Caring for Ageing Parents: Planning for More Than the Cost of Care

Money cannot do the caring for you. But it can create more choices around how that care is given.

When a parent begins to need more care, the financial questions are often the easiest to identify. What will home care cost? Is a helper needed? What does insurance cover? Can Mum or Dad afford it? Will the children need to contribute?

The other demands tend to reveal themselves more gradually. Someone accompanies a parent to medical appointments. Someone researches the care options, speaks to doctors and keeps track of medication. Work becomes less flexible just as more flexibility is needed. A phone call can suddenly rearrange an entire day.

Money cannot remove many of these responsibilities. Used thoughtfully, however, money can give a family more choice over who carries them and leave more time for the parts of caring that cannot simply be handed over.

Start with the resources already available

Understanding what a parent has does not mean working out how much can be spent before the children step in.

Start instead with the full picture: their income, savings and investments, insurance coverage, MediSave, CareShield Life and other support for which they may be eligible. Then consider the likely cost of the care they need now or may need as their condition changes.

The amount a parent can afford to spend may also be different from the amount they are comfortable spending.

For many older parents, having their own money represents independence. They may want enough set aside to remain in their own home, provide for a spouse, cope with a longer period of care than expected, or simply retain the security of knowing that they can continue making their own financial choices.

Adult children have financial lives that need protecting too. A contribution towards a parent’s care may come from money intended for retirement, children’s education or other family responsibilities. Understanding the resources on both sides helps the family decide what each can sustainably contribute and how long that arrangement could last.

The aim is a care plan that the family can continue to support without unnecessarily compromising anyone’s financial security.

Ask your parent what matters to them

Where your parent can participate in these decisions, their preferences should shape the plan.

Where would they prefer to receive care? How important is remaining at home? What degree of privacy and independence matters to them? Who would they be comfortable receiving personal care from? How do they feel about using their own savings, or accepting financial help from their children?

The answers to these questions can materially change the financial plan. Staying at home may require modifications to the property and paid support. A parent who values retaining a substantial financial reserve may prefer the children to share some costs earlier. Another may feel strongly about paying for their own care for as long as they can.

Understanding those preferences early gives the family something more useful than an affordable solution. It gives them a basis for deciding what good care looks like for the person receiving it.

Some costs never appear on a bill

Even when care is comfortably affordable, somebody still has to make things happen.

There are appointments to arrange, decisions to make, care providers to coordinate and changes in a parent’s condition to notice. There is also the time spent visiting, talking and simply being available.

Financial resources can create capacity around some of this. Home care, transport, domestic help or other professional support may allow an adult child to continue working, give a primary caregiver regular respite, or free up time that would otherwise be spent managing the practicalities of care.

That trade-off is worth naming explicitly when deciding how much the family is prepared to spend: the value of paying for support may extend well beyond the task being paid for. Sometimes what you are buying back is time.

When there are siblings, what counts as a fair share?

Families do not always contribute to care in the same currency.

One sibling may have considerably greater financial capacity. Another may live nearby and handle most appointments and emergencies. Someone overseas may readily contribute money but have few opportunities to be physically present.

An equal split of the bills can therefore sit alongside a very unequal experience of caring.

That gap between equal cost and unequal effort is where resentment can develop, even in families that have enough money. One sibling may feel they are paying more than their share. Another may care far less about the money and wonder why they are the person who always has to take leave, make the phone calls, or spend another afternoon at the hospital.

A useful family conversation therefore goes beyond deciding who pays what. Talk about who can realistically give time, who is likely to take responsibility for particular decisions, whether greater financial contributions from one sibling can support another who is carrying more of the day-to-day care, and how the arrangement should change if someone’s circumstances do.

Fairness may look different in every family. What matters is that the family has discussed what it means to them, rather than discovering, through resentment, that everyone had been keeping a different score.

If you are the only child, decide where you are most needed

For an only child, the issue is concentration rather than distribution. Financial decisions, medical appointments, care arrangements, emergencies and everyday coordination can all converge on one person.

Don’t try to do everything yourself just because you’re the only child. Decide where your presence has the greatest value: being personally involved in important medical and care decisions, making time to accompany your parent to certain appointments, or simply preserving enough space in your life to spend time with them as their child.

Then look at the responsibilities surrounding those priorities. Transport, domestic support, routine care and some administrative tasks may be areas where family, friends or paid help can provide support. If the financial resources are available, using them deliberately can prevent every aspect of care from depending on one person’s time and energy.

Make the choices while you can make them together

Some families will be reading this while their parents are still independent. Others will already be arranging care, paying bills and trying to work out what happens next.

Wherever you are in that process, start with the position as it stands.

What care does your parent need now, and how might that change? What resources and support are available? What does your parent want, if they are able to express those wishes? How much can they comfortably contribute while retaining the financial security that matters to them? What can you contribute without putting your own financial position under unnecessary strain?

If there are siblings, add another conversation: how will money, time and responsibility be shared?

The answers may change as your parent’s needs change. Having them in the open gives the family a clearer basis for making the next decision when it comes.

We’d welcome a conversation

Caring for a parent can change the shape of your own financial life, sometimes gradually and sometimes almost overnight. Our Wealth Management Process starts with a Discovery, where we understand what is happening now, the resources available across the family, and the other responsibilities your money still needs to support. From there, we can help you work out what is sustainable: how your parent’s resources can support the care and independence they want, what you may choose to contribute, and how those commitments fit alongside your own family’s needs and longer-term plans.

Questions families often ask

How much should I set aside for my parents’ care?

There is no useful single figure. Start with your parent’s existing income, assets, insurance and available support, then consider the type and potential duration of care required. From there, you can model the potential shortfall and decide how much of it you are willing and able to fund without compromising your own financial security.

Should siblings contribute equally to their parents’ care?

That depends on what the family considers fair. Siblings may have very different financial capacity, proximity to their parents, and ability to provide hands-on care. It can be more useful to discuss the overall contribution each person can make, including money, time and responsibility, than to assume every bill should automatically be divided equally.