Have you had ‘The chat’ with your children about your future care needs.

Only one child lives near me or even in this country so she has my POW s both health and financial She knows where my paperwork is kept I have booked and paid for a simple cremation and left enough money for a meal for anyone who is around I don’t owe anyone anything She also knows I prefer my own home if possible but I m not going to fight if i have to go into a care home but to be honest I d rather fall and break my neck than wither away in a carehome

Allalongagatha

I am a strong believer that everyone should have a health POA whatever their age. Is is easy to do and fairly cheap.

We have just done ours, way overdue but despite being advised to have it done by a professional we did them ourselves, it is quite straightforward and only cost us £82 each although it has now gone up to £92. Family friends paid over £1000 to have theirs done professionally plus the registration fee of £82 each.

I am in a bit of an unusual position.

Actually dealing right now with the generation older than my and DH's.
And yet people around us are starting to talk to us about when we ourselves die.

Our accountant last week was talking about this subject. I thought he meant hte older generation. Took me a couple of minutes to cotton on that he was talking about ourselves!

How can we take ourselves death seriously, when nearly all our parents are still quite with us?
Dont think at all I am in the right headspace for that.

May I add Cariad's post about letting all your children know your wishes. Mil decided that she had had enough when her heart failure medicine ceased to enable her to have what she considered a reasonable QOL. She was 102, lived with us and made her wishes known to me and OH. We told the GP about her request to stop medication and he came round to see her and got her to sign the DNR form. She discussed her funeral wishes with us and asked us to keep her at home. Her daughter came up to visit several times and we assumed that she had had similar conversations with her. She had not and it created some unnecessary difficulties at a difficult time. Please discuss it with everyone who needs to know. Thankfully we avoided what could have been a family upset but it was a close call as SIL felt very aggrieved about not being kept in the picture!

One in my last post!!!!

To save looking up a dictionary (or Google would say) "erstwhile" means - in the past. I binned the relationship with him - as he'd already murdered it anyway basically. Wouldnt even listen to me explaining the legal way to put things right - and I put it in very simple language (ie so he would understand it).

Oh dear! I did read this but the ‘erstwhiles’ really got on my nerves!! (I’m not even sure what it means!)
Did you need so many to prove your point?

...and, if you do change your will at any point (or it's not evenly balanced in the first place) = at least leave an official letter explaining why. It's very very hurtful to just do so and not say a peep about having done so or why you did so - and it's clear what conclusion will be drawn from that.

I knew my brother was grabby and his/my father knew he was. I'd long been aware he's what I call a "greedy grabber" - but the first week after the will (and that total lack of explanation) and own conclusions were drawn....a farewell "get lost" email sent to my erstwhile brother, a bottle of brandy bought, got out the photo album our mother had given me and a pair of scissors and that was the photo album in shreds. "Well if that's what she thinks of me"....cut cut cut. "If that's what she thinks of me"....cut cut cut and another glass of brandy poured.

So - leave explanations for anything out of the ordinary you plan on doing.

Please don’t be put off by people saying it is complicated. The Public Guardian Office is really helpful.

@knspol Why are you waiting?

On a very different note - when it comes to the question of organ donation (or not) read up about it - thoroughly. The definition "brain dead" does NOT mean "dead dead really dead" and they don't use general anaesthetics on the body of the person concerned (even though it's now fairly widely-known there's a good chance the person is still in it iyswim). There have been some absolute horror stories and a lot of pressure is put on relatives for organs to get donated.

You have to specify you are NOT a donor now - whichever part of Britain you're in in order to protect yourself.

Seems practical to me.

When it came to it with my parents - and at the very awkward point in time of it being 2020 - they had had a discussion with my mothers favourite child (ie my erstwhile brother) and his wife and I knew absolutely nothing basically. Kept in the dark all round.

That was not funny when everyone was insisting all round that my father must stop being in a hospital "bed blocking" as they call it and had to go into a home. No chance of anything else either - as his wife/my mother was refusing to have him home.

Cue for long-distance conference call thing and a home had to be found for my father and I went back from Wales deliberately in order to make sure I was the one that chose it - as my brother and father had had months not speaking before now and the relationship had always been a bit "iffy" between them (because there was a massive IQ gap between them - in my fathers favour and my father was livid with him in a variety of ways).

Back I went...inspected the carehomes (having already rejected a couple before even visiting them) and there was one that was clearly best of the lot and so that's the one I chose. It was equally clearly the dearest of the lot and I was having to "choose" in total absolute ignorance of what my parents financial situation was!! I knew they were both in their 90's and owned their house and that the powers-that-be couldnt chuck our mother out of her home whilst she still needed it to live in and would have to grab for any money they planned on grabbing (to cover those carehome costs) after they were both dead. I felt like I was gambling all round as to how things were going to go...and all complicated by the fact erstwhile brother had taken two seconds flat prior to that of announcing that "The granny flat set-up they'd just built in their garden (very nice it looked too in the Facebook photos before they clicked I'd see them and so they deleted them) was for one of their adult children" before there was a chance of anyone visibly wondering whether mother could live there after father died (assuming he went first) and so I knew they'd already visibly "walled off" that place and so there would be big problems of where mother was to live if TPTB could grab for her house whilst she still needed somewhere to live (despite that grannyflat and their fairsize house).

It was unnerving then - as bad enough having to argue with my (now erstwhile) brother and inform him I had made the choice of carehome and that WAS going to be the one he went in. That was worrying - and, given that I have long long known my brother is a moneygrabber (I'd even been warned of that fact by my father that he was always on the lookout for himself) added that extra layer. It was problematic all round that my mother had ensured my erstwhile brother/his wife had that "power of attorney". Not funny to be one person on my own and with our mother having ensured I had no legal say at all!!! up against a grabby (and not very bright) family (erstwhile brother/his wife/their two young adult children).

I was also having to act in sheer ignorance of their financial situation about the fact that carers needed to go into their home several times daily for months come the end - and I had chosen for mother to have the best care firm going regardless of cost again - and with no idea whether there was the money there to cover it or no - but made it very clear to erstwhile brother and wife that was the one I had chosen and I would be checking to see that was the one they used.

So - yep....very sensible to say exactly what you think/plan now and more people really should. That way it should be sorted and no-one left with unanswered questions/broken relationships etc in the aftermath.

We did our POA when we updated our wills. Yes, expensive but worth the peace of mind. We didn't trust doing it online as the forms seemed complicated and sadly have experience of one wrong word/ phrase in a legal document causing issues. We decided to leave it to the professionals. We have both a medical and financial one in place.

Will is made, poa in place, my funeral wishes are clear and I've sorted out the jewellery that my dd would like. I do a Swedish Death Clean every January to minimise the amount my children will need to dispose of.

No I haven't. For the last 12 mths or so I've been intending to sort out a POA and still haven't done this. I did not realise a DNR was separate to the health part of a POA . It really has to be my number 1 priority for 2026.

Yes, we also have wills and our verified POA should be live in a week or two having completed them a couple of months ago.
I also have a living will lodged with my GP. We do not have DNR as it only covers restarting the heart which may be necessary, other treatment would continue.

I am a strong believer that everyone should have a health POA whatever their age. Is is easy to do and fairly cheap.

Yes, my POA is in place as is my DNR. My dd knows that I want to go into residential care if I can’t be reasonably independent at home. Funeral arrangements have been discussed and I keep an ‘Inevitable’ file which I update regularly.

I really have to get on and get my POA set up and make wishes felt.

The problem in my family is that my granddaughter is so profoundly disabled she will need lifelong 24/7 care and I don't have the money to pay for much care nor top up fees.

My dear Sis may step in, she's very very well off indeed, but she has 6 children to consider and future offspring (thats 2 stepchildren and 4 of her own).

Generally I am optimistic about it but don't tend to think about it as much as I might, but I am only 74.

I’ve had a number of discussions with mine. I hope never to go into a care placement

I have DNR in place. The know I don’t want to be kept alive by tubes and wires.

They know where the will, DNR, household bills, bank, savings are.