Holly's helping hand | The 5 Things You Need To Know About Ageing Parents and Financial Planning

1. You know, I think a real starting point is for families just to talk about money. Money is such a touchy subject. Isn't it? Just just genuinely. So I think it's it's now incumbent on if you like, you know, ask the children to almost start those conversations. It is tough. It is tough. It's tough. You know, you could couch it as look, we're looking at our financial planning and thinking about our situation, so I'm just curious mum, dad, you know, what have you done? Or is there anything that we can or should know about that will make life easier?

I honestly, honestly wish we would have started conversations a lot. years. I wish those conversation conversations had taken place. You know probably 10 or 15 years ago rather than as close to two events. It would have enabled it would have enabled us as a family probably to handle to handle it a little bit differently.

2. Care homes is a difficult conversation. Because for two reasons. It's hard enough for us to think about not being here at all. To think that we might be here but not in control necessarily of our final years. I think it's very, very hard for them to come to terms with so that makes the conversation difficult. as well. And then the the complexity of actually, what the financial planning around that might look like I think it can seem very daunting.

I think that there's there's an organisation called SOLLA and there are a lot of financial planners that are associated with with organising and you are putting me on the spot a society have later Later life advisors. But you can go via that site to find fully accredited financial planners that have that particular area of expertise.

3. You start by understanding how much it costs. I mean, obviously, from Edinboro care, home costs will vary across the country and different types of care homes, but essentially, we were being quoted figures around 1700 pounds a week. And when I say that1700 pounds a week, because people often say do you mean a month? I mean, no, no, I mean, I'm I'm in a week because they're in full time care they're being cared for and fed and looked after and it's so it's, it's expensive. And and the challenges for many people, clearly is once somebody goes into care home, you don't know how long they're going to be there for is the classic financial planning pieces now if we all knew the end game, really easy, right?

4. You know, through the Alzheimer society for example, the had advisors that they can, they will give maybe a free consultation up front to help them. Apparently, you know, the Citizens Advice Bureau can help we'll have people that can help. So there's always somebody if you don't have somebody in the family that is prepared to put in the hard yards and sit in a darkened room with a calculator and a pain. And there are people that can help but you've got to make sure you really understand some of the questions and how the whole thing works because time and time again, I I was sometimes misunderstanding how it how it worked. So it's don't be afraid to ask the daft questions and make sure you're really clear. On how pensions are going to work, for example.

5. The other thing was making sure that obviously we had wills, power of attorney to everything, everything nailed down. And I would just say the earlier you do that, the better and make sure everybody knows what a power of attorney actually is. Because many people don't understand it. Tell us just in case we do. I mean obviously it gives imminent the moment I have power of attorney for my father, so if something happens to my mom, then I can. Well there's two isn't there. There's the there's a health one recommended health decisions for him and then there's a financial one where I can take over I can manage all the finances, but they're not triggered until somebody either declares themselves incapacitated, or a doctor says that they are no limit. They now need to effectively trigger the power of attorney. So having one is only the starting point. And often times people haven't understood that. So that's important.