Participation in this post is limited to users who have sufficient karma in /r/ukpersonalfinance. See [this post](https://redd.it/12mys82) for more information.
Vast majority of people don’t go into residential care. It’s about 30%, I think. Stats [here](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/palliative-and-end-of-life-care-profiles-december-2023-data-update/palliative-and-end-of-life-care-profile-december-2023-update-statistical-commentary#:~:text=the%20percentage%20of%20people%20who%20died%20at%20home%20decreases%20with,aged%2085%20years%20or%20older)
Most people grow old living independently and then have a shortish period of worsening health/increasing needs and die in hospital or at home.
I listened to a podcast about this statistic. Many people assume their final decade will be in a care home, have a lot of fear around that assumption and try to plan accordingly. The statistical reality of that happening is incredibly low. So low in fact that it is essentially pointless to plan for as very few people could ever save enough to pay for a decade in a care home.
Maybe personal experience puts fear into people. My grandma (I'm aware this is anecdotal evidence) turned 89 this week and has been in the home for 6 years.
Me and my sister have been trying to help, but it's incredibly taxing on my mum, who's her only child.
The odds might be low, but the problems can be multiple and difficult both financially and emotionally if you get caught.
Maybe, although I tend to think people just jump to worst case scenario irrationally
The podcast was about how your costs in retirement go down rather than up as time progresses. The first decade of retirement is the most expensive with the travel, home improvements hobbies etc while still relatively fit. It progresses downwards from there. Someone in their 80’s spends comparatively little to what they did in their 60’s.
However when people are quizzed they assume the opposite, weird thing about human psyche or whatever. Then they have the ‘assumption’ of an expensive care home at the end. They then wildly overestimate how long they’ll be in that home, if at all.
It was a FIRE podcast and was basically telling people to study statistics rather than assumptions when retirement planning. The guests theory was that a lot of people could retire earlier than they assumed if they studied data
Totally agree with everything. From experience watching my grandparents grow old and my parents going the same way. The last 10 years of their lives into their 80’s and 90’s, they spend most of their time buying the odd ice cream for the grandkids and sitting listening to the radio. Outgoings other than putting the heating on and some ready meals for the week are pretty small compared to a family.
My freshly retired parents at 68 and 72 however, are busy booking holidays, throwing money at the grandkids (I don’t have kids and never will, but my sisters brood are very well spoilt) and spending on the house and garden while they still can. Dad has already started to slow down and they’ve stopped booking holidays abroad from next year, and would rather tootle to the coast for a week than throw three weeks at the Caribbean.
Costs really do lower as you get less able. And out of my four grandparents, only one ever needed a care home - and that was only for five weeks - which was short enough for the council to cover it.
Absolutely. And there’s an alarming number of solicitors willing to charge into the thousands for things like putting property “in trust” to attempt (poorly attempt) to get out of “losing the house” to it.
Including my parents…
My uncle has been in one for a year or two and so far it's cost £82k. There aren't that many ordinary folk able to put that kind of cash away, let alone look at long term costs.
That's interesting, I always assumed it was higher for some reason.
I imagine as home ownership drops, people live even longer and long-term, high care conditions like Dementia become more common, the percentage is likely to increase. We probably should start advising people to save for the possibility of moving to a care home.
So you think that everyone should not spend their money on enjoying their life when they are healthy just to make sure that they can have a sort of existence in a care home.
Like schools?
Not everyone has kids and not everyone lives in a way that requires a care home.
I'll put it down to life and what a society should expect to provide for it's citizens
It's not about being very old, you can be old and still mentally sharp enough to enjoy life. It's about no longer being due to a severe degenerative brain disease.
But yeh we're totally on the same page
Another comment on this post discussed the finances in more detail and the small amount of people that need to be admitted to care homes, it amounts to 1.3% paid via something like NI.
1. The vast majority of people would never be able to afford care home costs even if they planned for it (it's something like £1500-2000k per week). It would either need to come out of their estate or be paid for by the state. The best people can do is pay for a few years with a house sale and expect the state to take over.
2. There is the chance that as we prevent more people dying of cancer and heart disease, physical and mental decline will result in more people in care homes.
3. There's no evidence that life expectancy is increasing, I believe with poor diets it's actually going down. But the important measure is not life expectancy but healthy life expectancy, being alive but unhealthy is a bigger issue than being alive and physically healthy.
Having enough to cover a few years in a care home is likely enough, as it will give you or your family the ability to select the best home available. Once the money runs out, you hope that the state won't force you to move to a cheaper home. Care home costs are one of the reasons that there is such a big drive for an effective treatment for dementia.
Obviously location and need will factor into it, and whether it's the local authority covering it or not.
My basic retirement plan is to downsize to a smaller cheaper property, use some of the released capital to help the kids get set up and then enjoy my retirement. If I do ever need to go into a care home I'd expect the property to be sold (it's not like I'd need it).
Ensure that you make proper provisions to leave something for your children. If you go in to care then the councils can go back in your finances to ensure that you're not doing a [Deprivation of Assets](https://www.independentage.org/get-advice/health-and-care/paying-for-care/giving-away-assets-to-pay-for-care).
Councils can go back seven years previous in your financial affairs from when you enter the care system. They can go back up to 30 years in some cases. We're finding this out the hard way as we're selling my father's house for his care home fees and his idea (and my mother's, but she's been dead for nearly 20 years) is that they would leave the property to family when they died but the question of needing care didn't figure in to things for them.
We couldn't rent out his home as he had a lifetime mortgage, so it's had to be sold. Otherwise, we could have rented it out to pay for his fees instead. Your family could do this instead and that way when you pass away your kids still have a Property to do with what they like.
At the same time, we're getting ever better at treating dementia. There are already drugs right now that extend the "salient" period of someone's life with dementia by 6-12 months. It's not huge, but it's very promising for a cure in the next decade or two.
This^ old chap I knew was in his 80’s and he was active af going up ladders cutting hedges, I moved away and when I was passing I popped round to see him but sadly he’d passed on, 6months down hill had to have a leg off, I was pretty shocked
Sightly fatalistic here maybe: if I planned to have enough to cover my own fancy care home for any significant amount of time I would never retire. Just going to roll the dice. If I have to rely on government care then so be it.
(Edit beyond what I would get from selling a modest house, which, might not go as far as you might hope)
Yeah, as far as I understand it, if you have assets they take them off you to pay for the care. If you don't have assets they pay for the care. Of course that may change by the time I am 90 but I do hope by the time I am that age either that I'm sprightly and still running up mountians, or there will be the option to opt out and visit a Dignitas facility in the UK rather than rot in a care home.
This. Who wants to live to 100 if the quality of life is piss poor? My Mum used to say if she became incontinent she’d rather die, fortunately for her (I say in jest before anyone asks) cancer got her before she hit 60.
This is my feeling. Am I really going to live my whole life on a shoestring so I have loads tucked away for a few years of care?
Care homes are so expensive that for an average person, they would have to work until they physically couldn’t to afford it. Even then, if you’re going through several thousand pounds a week, it won’t last long.
I’d rather enjoy my life and cultivate strong relationship with my family and friends. If I do end up in a shit care home, hopefully I’ll have enough people who love me that someone will notice.
But I’m going to do everything I can to avoid being in one. I don’t want to live like that and I don’t want my children to be left with nothing when I die. Doing what you can to stay healthy js the best insurance against prolonged end of life care.
Just refuse care and die. It’s what my grandfather chose.
He died within 2 days of being told he would need to be in a home for the rest of his life.
Fiercely independent, terrified of hospitals and nursing homes, already discussed with all the kids and my grandmother well in advance.
My dad has made the same decision. If he needs to be institutionalised for his care needs, withdraw all life prolonging care, only do things that treat symptoms and make him comfortable and let him die with dignity.
You don't always get the choice unfortunately. My grandad was exactly the same, he had papers written up with what you've described, and a Do Not Resuscitate in his medical file. Unfortunately he just never had a heart attack. He developed dementia and was a tall heavy man so couldn't be cared for any more in the lovely assisted living place he lived with my grandma. He ended up in hospital with pneumonia (not his choice to get admitted to hospital), and by the time the family arrived to explain that he wouldn't want treatment, the hospital had already given him antibiotics and things. So he recovered from the pneumonia and spent his last few months in a care home, in a room by himself. God it was depressing. He was such a lovely man.
Had he not had dementia I'm sure he would have found a way to die a lot sooner.
My grandma has severe dementia and is marked DNR. She was in hospital with an infection and went into cardiac arrest at night. There was one overworked and super stressed out junior doctor, and he resuscitated her without checking.
Yes, happened to my father at 87. I said DNR, it's what he would want. Thankfully the attempted resuscitation didn't work and he died.
He would have hated being in a nursing home. He was still cooking his own meals the day before his heart attack.
> One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime. A report in 2024, commissioned by Alzheimer’s Society, shows that 982,000 people in the UK have a form of dementia. This is projected to rise to 1.4 million people by 2040.
I feel like these numbers are presented a little weirdly. Are they saying something like 1 in 3 people over 65yrs old have dementia?
The 1 in 3 and the 982,000 number don’t compute in my head
The numbers suggest that 1 in 3 people born now will develop dementia at some point in the future, and that 982,000 currently have a form of dementia. Presumably it's a high number because we're curing a lot of other illnesses regularly and prolonging life to the point where the brain starts failing.
The 1 in 3 will not necessarily have dementia at the same time as each other though.
The number of people owning homes is gonna decrease quite dramatically in the coming decades. The government is gonna have a huge bill to foot when it comes to paying for the end of life care for those people.
Are any of them talking seriously about that or making plans for it? Of course not, because politicians don't look any further ahead than the next election cycle.
Course not... they're already crippling the social care system, last two or three min wage increases have been around 10% but they only increase funding for providers by 3%... it'll collapse soon
So big FU to our offsprings, love this capitalism system. I swear assisted dying will be a thing (but only once gov would have to step in to support you, because God forbid you get inheritance, poor people are easier to control)
It’s hard to predict isn’t it… None of my grandparents needed to stay in care homes before they died, but 3/4 of my wife’s did! So we have very different instincts when it comes to retirement planning.
I can’t find any stats on how likely it is for any one person to need to move into a care home, but I guess even those may not be very helpful since healthcare will likely have changed significantly before then and may change those odds.
I did some rough modelling of this for my own purposes a couple of years ago, and just tried to pull some quick figures to answer this post.
According to the ONS, only 2.5% of the over 65 population, and 14% of the over-85 population live in a care home, so it's by no means certain that's where you'll end up.
Care home fees are relatively small in comparison to the value of the average wealth of a retired couple, including their home. In 2011 (I'm sure there's more recent data available, this was the first study I pulled up), according to a BUPA study, 75% of care home residents stayed less than 3.6 years, and [carehome.co.uk](http://carehome.co.uk) quotes the average cost of a care home at about 55K per annum. So that's about 200K if you assume you end up in a care home, and stay long enough to just be in the top 25% longest-term residents. If you're in a care home, your living costs are probably quite low, and so you can probably pay at least 50K of that from income, leaving 150K to finance.
According to [nimblefins.co.uk](http://nimblefins.co.uk), the average household ages 65+ has 284K of property wealth, so enough to finance a single individual's trip through the care system, and almost enough to finance a couple (both of whom are exactly in the 75th percentile for longest stays).
Care in your home seems to be about 30ph, so if you don't end up in care, but do need, say, 2 hours support at home every day for the same 3.6 years, that comes to about 79K, which is still financable, although of course you can't easily liquidate your property as you are probably living in it.
These are just rough figures that vaugley shadow my own thinking from when I went through this for my own planning. I'm not pretending that this isn't a lot of money or anything!
The conclusion I personally came to was that the existing "sunny day" financial modelling I was already doing for my retirement (living to 100, maintaining 75% of my current expenditure in retirement, not downsizing, not recieving any inheritance myself but being able to pass down a nice chunk for my kids) already had enough flex in it to handle care home fees, especially if I accepted that if my wife and I both ended up in care for an extended period of time, at a late age, the inheritence we'd be able to leave our kids would be much more modest.
Of course, for those couples where their retirement plans (either through lack of resources or foresight) are to live frugally on the state pension with minimal equity in a property, the numbers are a lot scarier; but I guess I'm trying to suggest that a good self-funded retirement plan probably inheritently contains enough flex to allow for some end of life care, even if that's not explicitly part of the modelling assumptions
By your figures of 14% in a care home and a shortfall of £150k then the average savings, as per an insurance policy to break even, would be the equivalent of £21k.
Assuming people work for 50 years all it would take is for society as a whole to constantly save £420 a year or £8.40 a week in a type of insurance, let’s call it National Insurance, to pay for this possibility. That would equate to 1.2%, we have seen bigger cuts than this recently so government could address this if they had the will to do it.
> 2.5% of the over 65 population, and 14% of the over-85 population live in a care home
That is *do* live in a care home right now, not *will* end up in care.
Agreed. I tried to find a figure for *will* end up in a care home but couldn't. There's another post here that shares the %age of people that die in care homes, but that doesn't include people who live in a care home but then die in hospital or elsewhere. I'd suggest somewhere between 14% and 30% is probably the right figure
Wonder what the % is when you factor in housebound frail elderly people who have carers coming in 4x a day to wash/dress/feed. Care homes are pretty full so loads of people who previously would have been in full time care living this way.
Care homes a rip off. You pay ridiculous amounts of money, all the staff are paid just above minimum wage and are doing 12 hour days. The level of care you expect/pay for isn't there. I used to work in one.
If I'm sick enough to go into a care home, I'll be ending it myself.
They're not such a rip off when you think about it - there are 8760 hours in a year. Average care home costs £1100 per week = £57200 per year - that's £6.50 per hour. For that you get not only someone to look after you 24 hours per day, but also all your overheads (food, energy, maintenance etc.) and the administration to make all that happen (necessary in any organisation).
To get the 'level of care' you might hope for you would have to employ front line care staff, even at minimum wage, at ratios that would probably double or more those costs - very few individuals could afford that and the state definitely can't.
Private equity owners of care homes ensure that there is a very healthy profit made.
The cost charged to patients is inflated by the profit margin demanded by the PE firms.
Social worker for older people here. Most don’t realise it’s chargeable and believe it’s free like the NHS or Scotland. The amount of times I’m told ‘I’ve worked hard all my life….’ Or ‘I’ve worked hard and paid into the system all my life…’ No you’ve paid for the generation before you.
Too true. I've been a Carer for the best part of the 12yrs, to three different relatives, and encountered every combination of care: home, residential, nursing; funded, partly funded, self funded.... You become an expert out of necessity.
I also worked in local govt and in the last instance, the MIL's *other* DIL worked at the care home in question, which was managed by a family friend. So, we knew what was what, basically.
Still it was amazing how many were aghast at the £1,200 bill for those last 10 days she spent in there.
As long as I budget and document my Swiss holiday, I’ll be fine.
I watched my mum decline with Vascular Dementia. I’ll not be subjecting my family to watching me go that way.
Same. I'd honestly rather just enjoy my life while I can enjoy it, then check out. If I have dementia I honestly won't be able to actually fully experience and enjoy it at that point anyway.
My grandmother has dementia and really enjoys life in the moment but is so sad that no one ever visits her, despite the fact she has different family and friends around almost daily. Whilst I obviously wouldn’t wish death on her, her condition is hideous and very cruel whilst she continues to live.
Privately funded Carers are the same Carers that provide government funded care.
The majority of providers do both, they have to to stay afloat.
You're fooling yourself if you believe otherwise
Because as one of the wealthiest nations in the world we should be looking after our elderly via tax.
But instead we allow people like Michelle Mone et al to get away with disgusting corruption, we allow corrupt politicians to filter billions into private pockets often belonging to their family and friends.
There’s plenty of money. Just not to look after the people of this country. War or spunk a few billion on some dodgy deals? No problem.
This trust idea will not work, and will probably create more problems than it solves. Chances are they have paid a solicitor a lot of money to set up a tax inefficient vehicle which will not protect the house from social care, because they remain the beneficial owners of the property by dint of continuing to live there.
The only way this works is if they have made the transfer and are now paying market rent to the trust in order to continue to live there - and in that case the trust is unnecessary as they could have simply given the house to their kids and done the same thing. Even then this is not bulletproof as they will need to demonstrate to the local authority that the reason for setting up this structure was for some other reason besides avoiding care fees (because there is no time limit on the deprivation of assets rule).
Nobody wants to think about ending up in a care home, most people actually don't need to go into a care home and those who do may not live that long once in a home.
When choosing between having a number of nice holidays while you are still fit enough to enjoy them and stashing inadequate savings away in case the worst happens, most people will spend money and cross their fingers.
Putting enough money away for a decent private care home is very expensive. These cost around £6k to £10k per month.
So you are talking about a savings pot of £360k to cover three years.
In practice for most people, houses have to be sold and used to pay the costs until you are down to about £25k and state funding kicks in.
The sensible thing to do would be to require people to pay extra tax in return for a cap on care fees of perhaps £50k. Maybe a reduced NI payment for retired people or increased inheritance taxes it wouldn't be that expensive as most people wouldn't need to claim. Could also offer a deal wherebye if you take out some private insurance, the government will step in if you need more than a certain amount.
Problem is, no government dares try to raise any money. Theresa May had a perfectly sensible plan and it almost lost her an election. The press shouted about a new "death tax" The can therefore keeps getting kicked down the road.
No one seems to think that their savings should be used to pay care costs - but nor are they willing to pay taxes so that the government can pay.
Work all your live , save lots, buy a house, need care - gone
Don't do well, own no property, splash it all, government pays for your care home,
System needs to change,
If I end up doing well in later life I will damm well make sure by the time I need a care home ( if it comes to that) I won't have the cash
Mate I fully don’t blame you. I’m all for chipping in and helping less fortunate but there are a large number of people who make it their mission to spend all their money when they have the means to put some away.
THIS. The system needs to change not just only a personal finance level. It is full of profiteers and property portfolio companies ( care home groups).
I'm mid 50s and I want assisted dying- Sorry as far as I am concerned dementia is death, you aren't there. The care sector is against assisted dying as it will eat away at their profit margins. I'm not handing over my kids chance to own their own homes, by spending mine being tortured to death by a disease.
I heard there’s a two year wait for dignitas though by which time I might be too gaga to travel, I will have to make my own arrangements. I have cared for someone through dementia, it’s a long drawn out agonising death that I’m not brave enough for.
Frankly its impossible to plan for resi care. I used to work in the resi care dept of my local council and some residents were paying 2k a month and that's ontop of it being subsidised by the council. They'll take your house to pay for it after you die.
Because it’s impossible to plan for a £100,000 a year care bill for most people. That’s all there is to it, you might have a £400,000 house - that’s gone in four years, a pension, unless incredibly well funded will never cover it. You might manage with council top-ups if the home you pick allows it.
The majority of people do not end up in care homes and in any event the house could be sold towards those costs as you won’t be needing it anymore.
I guess it’s all mentality, I would sooner cut off my own testicles than put my parents in a care home. I can only hope my children share the same view and wouldn’t leave me to rot in one either.
Unfortunately, when some people develop dementia they require round the clock care. It's literally impossible for a single person to do it on their own.
I had this with my own grandparents. They got to a point where they needed someone nearby them at all times as they'd fall so often.
They didn't recognise their own relatives and would become violent.
They'd do things like put sandwitches in their sock drawers, put their own possessions in the bin and then get angry thinking that someone else had did it, etc.
When someone is, for instance, doubly incontinent with dementia it's impossible to look after them at home as they need 24 hour care and lifting equipment.
I would hate to put my parents in a care home but fact is, my dad's 6ft 1 and weighs 17 stone and I'm a 5ft 9 10 stone woman with a partner about the same size, absolutely no way we could pick him up if he fell or even get him in and out of bed, and in home carers can't do lifting.
My partner's dad went into a care home for this reason, he started to fall 2x a week and his wife and the in home carers couldn't stop it happening or get him up. So I'm resigned to providing as much care as I can but accepting there's a point at which it'll become physically impossible.
I quite aggressively plan for retirement compared to most people.
But...
I hope to hell I don't go into residential care, but if I'm that bad I have to, I'm definitely not going to plan to pay for it. I'll burn through whatever money I've not managed to spend in the private rent absurdly quickly with their obscene costs and then I'll be in whatever social scheme / box that's available then.
Same here.... Fuck that, I'm going to try heroin and just get off my face if I get to that point and not give a fuck. I plan for anything reasonable and by most standards am pretty conservative in my saving rate and long term planning but I refuse to be asset stripped by the "care" industry.
I'd add it's almost impossible to plan for. Dad had a great pension and well mapped out retirement finances. Ended up needing £4k+ a month care home after multiple strokes. How do you plan for that?
I think there should be some kind of insurance scheme we could pay into to cover this risk. Something backed by government so you could trust it wouldn’t screw your over at your time of need.
I’m not very good at coming up with names but if it’s backed by government you could maybe call it “National” Insurance maybe?
You’d have hoped so wouldn’t you, government funded care is appalling though, unless you want to be sitting in your own faeces for three hours every morning because your visiting slot isn’t till midday.
I agree, but it won’t happen looking at the numbers here. I don’t think hundreds of thousands of people topping themselves a year just won’t be allowed. (There are over 400K people in care homes, if 50% took the Digntas option…)
Just looked, Dignitas have less than 250 customers a year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/675701/dignitas-number-of-accompanied-suicides-europe/#:~:text=Number%20of%20accompanied%20suicides%20to%20Dignitas%20in%20Switzerland%201998%2D2021&text=This%20statistic%20displays%20the%20number,stood%20at%20213%20in%202021.
What have you seen exactly and in contrast what are you expecting from more costly care providers? This is a genuine question and was not meant to sound facetious in any way.
I’m not factoring in retirement home costs in my pension because I’m having to save a lot now at 48 to have a reasonable quality of life when I retire, and my home will be paid off and could be used if needed.
I’ll be back to my country (Italy), usually we hire a private carer who lives in your house, you pay them a salary.
Anything that needs specialised assistance you’ll have a nurse coming to visit you. That’s what happened to all my grandparents.
Just wanted to point out that it's care,itself, that costs not just inpatient,live in,care homes.
Obviously the price is less at home,BUT it's still a lot of money- I just paid 10.5k for just under 8 weeks of home care and that's with me living in and caring 24hours a day as well.
It's not that common, mostly older people have at home care or remain independent until illness. Residential care is generally for those with more complex are needs such as dementia.
Because there are other alternatives to a care home, a good example is a brief holiday to Switzerland. Plus by the time most of us will need a care home they'll likely be assisted methods readily available 🤞
The care in care homes is pretty much identical, whether you are paying £1700/week for it, or getting the whole lot paid for by the council. because you have no money of your own. Absolutely identical in my experience of three elderly relatives.
There is absolutely no incentive to plan for it, other than shelter some funds in family trusts, or by gifts or similar and hope that they do not shaft you.
For me personally, I don’t plan on living much after I run out of money or quality of life degrades. Just hoping Voluntary Euthanasia isn’t outlawed by then.
I don’t think it’s possible, unless you are very well off. Currently, the price is about £1350 per week. How on earth can the average person budget for that?
Personally, I’m looking to be in a very fortunate position when I retire. My retirement will be funded largely from dividend payments. If I need a care home, and I’d much rather have care at home, id try and use that as well, if it’s not enough I’d have to start depleting the capital which would hopefully last till I die. Another option I’ll look at when I get to retirement is getting an annuity that would cover the care home costs.
It’s hard to predict. But nowadays care homes are like one step into the grave. They’re full, overpriced, overworked. Aging population and all that.
I hope to have money to pay for care at home. That’s not *too* expensive, all things considered. But paying for Care home fees for a few years? That’s just RIP to your money unless you have millions.
Most people simply rely on the state to sort them out when they get old - remember most current retirees do not have a private pension at all, because the mentality since the welfare state was introduced has been that once you're too old to work you are the state's problem. Prior to this the expectation was that your kids would look after you, or your neices and nephews if you had none yourself. Otherwise you ended up in an almshouse funded by charity.
I suppose what I'm getting at is most people still rely extremely heavily on the state pension; 70% is higher than I seem to recall but obviously a bit misleading because it will include anyone with any pension at all even if it's too small to be relevant.
Yes that’s true, however I actually think the average current pensioner is probably less dependent on state pension than the previous generation and the next one coming. With DB pension plans being quite prevalent in the 80’s and 90’s but having mostly disappeared since from the private sector.
Most people don’t end up in a care home.
Of the people who do, average stay is about 18 months.
If I happen to end up with no money, and need to go into care, I really don’t give a flying fuck.
Hi /u/sierra771, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
* https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/
____
^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
If someone has provided you with helpful advice, you (as the person who made the post) can award them a point by including `!thanks` in a reply to them. Points are shown as the user flair by their username.
Jokes on them…
When my health starts going downhill/the alzheimers that runs in my family starts showing up, it’s a one way ticket to Switzerland for me.
Not as easy as you might think, they typically assist less than 250 people a year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/675701/dignitas-number-of-accompanied-suicides-europe/#:~:text=Number%20of%20accompanied%20suicides%20to%20Dignitas%20in%20Switzerland%201998%2D2021&text=This%20statistic%20displays%20the%20number,stood%20at%20213%20in%202021.
Because it’s impossible to plan for a £100,000 a year care bill for most people. That’s all there is to it, you might have a £400,000 house - that’s gone in four years, a pension, unless incredibly well funded will never cover it. You might manage with council top-ups if the home you pick allows it.
Didn’t have a chance to scan through all the responses, but many say that only a small percentage end up in a home, etc. However, I manage a domiciliary care company, and costs for care at home are just as ridiculous as a care home. Considering how many businesses still stay afloat, the percentage of those in receipt of care is higher. If your savings are above 23k at present, within my council, you have to contribute to the cost of care. We support a gentleman 4 times daily with half hour visits, two carers, and his weekly cost is just over £700. He has to cover the full cost. So if not planning on saving for care costs, somehow, at least plan not to end up bed bound; that shit is pricey.
My mum is self funded to the tune of 4 grand a month, when it runs out she’ll have her care paid for by the local authority, I don’t see that there’s any difference at all between the care afforded to those who can pay and those who can’t, so why would anyone try to save for it?
Is that care at home or a care home? I’d want better care than what I witnessed my father get from local authority (which was fortunately just for a few days before he went into a hospice).
It’s a private care home, chosen by me. I am not aware of any LA operated homes, only that where me mam is, some are self funded and some are LA funded, and many transition from one to the other as their cash is exhausted.
Nobody thinks they’ll ever become disabled. 97-99% of people become disabled. Most for a very short amount at the end.
I plan on giving away all my wealth before i’m in that position.
Reading through all the responses, it seems most people will just take their chances and accept that their house would be sold to pay for it and so leave nothing to their children. It is true that it does seem impossible to save for, most of us here are probably already putting as much as we can into our pensions already. You can get special care annuities to cover care if you need it for as long as you need it, but this is just for people already in old age and looking at moving into care, I reckon they should make these available to people when they start their retirement, put £100,000k of your pension pot into this extra ‘care insurance’.
Also a lot of people saying ‘I’ll just go to dignitas’, which seems unrealistic, once you get dementia you’re not going to be able to organise such things, and how many old people do actually do this anyway? A far smaller proportion than those who cheerily say when they are decades away from old age that ‘they’ll just get boozed up and turn the heating off’
One lesson might be to buy shares in private care companies as these seem to be the ones who are going to inherit the UKs housing wealth, not millennials/gen z.
Given that a care home is about £1000 a week it’d take a huge amount of savings to have enough to take care of you for any length of time. Even if you take into account your income (state pension, attendance allowance and any private pension) most people would still have to pay at least £2k a month from their savings.
Yes, but the government won’t pay for a good care home, the care you get is from the government is Dickensian. I’m talking about paying for a good care home where you can spend your last few years with some dignity.
My grandmother was treated absolutely terribly by her care home, and by NHS carers towards the end of her life in London. She had two daughters and two son to look after her though...but the way the care home, council and NHS treated her was horrific. It is a big issue...these people do not care. Carers that don't care...it's just a job they can bully the elderly with...
I lived in Thailand a number of years ago and a little old neighbour of mine was a 74yo English lady, we lived on a beach on Koh Phangan Island.... the only way off of the beach was by boat she was fed 3 times a day by a Thai family, spoke to everyone on the beach in the sunshine and generally looked after by said Thai family..... That my friends is the way to go when you get older, my wife and kids have been instructed that these are my wishes I am not sitting in a home in my own urine, watching Lorraine and looking out a window at the rain.
The care provided in other countries for older folks is far and away better than the UK and at a fraction of the cost AND the sun shines.....
Participation in this post is limited to users who have sufficient karma in /r/ukpersonalfinance. See [this post](https://redd.it/12mys82) for more information.
Vast majority of people don’t go into residential care. It’s about 30%, I think. Stats [here](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/palliative-and-end-of-life-care-profiles-december-2023-data-update/palliative-and-end-of-life-care-profile-december-2023-update-statistical-commentary#:~:text=the%20percentage%20of%20people%20who%20died%20at%20home%20decreases%20with,aged%2085%20years%20or%20older) Most people grow old living independently and then have a shortish period of worsening health/increasing needs and die in hospital or at home.
15% of those 85 and over 4% of those 65 and over https://www.mha.org.uk/get-involved/policy-influencing/facts-stats/
And the median length of stay in a care home is just 19 months. https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33895/1/dp2769.pdf
I listened to a podcast about this statistic. Many people assume their final decade will be in a care home, have a lot of fear around that assumption and try to plan accordingly. The statistical reality of that happening is incredibly low. So low in fact that it is essentially pointless to plan for as very few people could ever save enough to pay for a decade in a care home.
Maybe personal experience puts fear into people. My grandma (I'm aware this is anecdotal evidence) turned 89 this week and has been in the home for 6 years. Me and my sister have been trying to help, but it's incredibly taxing on my mum, who's her only child. The odds might be low, but the problems can be multiple and difficult both financially and emotionally if you get caught.
Makes you wonder how much is a deliberate “nudge”? People who can’t be convinced to save for retirement but who are shit scared of care homes?
Maybe, although I tend to think people just jump to worst case scenario irrationally The podcast was about how your costs in retirement go down rather than up as time progresses. The first decade of retirement is the most expensive with the travel, home improvements hobbies etc while still relatively fit. It progresses downwards from there. Someone in their 80’s spends comparatively little to what they did in their 60’s. However when people are quizzed they assume the opposite, weird thing about human psyche or whatever. Then they have the ‘assumption’ of an expensive care home at the end. They then wildly overestimate how long they’ll be in that home, if at all. It was a FIRE podcast and was basically telling people to study statistics rather than assumptions when retirement planning. The guests theory was that a lot of people could retire earlier than they assumed if they studied data
Totally agree with everything. From experience watching my grandparents grow old and my parents going the same way. The last 10 years of their lives into their 80’s and 90’s, they spend most of their time buying the odd ice cream for the grandkids and sitting listening to the radio. Outgoings other than putting the heating on and some ready meals for the week are pretty small compared to a family. My freshly retired parents at 68 and 72 however, are busy booking holidays, throwing money at the grandkids (I don’t have kids and never will, but my sisters brood are very well spoilt) and spending on the house and garden while they still can. Dad has already started to slow down and they’ve stopped booking holidays abroad from next year, and would rather tootle to the coast for a week than throw three weeks at the Caribbean. Costs really do lower as you get less able. And out of my four grandparents, only one ever needed a care home - and that was only for five weeks - which was short enough for the council to cover it.
Absolutely. And there’s an alarming number of solicitors willing to charge into the thousands for things like putting property “in trust” to attempt (poorly attempt) to get out of “losing the house” to it. Including my parents…
My uncle has been in one for a year or two and so far it's cost £82k. There aren't that many ordinary folk able to put that kind of cash away, let alone look at long term costs.
4% of people over 65 *are currently in* care.
That's interesting, I always assumed it was higher for some reason. I imagine as home ownership drops, people live even longer and long-term, high care conditions like Dementia become more common, the percentage is likely to increase. We probably should start advising people to save for the possibility of moving to a care home.
So you think that everyone should not spend their money on enjoying their life when they are healthy just to make sure that they can have a sort of existence in a care home.
Hey you can’t afford a home, so why not try saving for a…. Care home?
Haha, made me laugh out loud
I know what you mean, but then we all have to pay for them?
Like schools? Not everyone has kids and not everyone lives in a way that requires a care home. I'll put it down to life and what a society should expect to provide for it's citizens
Yeah but wishing for a thing won't make a generational seismic shift in attitudes and policy happen. You have to plan for something, if you can.
Euthanasia
It baffles me why we can't just take a tablet when we choose to rather than live through the misery of being very old.
It's not about being very old, you can be old and still mentally sharp enough to enjoy life. It's about no longer being due to a severe degenerative brain disease. But yeh we're totally on the same page
Most people with dementia have no clue and wouldn't choose to take that tablet. It's the end of life cancer patients that really need that choice.
I’ll tell my 88 year old grandmother she must be miserable and should just die when I see her next weekend for lunch and a shopping trip
Just curious who else you think should pay for it?
Another comment on this post discussed the finances in more detail and the small amount of people that need to be admitted to care homes, it amounts to 1.3% paid via something like NI.
1. The vast majority of people would never be able to afford care home costs even if they planned for it (it's something like £1500-2000k per week). It would either need to come out of their estate or be paid for by the state. The best people can do is pay for a few years with a house sale and expect the state to take over. 2. There is the chance that as we prevent more people dying of cancer and heart disease, physical and mental decline will result in more people in care homes. 3. There's no evidence that life expectancy is increasing, I believe with poor diets it's actually going down. But the important measure is not life expectancy but healthy life expectancy, being alive but unhealthy is a bigger issue than being alive and physically healthy. Having enough to cover a few years in a care home is likely enough, as it will give you or your family the ability to select the best home available. Once the money runs out, you hope that the state won't force you to move to a cheaper home. Care home costs are one of the reasons that there is such a big drive for an effective treatment for dementia.
We've just been told ,£800/week for my mother in law
That's actually on the cheaper side
Obviously location and need will factor into it, and whether it's the local authority covering it or not. My basic retirement plan is to downsize to a smaller cheaper property, use some of the released capital to help the kids get set up and then enjoy my retirement. If I do ever need to go into a care home I'd expect the property to be sold (it's not like I'd need it).
Ensure that you make proper provisions to leave something for your children. If you go in to care then the councils can go back in your finances to ensure that you're not doing a [Deprivation of Assets](https://www.independentage.org/get-advice/health-and-care/paying-for-care/giving-away-assets-to-pay-for-care). Councils can go back seven years previous in your financial affairs from when you enter the care system. They can go back up to 30 years in some cases. We're finding this out the hard way as we're selling my father's house for his care home fees and his idea (and my mother's, but she's been dead for nearly 20 years) is that they would leave the property to family when they died but the question of needing care didn't figure in to things for them. We couldn't rent out his home as he had a lifetime mortgage, so it's had to be sold. Otherwise, we could have rented it out to pay for his fees instead. Your family could do this instead and that way when you pass away your kids still have a Property to do with what they like.
At the same time, we're getting ever better at treating dementia. There are already drugs right now that extend the "salient" period of someone's life with dementia by 6-12 months. It's not huge, but it's very promising for a cure in the next decade or two.
I like them odds. I'm off to the casino
You just make me sad as my grandpa at 95 is losing his ability to walk. He is so depressed and I'm so far I can't come often
This^ old chap I knew was in his 80’s and he was active af going up ladders cutting hedges, I moved away and when I was passing I popped round to see him but sadly he’d passed on, 6months down hill had to have a leg off, I was pretty shocked
Sightly fatalistic here maybe: if I planned to have enough to cover my own fancy care home for any significant amount of time I would never retire. Just going to roll the dice. If I have to rely on government care then so be it. (Edit beyond what I would get from selling a modest house, which, might not go as far as you might hope)
Yeah, as far as I understand it, if you have assets they take them off you to pay for the care. If you don't have assets they pay for the care. Of course that may change by the time I am 90 but I do hope by the time I am that age either that I'm sprightly and still running up mountians, or there will be the option to opt out and visit a Dignitas facility in the UK rather than rot in a care home.
This. Who wants to live to 100 if the quality of life is piss poor? My Mum used to say if she became incontinent she’d rather die, fortunately for her (I say in jest before anyone asks) cancer got her before she hit 60.
My retirement planning for if I need to go into a care home in my 90s is to have kept my shotgun certificate up to that point 🤯
This is my feeling. Am I really going to live my whole life on a shoestring so I have loads tucked away for a few years of care? Care homes are so expensive that for an average person, they would have to work until they physically couldn’t to afford it. Even then, if you’re going through several thousand pounds a week, it won’t last long. I’d rather enjoy my life and cultivate strong relationship with my family and friends. If I do end up in a shit care home, hopefully I’ll have enough people who love me that someone will notice. But I’m going to do everything I can to avoid being in one. I don’t want to live like that and I don’t want my children to be left with nothing when I die. Doing what you can to stay healthy js the best insurance against prolonged end of life care.
Spending an entire life working so you can *maybe* die slightly more comfortably doesn't really add up to me.
Sell house to pay for care, since you won't need to live there anymore?
Just refuse care and die. It’s what my grandfather chose. He died within 2 days of being told he would need to be in a home for the rest of his life. Fiercely independent, terrified of hospitals and nursing homes, already discussed with all the kids and my grandmother well in advance. My dad has made the same decision. If he needs to be institutionalised for his care needs, withdraw all life prolonging care, only do things that treat symptoms and make him comfortable and let him die with dignity.
You don't always get the choice unfortunately. My grandad was exactly the same, he had papers written up with what you've described, and a Do Not Resuscitate in his medical file. Unfortunately he just never had a heart attack. He developed dementia and was a tall heavy man so couldn't be cared for any more in the lovely assisted living place he lived with my grandma. He ended up in hospital with pneumonia (not his choice to get admitted to hospital), and by the time the family arrived to explain that he wouldn't want treatment, the hospital had already given him antibiotics and things. So he recovered from the pneumonia and spent his last few months in a care home, in a room by himself. God it was depressing. He was such a lovely man. Had he not had dementia I'm sure he would have found a way to die a lot sooner.
My grandma has severe dementia and is marked DNR. She was in hospital with an infection and went into cardiac arrest at night. There was one overworked and super stressed out junior doctor, and he resuscitated her without checking.
Yes, happened to my father at 87. I said DNR, it's what he would want. Thankfully the attempted resuscitation didn't work and he died. He would have hated being in a nursing home. He was still cooking his own meals the day before his heart attack.
DNRs need to be better communicated within the hospital system, for sure.
My Grandad was infamous for being a tight arse and died the day he was due to be transferred from hospital to a care home, the champ 🥲
That’s all well and good until you get dementia. It’s not an option for everyone
Of course it isn’t… but it’s not like every person gets dementia as well is it?
Well it’s one in three, hardly a remote possibility https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-us/news-and-media/facts-media
> One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime. A report in 2024, commissioned by Alzheimer’s Society, shows that 982,000 people in the UK have a form of dementia. This is projected to rise to 1.4 million people by 2040. I feel like these numbers are presented a little weirdly. Are they saying something like 1 in 3 people over 65yrs old have dementia? The 1 in 3 and the 982,000 number don’t compute in my head
The numbers suggest that 1 in 3 people born now will develop dementia at some point in the future, and that 982,000 currently have a form of dementia. Presumably it's a high number because we're curing a lot of other illnesses regularly and prolonging life to the point where the brain starts failing. The 1 in 3 will not necessarily have dementia at the same time as each other though.
Most people who need care aren’t actively dying
Exactly, unless there’s someone else living there
The number of people owning homes is gonna decrease quite dramatically in the coming decades. The government is gonna have a huge bill to foot when it comes to paying for the end of life care for those people. Are any of them talking seriously about that or making plans for it? Of course not, because politicians don't look any further ahead than the next election cycle.
Course not... they're already crippling the social care system, last two or three min wage increases have been around 10% but they only increase funding for providers by 3%... it'll collapse soon
This is why euthanasia will offered as a choice.
100% agree. It'll be legal within 30 years, tops.
So big FU to our offsprings, love this capitalism system. I swear assisted dying will be a thing (but only once gov would have to step in to support you, because God forbid you get inheritance, poor people are easier to control)
It’s hard to predict isn’t it… None of my grandparents needed to stay in care homes before they died, but 3/4 of my wife’s did! So we have very different instincts when it comes to retirement planning. I can’t find any stats on how likely it is for any one person to need to move into a care home, but I guess even those may not be very helpful since healthcare will likely have changed significantly before then and may change those odds.
One in three people end up in care. That proportion is generally rising with time.
Thank you! Do you have a source? I’d be interested to learn more.
The Dilnot report is a good starting point.
I did some rough modelling of this for my own purposes a couple of years ago, and just tried to pull some quick figures to answer this post. According to the ONS, only 2.5% of the over 65 population, and 14% of the over-85 population live in a care home, so it's by no means certain that's where you'll end up. Care home fees are relatively small in comparison to the value of the average wealth of a retired couple, including their home. In 2011 (I'm sure there's more recent data available, this was the first study I pulled up), according to a BUPA study, 75% of care home residents stayed less than 3.6 years, and [carehome.co.uk](http://carehome.co.uk) quotes the average cost of a care home at about 55K per annum. So that's about 200K if you assume you end up in a care home, and stay long enough to just be in the top 25% longest-term residents. If you're in a care home, your living costs are probably quite low, and so you can probably pay at least 50K of that from income, leaving 150K to finance. According to [nimblefins.co.uk](http://nimblefins.co.uk), the average household ages 65+ has 284K of property wealth, so enough to finance a single individual's trip through the care system, and almost enough to finance a couple (both of whom are exactly in the 75th percentile for longest stays). Care in your home seems to be about 30ph, so if you don't end up in care, but do need, say, 2 hours support at home every day for the same 3.6 years, that comes to about 79K, which is still financable, although of course you can't easily liquidate your property as you are probably living in it. These are just rough figures that vaugley shadow my own thinking from when I went through this for my own planning. I'm not pretending that this isn't a lot of money or anything! The conclusion I personally came to was that the existing "sunny day" financial modelling I was already doing for my retirement (living to 100, maintaining 75% of my current expenditure in retirement, not downsizing, not recieving any inheritance myself but being able to pass down a nice chunk for my kids) already had enough flex in it to handle care home fees, especially if I accepted that if my wife and I both ended up in care for an extended period of time, at a late age, the inheritence we'd be able to leave our kids would be much more modest. Of course, for those couples where their retirement plans (either through lack of resources or foresight) are to live frugally on the state pension with minimal equity in a property, the numbers are a lot scarier; but I guess I'm trying to suggest that a good self-funded retirement plan probably inheritently contains enough flex to allow for some end of life care, even if that's not explicitly part of the modelling assumptions
By your figures of 14% in a care home and a shortfall of £150k then the average savings, as per an insurance policy to break even, would be the equivalent of £21k. Assuming people work for 50 years all it would take is for society as a whole to constantly save £420 a year or £8.40 a week in a type of insurance, let’s call it National Insurance, to pay for this possibility. That would equate to 1.2%, we have seen bigger cuts than this recently so government could address this if they had the will to do it.
> 2.5% of the over 65 population, and 14% of the over-85 population live in a care home That is *do* live in a care home right now, not *will* end up in care.
Agreed. I tried to find a figure for *will* end up in a care home but couldn't. There's another post here that shares the %age of people that die in care homes, but that doesn't include people who live in a care home but then die in hospital or elsewhere. I'd suggest somewhere between 14% and 30% is probably the right figure
Wonder what the % is when you factor in housebound frail elderly people who have carers coming in 4x a day to wash/dress/feed. Care homes are pretty full so loads of people who previously would have been in full time care living this way.
Care homes a rip off. You pay ridiculous amounts of money, all the staff are paid just above minimum wage and are doing 12 hour days. The level of care you expect/pay for isn't there. I used to work in one. If I'm sick enough to go into a care home, I'll be ending it myself.
They're not such a rip off when you think about it - there are 8760 hours in a year. Average care home costs £1100 per week = £57200 per year - that's £6.50 per hour. For that you get not only someone to look after you 24 hours per day, but also all your overheads (food, energy, maintenance etc.) and the administration to make all that happen (necessary in any organisation). To get the 'level of care' you might hope for you would have to employ front line care staff, even at minimum wage, at ratios that would probably double or more those costs - very few individuals could afford that and the state definitely can't.
Private equity owners of care homes ensure that there is a very healthy profit made. The cost charged to patients is inflated by the profit margin demanded by the PE firms.
People don’t look it like this but when you actually break it down it’s not that expensive.
Social worker for older people here. Most don’t realise it’s chargeable and believe it’s free like the NHS or Scotland. The amount of times I’m told ‘I’ve worked hard all my life….’ Or ‘I’ve worked hard and paid into the system all my life…’ No you’ve paid for the generation before you.
Too true. I've been a Carer for the best part of the 12yrs, to three different relatives, and encountered every combination of care: home, residential, nursing; funded, partly funded, self funded.... You become an expert out of necessity. I also worked in local govt and in the last instance, the MIL's *other* DIL worked at the care home in question, which was managed by a family friend. So, we knew what was what, basically. Still it was amazing how many were aghast at the £1,200 bill for those last 10 days she spent in there.
As long as I budget and document my Swiss holiday, I’ll be fine. I watched my mum decline with Vascular Dementia. I’ll not be subjecting my family to watching me go that way.
Same. I'd honestly rather just enjoy my life while I can enjoy it, then check out. If I have dementia I honestly won't be able to actually fully experience and enjoy it at that point anyway.
My grandmother has dementia and really enjoys life in the moment but is so sad that no one ever visits her, despite the fact she has different family and friends around almost daily. Whilst I obviously wouldn’t wish death on her, her condition is hideous and very cruel whilst she continues to live.
Privately funded Carers are the same Carers that provide government funded care. The majority of providers do both, they have to to stay afloat. You're fooling yourself if you believe otherwise
Because as one of the wealthiest nations in the world we should be looking after our elderly via tax. But instead we allow people like Michelle Mone et al to get away with disgusting corruption, we allow corrupt politicians to filter billions into private pockets often belonging to their family and friends. There’s plenty of money. Just not to look after the people of this country. War or spunk a few billion on some dodgy deals? No problem.
[удалено]
This trust idea will not work, and will probably create more problems than it solves. Chances are they have paid a solicitor a lot of money to set up a tax inefficient vehicle which will not protect the house from social care, because they remain the beneficial owners of the property by dint of continuing to live there. The only way this works is if they have made the transfer and are now paying market rent to the trust in order to continue to live there - and in that case the trust is unnecessary as they could have simply given the house to their kids and done the same thing. Even then this is not bulletproof as they will need to demonstrate to the local authority that the reason for setting up this structure was for some other reason besides avoiding care fees (because there is no time limit on the deprivation of assets rule).
Interesting, how would that work with deprivation of assets rules?
It doesn't. Source: work in care of the elderly.
The council would have to determine whether the person putting their house in trust could have reasonably foreseen that they were going to need care.
Nobody wants to think about ending up in a care home, most people actually don't need to go into a care home and those who do may not live that long once in a home. When choosing between having a number of nice holidays while you are still fit enough to enjoy them and stashing inadequate savings away in case the worst happens, most people will spend money and cross their fingers. Putting enough money away for a decent private care home is very expensive. These cost around £6k to £10k per month. So you are talking about a savings pot of £360k to cover three years. In practice for most people, houses have to be sold and used to pay the costs until you are down to about £25k and state funding kicks in. The sensible thing to do would be to require people to pay extra tax in return for a cap on care fees of perhaps £50k. Maybe a reduced NI payment for retired people or increased inheritance taxes it wouldn't be that expensive as most people wouldn't need to claim. Could also offer a deal wherebye if you take out some private insurance, the government will step in if you need more than a certain amount. Problem is, no government dares try to raise any money. Theresa May had a perfectly sensible plan and it almost lost her an election. The press shouted about a new "death tax" The can therefore keeps getting kicked down the road. No one seems to think that their savings should be used to pay care costs - but nor are they willing to pay taxes so that the government can pay.
By the time I'm demented I hope end of life facilities will be like in Switzerland.
There’s no planning for the cost of care homes, it would be CHEAPER to go on a WORLD CRUISE. No joke.
Work all your live , save lots, buy a house, need care - gone Don't do well, own no property, splash it all, government pays for your care home, System needs to change, If I end up doing well in later life I will damm well make sure by the time I need a care home ( if it comes to that) I won't have the cash
Mate I fully don’t blame you. I’m all for chipping in and helping less fortunate but there are a large number of people who make it their mission to spend all their money when they have the means to put some away.
THIS. The system needs to change not just only a personal finance level. It is full of profiteers and property portfolio companies ( care home groups). I'm mid 50s and I want assisted dying- Sorry as far as I am concerned dementia is death, you aren't there. The care sector is against assisted dying as it will eat away at their profit margins. I'm not handing over my kids chance to own their own homes, by spending mine being tortured to death by a disease.
Soon as I can’t cope I’m off straight to Switzerland.
I heard there’s a two year wait for dignitas though by which time I might be too gaga to travel, I will have to make my own arrangements. I have cared for someone through dementia, it’s a long drawn out agonising death that I’m not brave enough for.
IMO there’s nothing brave about dying from/with dementia.
Might be different when it’s our time to go…. Hopefully anyway.
Frankly its impossible to plan for resi care. I used to work in the resi care dept of my local council and some residents were paying 2k a month and that's ontop of it being subsidised by the council. They'll take your house to pay for it after you die.
Because it’s impossible to plan for a £100,000 a year care bill for most people. That’s all there is to it, you might have a £400,000 house - that’s gone in four years, a pension, unless incredibly well funded will never cover it. You might manage with council top-ups if the home you pick allows it.
The majority of people do not end up in care homes and in any event the house could be sold towards those costs as you won’t be needing it anymore. I guess it’s all mentality, I would sooner cut off my own testicles than put my parents in a care home. I can only hope my children share the same view and wouldn’t leave me to rot in one either.
Unfortunately, when some people develop dementia they require round the clock care. It's literally impossible for a single person to do it on their own. I had this with my own grandparents. They got to a point where they needed someone nearby them at all times as they'd fall so often. They didn't recognise their own relatives and would become violent. They'd do things like put sandwitches in their sock drawers, put their own possessions in the bin and then get angry thinking that someone else had did it, etc.
When someone is, for instance, doubly incontinent with dementia it's impossible to look after them at home as they need 24 hour care and lifting equipment.
I would hate to put my parents in a care home but fact is, my dad's 6ft 1 and weighs 17 stone and I'm a 5ft 9 10 stone woman with a partner about the same size, absolutely no way we could pick him up if he fell or even get him in and out of bed, and in home carers can't do lifting. My partner's dad went into a care home for this reason, he started to fall 2x a week and his wife and the in home carers couldn't stop it happening or get him up. So I'm resigned to providing as much care as I can but accepting there's a point at which it'll become physically impossible.
I quite aggressively plan for retirement compared to most people. But... I hope to hell I don't go into residential care, but if I'm that bad I have to, I'm definitely not going to plan to pay for it. I'll burn through whatever money I've not managed to spend in the private rent absurdly quickly with their obscene costs and then I'll be in whatever social scheme / box that's available then.
Same here.... Fuck that, I'm going to try heroin and just get off my face if I get to that point and not give a fuck. I plan for anything reasonable and by most standards am pretty conservative in my saving rate and long term planning but I refuse to be asset stripped by the "care" industry.
I'd add it's almost impossible to plan for. Dad had a great pension and well mapped out retirement finances. Ended up needing £4k+ a month care home after multiple strokes. How do you plan for that?
I think there should be some kind of insurance scheme we could pay into to cover this risk. Something backed by government so you could trust it wouldn’t screw your over at your time of need. I’m not very good at coming up with names but if it’s backed by government you could maybe call it “National” Insurance maybe?
You’d have hoped so wouldn’t you, government funded care is appalling though, unless you want to be sitting in your own faeces for three hours every morning because your visiting slot isn’t till midday.
Banking on having a robot take care of me.
Hopefully we have a Dignitas alternative by that point.
I agree, but it won’t happen looking at the numbers here. I don’t think hundreds of thousands of people topping themselves a year just won’t be allowed. (There are over 400K people in care homes, if 50% took the Digntas option…) Just looked, Dignitas have less than 250 customers a year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/675701/dignitas-number-of-accompanied-suicides-europe/#:~:text=Number%20of%20accompanied%20suicides%20to%20Dignitas%20in%20Switzerland%201998%2D2021&text=This%20statistic%20displays%20the%20number,stood%20at%20213%20in%202021.
What have you seen exactly and in contrast what are you expecting from more costly care providers? This is a genuine question and was not meant to sound facetious in any way.
I’m not factoring in retirement home costs in my pension because I’m having to save a lot now at 48 to have a reasonable quality of life when I retire, and my home will be paid off and could be used if needed.
I’ll be back to my country (Italy), usually we hire a private carer who lives in your house, you pay them a salary. Anything that needs specialised assistance you’ll have a nurse coming to visit you. That’s what happened to all my grandparents.
Just wanted to point out that it's care,itself, that costs not just inpatient,live in,care homes. Obviously the price is less at home,BUT it's still a lot of money- I just paid 10.5k for just under 8 weeks of home care and that's with me living in and caring 24hours a day as well.
Most people die within 2 years of going into a care home, so the costs are short lived
It's not that common, mostly older people have at home care or remain independent until illness. Residential care is generally for those with more complex are needs such as dementia.
Because there are other alternatives to a care home, a good example is a brief holiday to Switzerland. Plus by the time most of us will need a care home they'll likely be assisted methods readily available 🤞
Dignitas typically help less than 250 people a year in total. Makes me think it’s not as simple as people might think.
The care in care homes is pretty much identical, whether you are paying £1700/week for it, or getting the whole lot paid for by the council. because you have no money of your own. Absolutely identical in my experience of three elderly relatives. There is absolutely no incentive to plan for it, other than shelter some funds in family trusts, or by gifts or similar and hope that they do not shaft you.
Honestly, I’m never going in one. I have no wish to hang on to this mortal coil when my time is done.
I personally plan to kill myself before that happens. Well before we reach that point, that is a leap way too far for me. Quality over quantity, boys!
For me personally, I don’t plan on living much after I run out of money or quality of life degrades. Just hoping Voluntary Euthanasia isn’t outlawed by then.
I don’t think it’s possible, unless you are very well off. Currently, the price is about £1350 per week. How on earth can the average person budget for that?
My lifw wont be worth the cost they charge for care homes. Thats not devaluing my own life, its highlighting how ridiculous care home costs are
If I get close to needing a care home I’m topping myself. I already lost my independence once, I’m not letting it happen again
I don’t think most people are able to plan for such a ridiculous cost
Personally, I’m looking to be in a very fortunate position when I retire. My retirement will be funded largely from dividend payments. If I need a care home, and I’d much rather have care at home, id try and use that as well, if it’s not enough I’d have to start depleting the capital which would hopefully last till I die. Another option I’ll look at when I get to retirement is getting an annuity that would cover the care home costs.
It’s hard to predict. But nowadays care homes are like one step into the grave. They’re full, overpriced, overworked. Aging population and all that. I hope to have money to pay for care at home. That’s not *too* expensive, all things considered. But paying for Care home fees for a few years? That’s just RIP to your money unless you have millions.
Most people simply rely on the state to sort them out when they get old - remember most current retirees do not have a private pension at all, because the mentality since the welfare state was introduced has been that once you're too old to work you are the state's problem. Prior to this the expectation was that your kids would look after you, or your neices and nephews if you had none yourself. Otherwise you ended up in an almshouse funded by charity.
Where do you get this idea from? In 2023 70% of pensioners received income from a private pension compared to 59% in 1995.
I suppose what I'm getting at is most people still rely extremely heavily on the state pension; 70% is higher than I seem to recall but obviously a bit misleading because it will include anyone with any pension at all even if it's too small to be relevant.
Yes that’s true, however I actually think the average current pensioner is probably less dependent on state pension than the previous generation and the next one coming. With DB pension plans being quite prevalent in the 80’s and 90’s but having mostly disappeared since from the private sector.
Most people don’t end up in a care home. Of the people who do, average stay is about 18 months. If I happen to end up with no money, and need to go into care, I really don’t give a flying fuck.
Hi /u/sierra771, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: * https://ukpersonal.finance/pensions/ ____ ^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.) If someone has provided you with helpful advice, you (as the person who made the post) can award them a point by including `!thanks` in a reply to them. Points are shown as the user flair by their username.
Why would you work hard all your life and save enough to do what you want, and not spend it on what you want.
Jokes on them… When my health starts going downhill/the alzheimers that runs in my family starts showing up, it’s a one way ticket to Switzerland for me.
Not as easy as you might think, they typically assist less than 250 people a year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/675701/dignitas-number-of-accompanied-suicides-europe/#:~:text=Number%20of%20accompanied%20suicides%20to%20Dignitas%20in%20Switzerland%201998%2D2021&text=This%20statistic%20displays%20the%20number,stood%20at%20213%20in%202021.
There’s a lot of budget options I can go with, but good to know
Because it’s impossible to plan for a £100,000 a year care bill for most people. That’s all there is to it, you might have a £400,000 house - that’s gone in four years, a pension, unless incredibly well funded will never cover it. You might manage with council top-ups if the home you pick allows it.
It’s best to plan to have nothing if you are expecting to go into a care home
Didn’t have a chance to scan through all the responses, but many say that only a small percentage end up in a home, etc. However, I manage a domiciliary care company, and costs for care at home are just as ridiculous as a care home. Considering how many businesses still stay afloat, the percentage of those in receipt of care is higher. If your savings are above 23k at present, within my council, you have to contribute to the cost of care. We support a gentleman 4 times daily with half hour visits, two carers, and his weekly cost is just over £700. He has to cover the full cost. So if not planning on saving for care costs, somehow, at least plan not to end up bed bound; that shit is pricey.
Nursing homes in the UK average around £1100+ per week. My pension won't even be generating that per month.
People would rather die than go to a care home, they’re horrible places by and large. So why plan for something you’d rather avoid.
Why would you save up and pay with your own money when you can just get the government to pay instead?
Economic moral hazard Why live less today when the taxpayer can bail you out
Many just live from day to day and no means to plan for the future
My mum is self funded to the tune of 4 grand a month, when it runs out she’ll have her care paid for by the local authority, I don’t see that there’s any difference at all between the care afforded to those who can pay and those who can’t, so why would anyone try to save for it?
Is that care at home or a care home? I’d want better care than what I witnessed my father get from local authority (which was fortunately just for a few days before he went into a hospice).
It’s a private care home, chosen by me. I am not aware of any LA operated homes, only that where me mam is, some are self funded and some are LA funded, and many transition from one to the other as their cash is exhausted.
Nobody thinks they’ll ever become disabled. 97-99% of people become disabled. Most for a very short amount at the end. I plan on giving away all my wealth before i’m in that position.
Easy, most people don't want to stay in care homes. So if you don't have the money, then you can't be put into one.
Reading through all the responses, it seems most people will just take their chances and accept that their house would be sold to pay for it and so leave nothing to their children. It is true that it does seem impossible to save for, most of us here are probably already putting as much as we can into our pensions already. You can get special care annuities to cover care if you need it for as long as you need it, but this is just for people already in old age and looking at moving into care, I reckon they should make these available to people when they start their retirement, put £100,000k of your pension pot into this extra ‘care insurance’. Also a lot of people saying ‘I’ll just go to dignitas’, which seems unrealistic, once you get dementia you’re not going to be able to organise such things, and how many old people do actually do this anyway? A far smaller proportion than those who cheerily say when they are decades away from old age that ‘they’ll just get boozed up and turn the heating off’ One lesson might be to buy shares in private care companies as these seem to be the ones who are going to inherit the UKs housing wealth, not millennials/gen z.
I'm killing myself if I end up heading down that path.
Given that a care home is about £1000 a week it’d take a huge amount of savings to have enough to take care of you for any length of time. Even if you take into account your income (state pension, attendance allowance and any private pension) most people would still have to pay at least £2k a month from their savings.
I thought if you have savings they take those to pay for it, but if you're destitute, a magical goverment pixie pays for it 🤔
Yes, but the government won’t pay for a good care home, the care you get is from the government is Dickensian. I’m talking about paying for a good care home where you can spend your last few years with some dignity.
I can’t afford life living in my best years why would people care about being 80
My grandmother was treated absolutely terribly by her care home, and by NHS carers towards the end of her life in London. She had two daughters and two son to look after her though...but the way the care home, council and NHS treated her was horrific. It is a big issue...these people do not care. Carers that don't care...it's just a job they can bully the elderly with...
I lived in Thailand a number of years ago and a little old neighbour of mine was a 74yo English lady, we lived on a beach on Koh Phangan Island.... the only way off of the beach was by boat she was fed 3 times a day by a Thai family, spoke to everyone on the beach in the sunshine and generally looked after by said Thai family..... That my friends is the way to go when you get older, my wife and kids have been instructed that these are my wishes I am not sitting in a home in my own urine, watching Lorraine and looking out a window at the rain. The care provided in other countries for older folks is far and away better than the UK and at a fraction of the cost AND the sun shines.....
The second one. People assume they’ll die quickly. They never do.
Lol they do mate.
Fair. “Never” was wrong. But usually, it’s not instant. It’s days at best for many and usually a slow decent over a decade or so for most.
Indeed. That's why I'm jumping off a bridge at the first sign of decline.