How to help our children/loved ones in the future when we’re old and hopefully lovely and manageable

[I8toys]

What advice or actions would you put in place (now that you have the knowledge of dealing with all aspects of elderly care) to assist your loved ones if you lose all rationality or capacity in the future

I’ll start

• Wills
• POA for health and finance
• Funeral plans and wishes
• Decluttering/ downsizing
• Spreadsheet of accounts- savings etc. this helped us so much when Fil lost capacity but we still found all sorts of accounts/ bonds

Make sure Will is up to date and know what solicitor it's lodged with or where it is in the house

Make someone trusted POA for finance and health

Declutter the house and possibly downsize

Don't be stubborn!

People often recommend making advance directives, but how will you know what you want until you’re in that situation? For example, some say that if they were elderly and had terminal cancer, they wouldn’t have chemotherapy to prolong their lives. Yet in that situation, people often cling on to treatment until the bitter end. Do they? What I’ve read suggests that they go against expectations and refuse treatment. Losing a year of your life to chemo is a bigger deal when you may only have 10 years left in total.

Not if you do it early enough, when you have no care need.

Thank you for this thread.
For me, single, approaching retirement, and only one relative (aged and declining parent), I'm going to have to appoint a solicitor to have POA. I have plenty of friends but scattered different parts of the country. I've done contract work across the UK so deciding where to retire to is also tricky. I may need to make a wise and early decision about residential care. All sobering thoughts.

My hope is to downsize in 60s so we're not rolling around our house
Move to a location with shops, restaurants, cafe and public transport in shuffling distance so I'm not stranded/needing lifts all the time if I can't drive - more or less where we are now just off a high street would be ideal, the middle of quiet suburbia with nothing but houses all around or a small village would be the absolute worst.
POA in place - we've signed these for our parents, I would definitely arrange the same.
We have wills, but obviously need to keep updated.
An advanced directive on healthcare in case of dementia - I do not want my life prolonged/saved if I have lost mental capacity and become seriously ill
I'd hope to have money aside to pay for care if it comes to it, but I don't know how likely we are to manage that.

Honestly, it can be done much quicker if you have to. My mum wasn't a massive hoarder, but she had a 5 bedroom house and so of course there was plenty of stuff in it - some of it useful, some sentimental and some of no interest to anyone but here. But my brother and I live some hours away and the house had to be sold, so we just had to crack on and went through it all in a few days - a pile to keep, a pile to chuck (we kept making trips to the tip) and the rest left for house clearance. Neither of us have lots of space to keep tons of stuff, so we were just ruthless and only kept a small amount of things like photos, christening gowns, certificates, letters and a few books/ornaments etc.

I’ll make a note to my future self - don’t be a PITA and refuse paid help from outside the family. Don’t expect my DC to do everything for me instead. Don’t insist on staying in a home that’s no longer safe or manageable.

This seems so obvious to me now, but one day I could become stubborn and set in my ways.

What bloody nonsense 🙄. The state can’t afford to fund old age care for all. If I need it I’ll happily use my house to pay for it - we’ve been lucky and had well paying jobs, doesn’t mean I’ve worked any harder than the cleaners, carers and nurses who’ve earnt much less and will have to rely on state care. Such a fucking selfish attitude.

Agree. I've been lucky enough to have a reasonable paying job (not by any means rich), and what I have should go in the pot. All in it together I reckon.

Pre retirement we tackled a number of jobs on our home - windows, roof, electrics and new boiler/bathroom Since retirement we rejigged downstairs layout to provide a snug which could be a downstairs bedroom if needed and replaced kitchen

We have decluttered (well I have DH not so much) I need to sort POAs next and an advanced directive for health

We did this as sorting out MIL as she aged was horrendous and I am determined not to do that to our children

All in it together, fine. What’s not so fine is to realise next door’s children will be rolling in it because both parents died quickly, while because of my long illness, my children will continue to struggle.

And “but at least they still have their parent” isn’t the positive it may seem - with any long drawn out cognitive decline there comes a moment when you realise your parent has gone, and you have several more years caring for the body they used to inhabit.

Advance decisions only kick in when you’ve lost the capacity to make decisions for yourself. If you don’t have capacity, then someone has to make the decisions for you. It’s fairer for me, now, with capacity, to make decisions for me future with no capacity than to expect my spouse/children to make those decisions.

I admit this is much easier to do for those of us with experience of what the last few years of life can look like, both positive and negative. Quality of life is not just about physical pain or about capacity.

Yes, it's harsh that folks with lots of savings etc end up spending more on care (if it's needed). Yes, the likelihood is those same folks will have earned more, paid more tax etc too.

Personally, I'd rather have the financial buffer than be reliant on what the state can offer. Hell knows what state support will exist in future - there's going to be an awful lot of pensioners in the UK in future. I'd also like to know that I can pay for my hip or knee op and get sorted quickly if I need that as I age along with being able to afford to heat my home, to eat properly, repair / replace things etc.

I completely accept that I may have to spend any savings and potentially have the house proceeds going to fund care once both of us are gone. The only thing we're doing with regard to that is making sure our assets are roughly evenly split - basically to ensure whoever lands up in care first doesn't leave the remaining person broke.

I doesn't matter to me whether my siblings (we don't have any kids) inherit anything and nor do I care if I inherit from them or any remaining parents. I'd rather everyone lived their lives to the fullest and happiest than try to avoid spending money to leave it to the next generation.

I think there is some rule where if the partner is still in the house it is not taken into the calculation of care costs but I am not sure. maybe someone else will know.

This x1000. We're five skips down and still going. Weekend after weekend. MIL is in care now and oblivious. Never a Thankyou. Never a sorry.

I know you can't be made to sell the house whilst one person still lives there so not too worried about that.

It's more just making sure we don't end up with one or other of us having significantly more in savings. Maybe a joint account is easiest way but we've always had our own accounts.

We had a much loved family member die suddenly. He'd taken out a plan with a funeral director who was also his neighbour. In the 20 or so years since the plan had been taken out the firm changed hands and the new owners lost the paperwork. They did do the funeral but it was an extra hassle.

I'm not sure if I'd have a funeral plan or not. I think it is a good idea to discuss it with relatives though.

Downsize and declutter now.

keep moving as much as you can now, and for as long as you can in the future

eta I’m 57. I’ve done the first. Actively doing the second.

*How to help our children/loved ones in the future when we’re old and hopefully lovely and manageable *I look forward with horror to a time where being “manageable” is a virtue

It was meant as a tongue in cheek comment. I don't want to be cantankerous and inflexible but listen and respect my children's comments when I am asking for any assistance from them.

Definitely a good idea to discuss funeral plan with relatives. I don’t think DF has one. He’d have discussed it with me if he’d done a local one. Goodness knows whether he had one where he lived till his 80s. He says he hasn’t got one. But then he says his nursing home is staffed by people doing community service for manslaughter. And I haven’t find one in the papers I’ve found (but what about the papers I haven’t found?) So yes, make sure you tell your relatives.

Mine wasn’t that serious a comment. I’ve read the title umpteen times, but this morning it elicited a shudder. Loss of autonomy is one of the things I dread about old age, along with being “managed”. I don’t expect I’m alone

I'd add - don't tell just one person what your wishes are.

I'm fortunate in having quite a few kids, and I have told ALL of them what my wishes are for living and after I'm gone. I don't think all the responsibility should be with one of them and I don't want to foster resentment and arguments after I die. I don't, for example, want them arguing about 'what Mum might want' if I get dementia; I've told them I want to stay in my home as long as possible, but if it's too much to put me in a care facility. It's not one person's responsibility or guilt to carry that way, and they won't be falling out over what one of them decided needed to be done if the others don't agree. If it's what I want, then tough.

I'm redoing my will/POA/expression of wishes this month due to my ds's suddenly death.
My direct cremation is paid for and everything discussed with dh and dd. I'm thankful ds left a will with funeral wishes as it saved us a lot of unnecessary grief and arguments.