Why do some parents choose savings over helping adult children?

[Perthgirl]

My Mum is a 86 year old widow has just received a HMRC self-assessment to complete. My father died 3 years ago and all of their ‘joint’ money became her money. She didn't want to pay an accountant to help with her self-assessment and asked me to help.
I have mentioned previously that she would need to complete a self-assessment but this fell on deaf ears as ‘no-one has asked me for it’.
She lives in a £700k very nice house and manages well on her own. She is fit, well and active.
We get on well and I think I am a very loving and supportive daughter. I have never received any financial support from my parents since leaving home at 19.
It transpires that she has over £500,000 in ISAs, Premium Bonds, numerous building society savings accounts. All building society accounts have the £85k IFA protected amount/limit.
My husband and I are 59 and 60, both work full time and have 3 children (triplets) in final year of university. When I did a rough calculation on what £££ she might owe, her comment was oh ‘I might not be able to afford to give the children their £50 Christmas money this year, as I will have a large tax bill’.
It is her money and she is entitled to do what she pleases, etc. She enjoys a very comfortable life, with 3 overseas holiday each year and a busy social life.
She has previously said that she has so much money coming in that she does not know what to do with it. My Dad had a very good state funded pension which she still receives. When I suggested that she might like to help the grandchildren through Uni, she said, well no, as I do not know when I might need the money for myself!
Why would some parents/grandparents choose to pay £1000s to the tax man rather than possibly help the family?
I realise that she may need to fund a care home at some later stage, but £700k + £500k = £1.2M.
Can anyone help me understand?

To answer your question.
Many older people by which I mean those older than me ( I'm 70) remember seeing their own parents struggle in old age. Many of them lived fairly impoverished lives. It therefore becomes a habit to have savings because who knows what might happen.
If she has to pay for care then she's going to have to pay quite large amounts to provide that care. How often do adult children say they won't help with care? So she's making provision for that.
I don't know if either of those is behind her thinking, or if she just didn't know how much was in the accounts. When my FIL died MIL was surprised by how much money they had. He kept it a secret from her. She's busy spending it.

This.

Also, as others have said, care is expensive and money is a largely finite source when you're retired (with the exclusion of interest etc).

My wealthy in-laws are very concerned about ensuring they have enough money to cover any eventuality. Imagine building yourself a comfortable life and retirement, only to give money away then be hit by circumstances which drained your finances rapidly and left you reliant on the very offspring you'd helped out? Care homes are expensive, private nursing care at home is expensive, cleaners are expensive when you rely on them for the daily upkeep of a large property (and 'downsizing' means leaving behind the home you raised your family in and have treasured memories in) and I don't blame them for wanting to ensure they can independently see themselves through their elderly years in a comfortable and dignified way.

I had a large inheritance. I was excited as fuck to be able to help ds1 buy his first home. I don’t understand why people get any pleasure out of snaffling away money for the sake of it. Miserable.

I've lost count of the number of posts like this where the OP is claiming their parent(s) are HUGELY well off and yet they are scrimping and scraping, as are their children.

My DM is roughly the same as yours - so they were born just as WW2 began. They had a childhood of fuck all, as rationing went on until 1954 - at which point they were 15/16 and they had been brought up to scrimp and scrape and - more importantly - with the attitude that independence and resiliance were important and that no one was coming to help you with handouts.

I'm your age/generation and I left home at 18 as a fully fledged adult. My parents, although not as well off as yours, are probably comfortable enough and I have never had, nor expected a penny from them. Our generation benefitted from free university fees and having been brought up in the 1970s were also raised on being allowed to run free, be independent and sort our own problems out.

I cannot fathom why you think your DM would, or should, hand over money to you, no matter how much she might have. She could easily live to be over 100. She could easily need a nursing home for the next 15 years or so. She's unable to earn any more money and she doesn't know what is 'spare' because she doesn't know what she will need to cover her own life needs.

Hmm I would always argue on the side of older people having the right to spend their own money as they please, but in this case I think it’s a bit much for your mum to not be prepared to pay an accountant and already announce she might not be able to give her grandchildren a Christmas present in these circumstances. That is miserly and quite cruel.

In your shoes I would say she needs to pay an accountant rather than expecting to have your time, especially when she is planning to potentially not even give your children a Christmas present. Your time is as valuable to you as her money is to her.

I understand completely OP. My parents are wealthy but will watch me scrub their fridge on my hands and knees rather than employ a decent cleaner. I'm so frustrated with their inability to make their own lives comfortable that I've argued with them several times about the mentality of hording money for care when they're not meeting their own health and hygiene needs now. If they don't go into care and leave me the considerable amount of money plus the house I'll vary their will minus whatever HMRC take in inheritance tax to make sure my own daughter doesn't struggle to buy a house.

An equal question for you to consider is why do you feel entitled to receive money from someone else?
Is it because she is your parent that you consider her money to be yours by default? I have never wondered why my parents or anyone else are not sharing their money with me, nor do I share my money with anyone else. I have a will so that when I die it is portioned out to several people, but until that time, my money is mine. I may keep it in savings, I may splurge it all on luxuries, that’s my choice.

In your mother’s case, the value of her house is irrelevant, she can’t spend that money without selling her home. £500,000 is a lovely amount of savings but she has no way to earn more, life gets more and more expensive, she is elderly and vulnerable, and that money is her safety net. The cost of care is ridiculously expensive. Please don’t guilt her into feeling responsible for funding grandchildren or anything else.

That’s all fair enough but her mother is already talking about potentially not giving her grandchildren Christmas presents on account of not having enough money. That’s odd behaviour in these circumstances and I would question it too.

Avarice and greed

I think people sometimes repeat what their parents did. My grandparents died of a short illness and left everything to their kids. I'm not expecting an inheritance as my mother is in much better health than my dad but she refuses to even spend an hour on her own (has been the case for many years- if my dad went to watch cricket once a year she'd demand people babysit her) so would need to go into residential care if she is ever widowed

Well the house doesn't attract any interest or tax, how much of the £500k is in the taxable building society accounts? If I guess half then interest on the £250k at 4% would give her interest of about £10k and assuming her pension takes out her personal allowance she would have about £2K tax to pay on that at the 20% rate. Does she take the interest monthly on the BS accounts to supplement her pension? She probably should or she will feel fairly poor if she is only really living off her pension. £500k savings is really not a huge amount if she may need to pay care home fees.

Jesus she's not even dead yet and your already worried about her spending what money you figure is yours? If I was her I'd leave you nothing your a grown up

Because they can.
Full stop.

I don't understand it either.

@Marylou2 I've had similar with my in-laws for the last 6 years, when I think of everything I've done for them while they were sitting on £100,000's.

My pils have lived a very frugal life, own brand food and caravan holidays etc. when mil went into hospital a few years ago and FiL was v overwhelmed he asked me to step in and help him. That's when I found out how much money they had.

it's all gone now on care. It make me feel ill to think that's how much money they've spent on basically other people to wipe their bums. We never asked for any financial help, and they never offered and instead sat and watched us struggle a few times when DH was made redundant.

On the other hand when my son at University phoned us in a panic as his car insurance had gone up by over £1000 what did we do? Paid it. Because he's our son and we won't watch him struggle.

Indeed. I mean, my parents were/are relatively well off and the first thing they did was make sure we were all educated and able to stand on our own two feet. And we do. I have zero interest in inheriting anything because I want to make sure my living parent spends the rest of their lives in comfort. They are in a home and it's a GREAT home but it is incredibly expensive, far more expensive than University fees. That's what their money is for.

because she doesn’t care so much about helping or treating you or your kids.

It depends what the savings accounts are and how easy they are to liquidate. I said above she really needs some of them giving monthly interest so she has cash in her pocket, if they are locked in for potentially years she may feel poor living on her pension, someone needs to maximise her income from her savings keeping the capital intact as far as possible, and then liquidising the taxable accounts gradually if necessary for her comfort.

Because they're greedy and selfish.

I don’t understand it because I just couldn’t watch my children struggle, no matter what age they were. However I noticed my previously generous mum get very strange about money as she got to be very old (90s), though it was more about being mean with herself - buying cheap food and clothes, not putting the heating on etc. I might be tempted to suggest to your mum that if she feels she can’t afford to contribute £150 for her DGCs Christmas you’ll make up the shortfall by charging her a very reasonable rate for helping her complete her tax return. If she doesn’t like them apples she can pay an accountant - the tightwad!

Care home fees near me are £1500 a week. Her money would deplete rapidly but at least you stand to inherit something from her. I’ve got a few friends who have thought they were going to inherit but it’s been swallowed by care home fees. Sometimes the timing of your inheritance doesn’t fall nicely but that’s not her problem.

Are you the OP’s mum?

100% this.

But what would you have done if they didn't havd the means to cover those care home fees? In the end it sounds like they did need it, at their most vulnerable time.

Foe literally the reasons she told you. She doesn't know when or if she will need it. She may need at some stage to go into a care hlme or even more expensive nursing home.

She may feel happier that she can afford to turn her heating on whenever she wants tk rather than worrying about bills.

They have spent years accumulating their assets and at this tine of life she is in a deaccumulation stage with any expenditure. She doesn't know how many years she had left and needs the security of keeping her money to fund any potential possibilities.

Frugal war generation. Different mindset.