helping seniors live well in later life

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Tag: Parents

  • Planning for the inevitable

    Planning for the inevitable

    The inevitable will happen to all of us and it’s good to get planning and talking about it before we go.  The inevitable might be that your attorneys need to act for you or help you during your lifetime or it might be information for your executors when you die.  There are some great resources available and we wanted to let you know of the ones we like:

    For attorneys and executors

    Peace of Mind Planner – a comprehensive workbook to fill in containing details that anyone dealing with your estate would like to know about https://amzn.eu/d/8NaEsOY

    Life Manual from https://www.grey-matters-consultancy.com/life-manual/ another, smaller, workbook in which to record your details.

    If you are a client of St James’s Place Partnership they also have a similar manual which you can fill in.

    For executors and useful in advance to start planning

    White Balloon https://www.whiteballoon.co.uk/ a resource for life’s end from funeral directors to florists, counsellors and musicians and much more.

    Using the information from the life manuals above, you can close, freeze or transfer all of your loved one’s accounts from one place, for free.  You can also set it up in advance. https://lifeledger.com/

    Planning doesn’t have to be sad or morbid, it ensures that you make life easier for your loved ones and that your wishes are respected when you are gone.

  • Getting Care At Home

    Getting Care At Home

    So, you’ve decided that the best thing for your loved one (or you) is to get some help with care at home.  It could be help with meals, or with personal care, cleaning or companionship, or a mixture of all of these things.  If you have more than £23,250 in savings you have to pay for the care yourself.*

    We’ve noticed that lots of people seem to think that those providing care at home are expensive, intimating that the extra costs involved rather than privately paying a carer, aren’t worth the money.  Here are some things we think are worth thinking about when considering the options:

    Employing someone privately means you are responsible for sick pay, holiday pay and finding cover when they’re not there, as well as finding the right person in the first place through adverts and interviews, and then getting employment contracts set up.  You might need to find cover at short notice when it isn’t practical to do so.  The carer should also set up a care plan for your loved one (or you) but the practicalities of the time they have might mean this falls by the wayside.  In short, you might be lucky, but the legal, financial and practical responsibilities can be onerous.

    Using a care agency means that you have a management point of contact to sort all sorts of queries and concerns that you may have.  They are responsible for training staff and ensuring all legal protocols are covered for compliance and best practice.  They will make sure a care plan is in place and regularly reviewed.  They also have insurance and will provide any cover for holidays and sickness and ensure their carers are paid.  They can inform you of changes to legalities relevant to your situation.  They also often put on seminars for family members, such as dementia awareness sessions and other relevant information.

    If you are not sure if care at home is the right thing for you, then we can put you in touch with https://eldercareconsultant.co.uk/.   We can also help you with agency recommendations in your area.

    (Note reforms are due to come in in 2025 and you can read more about what this means financially here:  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/build-back-better-our-plan-for-health-and-social-care/adult-social-care-charging-reform-further-details)

  • How to effectively deal with post

    How to effectively deal with post

    Do you find you get post that you don’t deal with?  It is very boring after all! You do need to open it so it doesn’t get lost, but you don’t need to deal with it straight away.  Here’s our video from last year and three top tips:

    • Open envelopes on the day you get the post
    • Flatten the post and throw the envelope away
    • Either deal with it or file it there and then or put the contents in a magazine file to file or deal with later.

    For more information on how and why we recommend the above, have a look at our video here:

  • Tax in retirement

    Tax in retirement

    HMRC should send you a PAYE coding notice each year, unless they believe that a source of PAYE income is not chargeable to tax, or if you do not have a liability to tax on any PAYE-source income.  Being retired doesn’t stop you from being liable for tax or from receiving a tax code. 

    If you usually get one and don’t have one yet this year then you should get in touch with HMRC to find out what happened to it.

    If you usually get a tax code notice you should check it when you receive it to make sure it is correct!  If you need help in understanding it this is a great link to help you and a great website in general for help regarding tax issues for older people.
    https://taxvol.org.uk/index.php/your-tax-code-notice-pensions/

    We can recommend accountants and tax specialists to help you with your tax affairs if you have questions or need a tax return done on your behalf. 

  • Getting on line to make your life easier

    Getting on line to make your life easier

    More and more companies are making our lives ‘easier’ by delivering their services online.  But it’s only ‘easier’ if you grew up with computers or have used them for your job.  If you’re older and you don’t have a device then it’s very annoying and tricky.   But if you want to get going, then why not?  Here are some of the things you could use the internet for – and there will be more next week!

    •  Repeat prescriptions (but if you like to get out and see people at the pharmacy, stick to that!)
    • Online shopping (good if you are short- or long-term sick, but if you like seeing people, stick to that as above)
    • Audio and online books (but if your eyesight is good and you like to go to the library, stick to that or mix it up!)
    • Online magazines
    • Repeat radio shows and podcasts
    • Repeat TV shows
    • Connect with family and friends by video
    • Play bridge and other games with people in different countries
    • Remind you to take medication
    • Buy presents for family and friends

    If you want to stay as you are but know that you would like someone to help you who is digitally connected, we can help you with things that you might not otherwise be able to do, such as apply for a passport or do online shopping for you.   Just get in touch to get help from one of our later life admin specialists.

  • Choosing your attorneys

    Choosing your attorneys

    Last week we talked about the importance of powers of attorney.   So if you have decided you want to make them, you need to think about who might be the best attorneys for you*.  Some of the following might help you to decide:

    • They don’t have to be your relatives or your children.  Even if you have relatives and adult children, it’s your decision as to who should be your attorneys.
    • These are not permanent decisions; you can replace your attorneys later.  You can either put replacement options in the original forms, or you can redo the forms later.  If you redo them it will attract another fee by your solicitor and the Office of the Public Guardian where they get registered, but if, like me, your attorneys are all older than you, you will know that at some point you may need to change it. 
    • You don’t have to have the same attorneys for both health and welfare and finance.  You can have different ones.
    • The attorneys don’t have to act together (or they can) so you can decide how to structure this depending on how you think your attorneys will get on with each other.
    • You can pay your attorneys to do the job, and so you can pick people who are professional attorneys.  Solicitors will often take on the finance side of being an attorney.  At One Stop Organisers we can also do this in some cases for people who are already our clients and who we have worked with before.

    If we can help with suggesting solicitors to help you or your older relatives with the forms, do get in touch.

    *A power of attorney gives one person legal power to act for another person and the person acting is then called an attorney.

  • Power of Attorney

    Power of Attorney

    Have you written and registered your power of attorney yet?  We have done ours and many people might think we’re too young.

    But you’re never too young; it doesn’t matter what age you are, if something happens to you and you can’t make decisions, then life can get a bit tricky.  People often think that they are giving up their independence by appointing attorneys, but it doesn’t need to be like that.  It’s just there so when things start to get difficult, you can get some help from the people you trust most. 

    Your appointed finance attorneys can make decisions with you before you lose capacity, just to assist and make your life easier.

    The health and welfare attorneys can only make decisions for you if you have lost capacity.

    It is much easier to fill in your forms before you need them, and if you need to discuss this with a solicitor then we can recommend firms that can help you. 

    Next time we’ll talk about who to appoint as your attorneys.

  • Getting your home ready to downsize

    Getting your home ready to downsize

    So you’ve decided to downsize and you are putting your home on the market.  So, what should you do to get it ready?

    •  Take advice from the estate agent you are using, but note they will all have different opinions on this!
    • If your home is likely to need a lot of work by your buyer to modernise it, feel free to ignore most of the rest of this advice, as it won’t make much difference to the outcome.
    • Tidy the front garden and make sure any issues with the front of the house (peeling paint, dirty or cracked pathway, weeds, etc) are sorted.  You can add some vibrant pots of plants.
    • If you live in a flat, do what you can to keep the communal areas clean and tidy.
    • Create the feeling of space in the rooms by removing clutter into cupboards or taking it away from the home.
    • If you are tempted to remove furniture, only do this if you are re-purposing the room  for prospective buyers.  And it is always good to have a double bed in bedrooms where possible to show how the room can be used.

     If you need help with choosing an estate agent or de-cluttering either before you go on the market or before the move, we would love to help.

  • When should you downsize?

    When should you downsize?

    There is never a good time to downsize.  Many of our clients wish they’d done it much sooner, but acknowledge they probably thought they were invincible 10 years earlier.   So when you do it is up to you.  But the younger you are the more energy you’ll have to do it.  As specialists in downsizing parents and grandparents we can help and assist with small and large tasks, or project manage the whole thing. 

    Things to consider are:

    • Finances – freeing up money to top up pension or pay for care
    • Energy bills and excess rooms  – don’t pay to heat a home that you don’t fully use  
    • Household maintenance including gardening – both financially and physically this can become a drain
    • Health needs – these might need to be paid for or a move might simply help accommodate a health problem
    • Being nearer family for support (both ways) and companionship

    You can read more on our previous blog.