. That could easily convert to a bedroom if necessary on a temporary basis. If I am that unwell, I can live upstairs and make the boxroom into a little basic kitchen, the spare bedroom into a living room. All I'd have to do is slide down the stairs on my broomstick (chair lift) to get out for appointments if necessary.

If it got to the stage where I need a full time carer, well then I would prefer to use a halfway house place in a nursing home grounds instead. There is one near me, flats in the grounds, and when ga ga into the big house with you! I have EPOA in place, and DNR etc.

It is a very interesting thread, and I am sure there are things I haven't thought of yet!

I need someone in SE outskirts of London to set up a cohousing community like OWCH rather than all being north London, that would be my ideal

I think everyone should take full responsibility for themselves in old age whether they have kids or not. "My son will wipe my arse" is a depressed fate for him if he exists!

I am worried my husband might die fairly young (he has an autoimmune disease that attacks his organs). If he goes before me, I think I will probably try to end things myself fairly soon after. I never liked being alive much anyway and I've had my fair share of adventure. My choice and I'll happily take it (although wish euthanasia were available to help).

I am hopeful that this situation will really improve for people in general getting older without kids because there are so many of us now. Maybe the innovators will design future cities with robot carers and support AI. If we don't nuke ourselves first I think the future looks ok.