In which I prepare for the care

FrugalinShropshire

OH and I took the bold step yesterday of putting DDad's name on the waiting list of a care home. In the mean time we have booked him in for 3 weekends of respite care and 2 days a week day care. The day care alone will be over £500 a month. In preparation for the big fulltime care home fees we are going to tighten our belts, knuckle down and get as much money saved as we can.
A few things that I have started:
I have cut our food budget down to £200/4 weeks
Cancelled my gym membership at £22 a month as I have only been managing to get for a swim a couple of times a month so it will be cheaper to PAYG.
Cancelled my contact lenses at £22 a month. I have about 2 months worth of lenses and a new pair of specs that were free with my contact lens contract, so I will keep the lenses for special occasions.
We have menu planned and are eating from the pantry/freezer, while building up a winter larder.
We have bought enough wood for our log burner to last through until spring.
We have enough LPG to last for a year for our oven top.
We overpaid on our electric and have cut down usage so will now fix a cheaper tariff for the winter.
No new books
No new yarn until Edinburgh Yarn Fest in March 2017
Use up ALL cosmetics and toiletries including bars of soap that have been lurking for years.

I am excited by the challenge! We are in a privileged position in that we were able to save and be really frugal to enable us to downsize to move 3 years ago and I know as a family we can pull together for DD in his final years as his Parkinsons advances.

LindaMary

Has he no savings of his own or a house to sell. His family should not be held liable for his care, unless you want to contribute to a Care home of your choice

FrugalinShropshire

Sorry LM I didn't explain properly. We all live together at the moment, myself, OH, Dad and DS and myself and OH care for Dad. We all contribute to the household income. Dad has a house that is rented out in the south east and with his pensions will have enough to cover the care home fees. But as a family our income will fall as we will no longer get Carers allowance and the money DD gives us for his care and keep.
We hoped DD would live with us for a lot longer, but his condition is going downhill fast and we are finding it hard to manage. As we are self funding it is far more time consuming to access any type of care. We have spent hours on the phone trying to access respite beds and being repeatedly told they are for council clients only and not self funders. Our needs as carers are not being met despite requesting a Carers assessment.

helcat26

You may still be eligible for attendance allowance even if he is in a care home.
http://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/financial-support/help-with-benefits/attendance-allowance

LindaMary

Good luck and I hope all works out for you all. You may well get help with attendance allowance or DLA. Xx

Nomoonatall

FrugalinShropshire wrote: »

OH and I took the bold step yesterday of putting DDad's name on the waiting list of a care home. In the mean time we have booked him in for 3 weekends of respite care and 2 days a week day care. The day care alone will be over £500 a month. In preparation for the big fulltime care home fees we are going to tighten our belts, knuckle down and get as much money saved as we can.
A few things that I have started:
I have cut our food budget down to £200/4 weeks
Cancelled my gym membership at £22 a month as I have only been managing to get for a swim a couple of times a month so it will be cheaper to PAYG.
Cancelled my contact lenses at £22 a month. I have about 2 months worth of lenses and a new pair of specs that were free with my contact lens contract, so I will keep the lenses for special occasions.
We have menu planned and are eating from the pantry/freezer, while building up a winter larder.
We have bought enough wood for our log burner to last through until spring.
We have enough LPG to last for a year for our oven top.
We overpaid on our electric and have cut down usage so will now fix a cheaper tariff for the winter.
No new books
No new yarn until Edinburgh Yarn Fest in March 2017
Use up ALL cosmetics and toiletries including bars of soap that have been lurking for years.

I am excited by the challenge! We are in a privileged position in that we were able to save and be really frugal to enable us to downsize to move 3 years ago and I know as a family we can pull together for DD in his final years as his Parkinsons advances.

Aww, bless you. Are you sure that you can't get help towards the fees? It might be worth checking it out at your local CAB, you have nothing to lose.

If you're tolerant of your contact lenses, they actually last a lot longer than you think.

Library for books!

Mobile phone...try three payg...I don't have one, but my friend does...it's a rollover thingy, she spends about £10 a year and she has more friends than I do!

Sorry if I'm not much help, I really wish you well though x

FrugalinShropshire

helcat26 wrote: »

You may still be eligible for attendance allowance even if he is in a care home.
http://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/financial-support/help-with-benefits/attendance-allowance

Yes DD will get his Attendance Allowance, which will go toards his Care home fees, but we wont get Carers Allowance, as we wont be providing the care anymore and that is £254 a month. Also the contribution D makes to the food budget, heating, free tv license etc. That is why we are cutting back now to be more prepared for the leaner times ahead.:beer:

FrugalinShropshire

Snuggled in front of the fire at the moment reading a book of short stories by Kate Mosse that I bought for DS for Xmas last year, sharing a reduced to 29p packet of midget gems. Bliss

westcoastscot

Good afternoon FrugalinShropshire - nothing particular to add since I'm in Scotland and the law is different, but do you have a carers centre you receive support from? Certainly here in Scotland even if you self-fund you are entitled to a community care assessment for Dad, from the point of view of anticipated carer breakdown, and that would put Dad on the list for council run care home placement?
Very best of luck moving forward - I know how difficult the transition can be. WCS

FrugalinShropshire

Thanks WCS , we are registered to recieve emergency respite care in the event of an emergency. The Carers Assesment would identify our needs for respite or a holiday, but as self funders you would then be expected to find all these things out for yourself. It is not the paying for care that we onject to , it is the complete lack of support that we get as carers as D is self funding. We managed to find a nursing home that took him for respite earlier in the month as we were booked to go to a concert in the big smoke, but they would only take him for a week instead of a couple of nights, so it eneded up costing us £700 for the week.

westcoastscot

Different in Scotland then - part of my job would be to support you to work through this, look at options, liaise between the family, social work and providers and move forward with you, regardless of who is paying the final bill. The carers assessments that we do are more holistic to anything offered by social work, and have pots of funding attached to them to support the carer to access anything they need to continue to care.
We have a new carers act coming in 2018, the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016, which we're very much looking forward to.

I'm really sorry you're having to do this without support - I fully appreciate that it isn't about the money, and if you think I can help in anyway, or you wish to discuss your situation please do pm me.
WCS