care costs

Pollycat

Kirkmain said:

Just listenting to this episode of you and yours. This poor couple have had to fork out £4k a month to pay for the husbands care. She has spent over £200k of their life savings to look after her husband with dementia. 

Yet if they had been a couple who either never worked, or spent every penny on luxury holidays or gave it to their children as soon as they earned it, and therefor had zero savings, their care would be paid for by the state. How is this fair? Why is Martin Lewis not fighting this?! Why is he wasting time making sure people who are on £60k a year salary get child benefit!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vkv4

I don't care if it's fair or not.

I've just posted this on another thread:

Pollycat said:

My Mum was in a care home for a couple of years before she died.
She had very little money so her care was fully funded by the Council.
I saw enough to realise that if I ever need to go into care I would happily spend my savings to have a better existence in my twilight years.

Grumpy_chap

Kirkmain said:

This poor couple have had to fork out £4k a month to pay for the husbands care. She has spent over £200k of their life savings

Why is Martin Lewis not fighting this?! Why is he wasting time making sure people who are on £60k a year salary get child benefit!

Clearly, the couple are outside what the majority would class as "poor" if they had £200k savings.

I also suspect that the couple with £200k savings were the equivalent of the £60k per year family back in their working days.

Life is, no doubt, far easier if you have the private means to choose your own care than have whatever care is eventually made available by the local authority.

HillsideRetired

Pollycat said:

Kirkmain said:

Just listenting to this episode of you and yours. This poor couple have had to fork out £4k a month to pay for the husbands care. She has spent over £200k of their life savings to look after her husband with dementia. 

Yet if they had been a couple who either never worked, or spent every penny on luxury holidays or gave it to their children as soon as they earned it, and therefor had zero savings, their care would be paid for by the state. How is this fair? Why is Martin Lewis not fighting this?! Why is he wasting time making sure people who are on £60k a year salary get child benefit!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vkv4

I don't care if it's fair or not.

I've just posted this on another thread:

Pollycat said:

My Mum was in a care home for a couple of years before she died.
She had very little money so her care was fully funded by the Council.
I saw enough to realise that if I ever need to go into care I would happily spend my savings to have a better existence in my twilight years.

its a lottery with Local authority funded care , yes they will always seek the most cost effective care provider but more often than not , they have to place where there are spaces . 
I can only draw from my own experience , 
we are paying £220 per day for my mothers nursing care . in the same 20 bed unit 60% of service users are LA funded . its a top care home,, care , food , facility's all very good  ... so its not always true that because you are eligible for local authority care funding you end up in some horrible place .
however of course , money does give you a choice , where there is little choice with LA funding  

SouthCoastBoy

HillsideRetired said:

Pollycat said:

Kirkmain said:

Just listenting to this episode of you and yours. This poor couple have had to fork out £4k a month to pay for the husbands care. She has spent over £200k of their life savings to look after her husband with dementia. 

Yet if they had been a couple who either never worked, or spent every penny on luxury holidays or gave it to their children as soon as they earned it, and therefor had zero savings, their care would be paid for by the state. How is this fair? Why is Martin Lewis not fighting this?! Why is he wasting time making sure people who are on £60k a year salary get child benefit!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vkv4

I don't care if it's fair or not.

I've just posted this on another thread:

Pollycat said:

My Mum was in a care home for a couple of years before she died.
She had very little money so her care was fully funded by the Council.
I saw enough to realise that if I ever need to go into care I would happily spend my savings to have a better existence in my twilight years.

its a lottery with Local authority funded care , yes they will always seek the most cost effective care provider but more often than not , they have to place where there are spaces . 
I can only draw from my own experience , 
we are paying £220 per day for my mothers nursing care . in the same 20 bed unit 60% of service users are LA funded . its a top care home,, care , food , facility's all very good  ... so its not always true that because you are eligible for local authority care funding you end up in some horrible place .
however of course , money does give you a choice , where there is little choice with LA funding  

My experience is very similar to this, I had 2 grandparents who needed care, they ended up in the same care home. One privately funded the other funded by the LA. Also when my mother was in a care home there was a mix of private and public funded residents. If publicly funded you have the right to turn down the first care home you are offered if you don't think it is suitable 

Floss

Kirkmain said:

... This poor couple have had to fork out £4k a month to pay for the husbands care. She has spent over £200k of their life savings to look after her husband with dementia...

To be honest, £4k a month is quite a good price for care - it maybe that she is supplementing funded care to have her husband in a home of her choosing.

As an example, nursing care near me in the NW can be up to £1700 a week / £7,300 a month.

SVaz

Someone lucky enough to have £200k in savings should damn well fund their own care.

What IS unfair is the fact that if you have a decent sized personal pension pot, big enough to fund a care home,  you would be taxed on any withdrawals unless you buy a care needs annuity, which is a huge gamble on longevity. 
Payments from a pension for care costs should be completely tax free,  it would be easy to do via self assessment, you would simply get a tax rebate.  

Kirkmain

HillsideRetired said:

Pollycat said:

Kirkmain said:

Just listenting to this episode of you and yours. This poor couple have had to fork out £4k a month to pay for the husbands care. She has spent over £200k of their life savings to look after her husband with dementia. 

Yet if they had been a couple who either never worked, or spent every penny on luxury holidays or gave it to their children as soon as they earned it, and therefor had zero savings, their care would be paid for by the state. How is this fair? Why is Martin Lewis not fighting this?! Why is he wasting time making sure people who are on £60k a year salary get child benefit!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vkv4

I don't care if it's fair or not.

I've just posted this on another thread:

Pollycat said:

My Mum was in a care home for a couple of years before she died.
She had very little money so her care was fully funded by the Council.
I saw enough to realise that if I ever need to go into care I would happily spend my savings to have a better existence in my twilight years.

its a lottery with Local authority funded care , yes they will always seek the most cost effective care provider but more often than not , they have to place where there are spaces . 
I can only draw from my own experience , 
we are paying £220 per day for my mothers nursing care . in the same 20 bed unit 60% of service users are LA funded . its a top care home,, care , food , facility's all very good  ... so its not always true that because you are eligible for local authority care funding you end up in some horrible place .
however of course , money does give you a choice , where there is little choice with LA funding  

Exactly this. But say your mum had been feckless with her money, or treated the wholse family to big expensive holidays, always flew business class, gifted your kids money and expensive presents. Her family will have the happy memories, the houses (say she contributed to your deposit payments), the appreciative children and grandchildren. And she will be in the same position in a care home, only she doesn't have to pay.

SouthCoastBoy

Personally I'm not too hung up about worrying or budgeting for care costs, if I have money I will pay if not I will let the LA pick up the cost, I am not going to let it get in the way of how I spend money in retirement. 

elsien

There is a difference though between spending your money to have a decent quality of life in your retirement and deliberately getting shot of it "just in case." 

SouthCoastBoy

elsien said:

There is a difference though between spending your money to have a decent quality of life in your retirement and deliberately getting shot of it "just in case." 

Yes, I won't be deliberately overspending just in case I need to go into a care home, as how do you know when that would be. If you deliberately overspend you may run out of money. Why worry about a care home, it's something that may never happen.