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?

Our parents never gave us any money but were financially in my eyes well off.
We have had a different approach and each month give our children a £100 each.
Our thinking that they need it now not wait until we are dead.
I am retiring this year and our finances will be sorted again via the accountant.
They have always given us good advice re the tax.
Perhaps your mum should see a proper accountant for advice.

I think there can be a real fear of running out which is unbeatable but often leads to questionable decision making. The OP’s mum does at least sound like she is spending on herself re holidays which isn’t a given. It’s not uncommon to see elderly people accumulating and refusing to spend at all.

That said, she’s currently going to be over the inheritance tax threshold. She really should be spending down and gifting the portion over £1m unless she’s happy to give the Chancellor £80k of the £200k.

I don't get it but I am aware that some elderly people (and your mum isn't yet that elderly but on the brink of it), are very scared about money and seek to have a big pile in case they need it. They can't help how they feel.

Try not to think about it, that won't change anything.

It seems to me that the people who feel the most entitled to their parents money always seem to have the meanest parents, and the ones who want their parents to use their money for themselves have the generous one. Natural justice or the apple not falling far from the tree I wonder?

No, I was just making a point in response,the poster was saying that pensioners are well off.

A financial advisor will tell the OPs mum to get rid of some of that money

£1.2 million is unlikely to run out. That’s a huge amount and 10 years in a care home! Virtually no one does this. I assume she understands about IHT? She’s probably got £1 million tax free but she could give some away on the 7 year rule now. She sounds rather uneducated on tax and not really wanting to help.

Yes and make her consider giving money to family, rather than the tax man.

The OP’s post is not like that. Many in her position would have the same opinion.Her mother could do some good with her money and still have plenty left for her own needs. It’s the fact that she’s being unnecessarily frugal and mean which OP is understandably resentful about.

I don't believe OP said anything about AA or rental. "Substantial" pension is not something quantified here either. Most important - when she's run out of money she won't be able to get a job to get some more.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that OP's DM knows deep insight that she has to ensure she's got funding to last her till the end and probably doesn't want to end up in some awful LA funded home, so keeping her savings as some reassurance of independence.

Absolutely! And let’s be more altruistic here: if more retired people outsourced some of the free labour they expect their children to do (such as in the OP’s case) then maybe more jobs would be created and the economy would be in a stronger position?

It’s quite difficult to be of working age in the UK right now. I pay for private healthcare and private dentistry just to be able to get healthcare, I have not had any support from the government for anything. My glasses alone cost hundreds of pounds a pop, student loans and all the rest. So I do get a little irate when I see articles like this: https://news.sky.com/story/all-the-freebies-benefits-and-discounts-available-to-pensioners-13478683

And the OP is the one who is being entitled?

Yes and posters are overlooking that her substantial pensions, Attendance Allowance and rental monies from her property, would contribute substantially to any care home fees.

She’s just a mean, tightfisted, selfish old cow. Sorry.

FWIW dh and I are pretty ancient, with plenty of savings, but we have helped dds substantially in the past (house deposits) and will almost certainly be doing so again in the not too distant since a dd and SiL have separated and we will have to buy him out of the family home. And probably help dd financially afterwards,

Plus we have put substantial amounts into junior ISAs for the Gdcs.

Yes, I know we are fortunate to be able to do all this, but I don’t regret any of it for a second.

And most are, comparatively speaking when compared with the generations of pensioners that came before them and the generations of pensioners that will come after them. That’s a statistical fact.

I will try.
People of that generation, regardless of wealth suffered during the war years and rationing. It is probably something we find hard to imagine today. Limitations on what you eat. And could get. Not just food but clothing. Things were mended.
It affected them deeply.
More people rented in those days and not having enough to pay your debts was considered shameful. People did without. Even the NHS only began in 1948. Doctors had to be paid. All of them.

Also, as people age they lose an understanding of what money can buy. And how well off they are. They become terrified of not having enough.
No matter how often you explain you have the money, they will not understand it in today’s world. The world of yesterday tells them they might not.

Encourage them to spend on themselves, for pleasure and comfort. But go easy.

It isn’t a mean thing. For her it is a safety net even if she doesn’t realise how big her net is.

Anyone in a care home contributes their entire pension, plus they automatically qualify for Attendance Allowance.

I supported my mother from 24 to about 36 so I know the guilt tripping spiel all too well, you do well in declining to pay.

People moan about IHT but this is a case of deserving to pay it. If you have that much in assets you need to spend some (more, in this case) of it. You can give gifts of £3000 a year plus smaller gifts out of income and they don't count for IHT. And helping a grandchild through university isn't deprivation of assets.

f more retired people outsourced some of the free labour they expect their children to do (such as in the OP’s case) then maybe more jobs would be created and the economy would be in a stronger position true, though it's mostly care and domestic work like gardening which I suspect most people don't want to do (maybe the gardening is different).

I clearly met different people when I was working then.

And she won't run out of pension, it will pay until she dies. I assume the substantial pension from the OP's father is a final salary scheme, given her age. So it goes on and on until she dies.

Very true. That fear of poverty was always there for that generation When my father died he left piles of sales clothes he hadn’t worn or opened. He was afraid of having nothing .

That would actually be an extremely cheap home too. My relative is in a middling home (with dementia care) and it's more like 2k a week. In just a few years she's gone through all her savings on that (probably similar ball park to the OP's mother) and the house is now being sold to pay going forward. It won't last all that long. It might seem mad to have 1m in assets at that age, but if you need significant care then you're going to need that. State care rarely covers the full amount for even a poor home, they would go to the family for top up fees, which I imagine the OP wouldn't really want given they're already stretched.

Personally, I want my parents to keep everything they've got so that they can cover their needs, and if there's anything left it'll come to us. And I'm a single mum also struggling to cover my own costs. I have to say, when I see threads like this I have to wonder whether the posters actually care very much about their parents' wellbeing and security in their most difficult years. Why should they jeopardize that to keep funding the younger generations when we at least have earning power, even if it's not easy?

You are great parents!

I’m going to be quite controversial here and say that I do not have much sympathy for those who lived the majority of their working lives in the UK with all its help, the welfare safety net, the support from cradle to grave, the grants, the low cost housing etc etc. from the post WWII period onwards and is now retired without much to show for it. I get that you can take a horse to water and all that but come on. What more could society have done for that generation? And the level of support still given to pensioners? Come on now.

This, unless you have really worked out the cost of a care home, > a million in savings and property sounds a huge amount- but in that context, its not at all.

The OP will inherit whats left, and if she's right, and her mum doesn't end up needing her savings, that will be a big help (and if she wishes, she can choose then to pay off her DCs student debts, but she may by then feel that she needs savings for her own retirement costs...). And that will be a generous thing that her mother provides for the OP.
But its not a right to have access to those funds now, when it could leave OPs mum short later.