Should more people prepare for old age?

[Glasscabinet]

Bear with me on this one.

Off the back of two thoughts: PIL have received a sizeable inheritance and have asked us to have a think of what we’d like as they’d like to pay for something for us (car/something for our house/holiday). I won’t side this thread by they’ll be hidden strings involved so we’ve declined the offer three times.

But joking aside, what I’d really like them to spend the money on is planning for their old age. They’re both mid 70s, okayish health (FIL has had cancer twice in the last decade) but neither have had a particularly healthy lifestyle which is starting to show. Supposedly nobody in FIL’s side has reached 80; I doubt FIL will either. But they still manage two long haul holidays a year (for longer periods as they take them slower these days).

I can preempt that we’ll get the call within the next five years that FIL has died and MIL cannot cope alone in her four-bed-house. She hates her own company and relies on FIL for everything (no online shopping/cannot put fuel in the car/very much panics in any situation/problem…) The house has a downstairs toilet but no shower, not wheelchair friendly, huge garden and the area isn’t the safest- doubtful MIL would feel comfortable going to the shops in a scooter etc. The house is also four bedrooms of clutter.

Also reading another thread of when elderly family need to move it’s too late. Basically you’ve got to be pretty capable of doing a big move and life can change in an instant.

We’ve got a young family and I doubt it’s ’complete’. I feel almost obliged to spell it out to them that they can’t be relying on us as it’s just not feasible. MIL makes a lot of comments that we need to move closer as they want to help us with childcare. I feel myself biting my tongue that they need to sort out their arrangements first.

Not only that, but all the older people would "could" afford to go private but refuse to spend the money meaning waiting list longer for everyone. It's a real shame that it's political suicide for something like tax relief on private health costs which would free up so much money, so many appointment spaces, etc. This "equality" just makes things worse for everyone!

DH often pays for private MRI scans, private eye specialists, private hearing aids, etc., as we don't want to wait for the NHS long queues for appointments as he has DH has cancer and is immunocompromised, he doesn't want to have to hang around in cramped hospital waiting rooms for hours catching God knows what due to lack of ventilation, etc. He prefers being "in and out" as quickly as possible and is happy to pay for that. And of course, with his lifespan curtailed, he wants treatments as quickly as possible so that he can live what's left of his life and not be held back by constantly waiting for NHS appointments.

I wish that people would plan for their old age and accept that making a few changes early on can help them long term. Also for some elderly people there is this expectation that of course adult daughters can drop all to care, drive them places, do paperwork, sort out thing's and pick up the slack. Meanwhile the adult daughter's have jobs, mortgages and bills to pay and possibly have a child or children as well.

One of my friends now has a mother in her 80's and she has made no plans for this stage of her life. The same woman refused to sell the big family house with a garden that miles away from the nearest town and move into something smaller in town a few years ago. She now has some cognitive decline. She expects that everyone can drop all to suit her and her needs without realising that people have their own lives and responsibilities to care for.
She has to find something to moan about and has been verbally nasty to my friend.

She recently needed my friends help for several weeks due to a health issue.
My friend moved into her house to do this. My friend had very little free time off because her siblings were just to busy to help out. In the past her mother her mother left her to deal with several difficult situations on her own and never offered help.

One of our friends told her you need to get back into work even part time because otherwise everything is going to land on you. My friend is currently working towards doing this. She plans to tell her mother and family that she has got a new job when it happens.
She said her mother's lack of planning is not her problem to sort out and nor will she be available 7 days a week to provide care ect.

@Ilady familiar tale again. Hopefully those of us who have experienced this with elderly parents will forge a better path for ourselves - and before anyone flames me with the ‘oh you will be the same’…..no I will not. I respect my own adult children. I respect they have their own lives and families and careers. I respect they will not be able to retire in their mid 50s like my parents did with full triple lock pension. I respect each generation has its own issues BUT I will not destroy my children's middle age because I am too stubborn/proud/whatever platitude you fancy to be responsible for myself.

Without rambling I have done more already to secure a sensible manageable later life already than my parents have ever done. They had a fabulous retirement quite early. They had some fabulous holidays etc but they made zero provision for old age - they utterly failed to maintain their property or make it suitable for getting frail/sick/again whatever word it is. They mocked peers and family who down sized. They failed to clear out 60 plus years of crap. They simply left it for us to do.

I am far from perfect but my manageable home means I can enjoy life without ever opening a drawer/cupboard/ shed etc and thinking ‘oh that bucket (or 15 buckets) which is full of ‘stuff’ probably needs to be got rid of. I have everything I NEED. For me that is enough.

@BlueLegume

I agree. We’ve certainly done what we can, and will make further changes, to make life easier for our only child, a son, once we’ve gone. Even more so that he will have to do it on his own as no siblings nor other close family. Wills in place, POAs in place, Prepaid & preplanned funerals, house being declutterred ready to move into a smaller more suitable home for retirement and potential disabilities, paperwork weeded and organised into just a couple of files, business being slowly wound down with succession plan in place with another firm who’ll seamlessly take over if we die or become incapacitated.

We’re “only” 60!

We’ve both been dumped on by our respective parents who buried their heads in the sand and did barely anything to plan for old age. No way are we doing that to our son. We want him to have happy memories, not just memories of caring for us and having to take weeks off work to sort out years of “stuff”.

We saw with both sets of parents that you don’t realise when you start going downhill and by the time you realise, it’s usually too late as you’ve lost the mind space to make big changes like moving house. You go into “ostrich mode” where even little things become too much to deal with. Hence why so many end up in unsuitable cluttered homes as they just can’t deal with it anymore.

We want to be proactive and ahead of the curve as we’ve both experienced what it’s like when you’re reactive and behind the curve. No need for it to be like that.