Planing for getting older, what have you done?

yangptangkipperbang

monkeyspanner wrote: »

If your pension is private and not inflation linked it would be a good idea to think what effect inflation might have on your real income over the years.

Certainly must be taken into account but I think this point is a bit overplayed. It tends to be hyped up by financial services salesmen to get you to spend more/take less.
As you get older your financial needs diminish. Some will increase but these are outnumbered by those that reduce.
Energy bills will increase without a doubt. Council Tax appears to have stabilised at the moment.
Lots of others will reduce: You won't travel as much, perhaps the car will go altogether. You will eat less. Your entertaining/entertainment bill will reduce. Free prescriptions. Free bus travel. Free eye tests. Over 60s discounts on trains, admissions to "attractions", B & Q (:D) etc, etc.

It is very easy to say that prices have gone up by x%, but it is very difficult (impossible ?) to calculate how much your personal "running" costs have fallen.

I have been surprised how much less I require in some areas since I retired.

Savvy_Sue

Dunroamin wrote: »

Moving from accommodation with stairs seems to be a high priority and probably best done before forced to by necessity.

That may not be the best thing to do: take a look at the overall accessibility of the property. Better to be in a property with wide doorways and no awkward turns where it would be relatively straightforward to install a stair lift rather than one with no stairs, but absolutely no space to manouevre! Also, the one thing you absolutely will NOT be able to change is where your property is: again, a house with a level walk to shops and bus stop etc would trump a bungalow on a steep hill in many cases.

Probably also best to assume you WILL get more creaky as time goes by!

What we've done: had a change of car forced on us by my catastrophically broken shoulder, so now have an automatic. Decided not to downsize now while we still have boys at Uni, because we'd only have to do it all again once they've left home properly, but that's the nightmare to come. Wills are next on the list: current version written when they were small, before we moved, so the 'residual beneficiaries' need amending (although it's unlikely they'll be needed, you never know!) We have the 'old' PofA, will consider the new ones at a later stage.

firesidemaid

i am in my 40s, but am sure that just as my state pension age will be 68+ i am sure that free prescriptions, bus passes, eye tests etc will go up accordingly.:(

luxor4t

agrinnall wrote: »

I would recommend setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney, it's far better to do this now while you are still able to specify your wishes, than for your relatives to be forced to go to the Court of Protection to do it later should you be unfortunate enough to find yourself unable to manage your own affairs.

I'd second that, we only just got MiL's through before she started to become too irrational for it to have been accepted that she knew what she was doing.

Unfortunately, her wishes on small, apparently unimportant, things were not discussed and now it's too late. Sounds silly, but new curtain colours etc would have mattered to her then & may do now but ...:(

If only her sons could have persuaded her to move to a more accesible flat four years ago while she was still able to reason,she would not have spent the last 2 years virtually housebound.

[Deleted User]

I am also in favour of stairs, whatever happens they will keep us more mobile and are wide enough if the need ever arose for a chairlift. Bungalow knees is what comes to mind and what older people warned us about

To those planning to downsize then a small spare room downstairs is a good idea for the `what if` scenario also a downstairs toilet and wasbasin.

Downsizing can start several years before you think eg we had lots of stuff in the loft and we eventually hired a skip and put stuff at the front gate for people to take. Don`t assume that your adult children will want what you have put aside for them. We downsized over a short time and lived on ibrufen. I shudder when I think back to all the loft stuff and lots of stuff in unused stables!! very very hard work and that was at 60

Re cost of living, yes it is a lot cheaper these days since retirement

re car, well we love our good estate car. Great for easy lifts to the skip, carrying bales of compost, carrying bikes for days out, long trips on holiday. Don`t assume that little is best as you get older, unless of course you find parking difficult. We spent some of the pension cash on a new car two years ago. No worries with it and one service costing about £120. It should last a fair few years as it will be well looked after, then it will be given to family and we will buy another new one

Thinking about furniture, well it was very very difficult to get rid of our lovely, pricey dark ercol. We practically gave it away and `lost` £000`s. Big mistake buying it in the first place and now have pale oiled oak in modular pieces, which will fit in anywhere, in all sorts of combinations. We also had expensive fitted units which were a big mistake as they had to stay put when we moved. You live and learn though and any other pieces here, after the oiled oak, are cheaper moveable oak units which are also modular, chests of drawers and so on. You can get these sorts at specialist warehouses and they are not expensive at all

seven-day-weekend

I agree about a spare room for visitors/paying guest/children/grandchildren /and if all else fails, a carer:(.

I also agree with Kittie about the big car, we want something comfortable that will carry stacks of stuff including furniture and bikes. We have never had a small car.

Furniture - it has never meant much to us, we buy IKEA and similar and will leave it behind if necessary and buy another lot (recently did this when we sold our Spanish house). The only thing my husband was bothered about was his three-seater leather sofa, which would not have fitted into our UK house anyway, so I said we'd get him a smaller one. Lo and behold, the very first time we went to IKEA there was an identical one but in a two-seaetr model in the clearance section! Never saw the point of expensive furniture, especially in our case, we spill stuff and wouldn't want furniture that you had to worry about.

So we will downsize to a two-bed ground floor flat and take as much furniture as we need and leave behind/give away/sling the rest!

Dunroamin

One of the reasons I believe in getting rid of stairs is it's much cheaper to buy a 2 bed ground floor flat or small bungalow, as 7DW is planning to do, than it is to afford the sort of large house with wide doorways, stairs and room to manoeuvre, much less afford the cost of installing a stair lift.

I haven't come across the expression "bungalow knees" before; mine are much worse when I have to spend all day running up and down stairs!

margaretclare

What are 'bungalow knees'?

Errata

margaretclare wrote: »

What are 'bungalow knees'?

Knees that don't get the chance to bend going up and down stairs regularly.

The only planning tip I can offer that may be of general use to everyone is think about all the things your older relations should have done to make their lives easier and more comfortable but didn't get around to until it was far too late.
Otherwise, I'm with Polly - enjoy life whilst you can, because the future can't be foretold.

pollypenny

One of my main tai chi exercises is to prevent bungalow legs.

Hands out at waist level ( to begin) then knees up to hands. As you get better, hands higher and/or knee to opposite hand.

I do it while waiting for kettle to boil.