This is a retirement thread so I thought I would pose the question of what have we all learnt from seeing close family and friends grow old and as a consequence how they used their funds!

I'll start.

- We are all frightened we will run out of money, have you ever seen anyone do?
- Many people with a reasonable DB/SIPP in their own home can't spend what they have at end of life unless they are forced into care
- The period 60-75ish are the years to extract what you can out of the your remaining years with a chance of being healthy - its the time to spend most of that SIPP
- Planning to give to the kids is brilliant but they might just p*ss it away
- The transition from being an avid saver to a profligate spender is the most difficult thing to do its hard reversing 40 yrs of common sense
- Having an inheritance of £2/3/400 from someone who has worked all their life and lived to 90 unable to spend it feels terrible if you are already comfortable, why the hell didn't the spend it and have some fun
- Buying flash cars, second homes etc. feels less amazing at 65 than it would have at 35

A sales pitch on some software is really unappreciated

It's not about whether it's free ....... its about the constructed "sales pitch" you presented. My post was not an invitation to present some wonderful solution. There isn't one and you don't have one.

The post was seeking to elicit learnings not solutions.

You have completely wrecked the spirit of this post!

Heading back to the OP's question as it is something that is very current for me, and advance apoloiges if I ramble a bit or stray off the topic a little!:

In recent times I lost my mother and mother in law, in both cases in their 90's. In the latter years they were both fixated with "leaving something for the kids". The focus was in part driven by their generation but also by some hard to pin down feeling of a "moral imperative".

What was hard to explain to them was that their money was for their retirement and safety first, anything left was the inheritance. The priorities felt back to front in that they would baulk at spending on themselves to protect the capital for the future. When the cost of care homes became a subject they both fought to avoid taking the (by then essential) care option, at material risk to their own well being. They both died with relatively substantial amounts untouched.

I have reflected on this in relation to myself, now 70. I also have discussed it with materially older friends. It seems that there are a few things in play here. Firstly there is the concept of safety. We are reluctant to reduce what is accumulated as it gives us a feeling of being safe. This is a touch down from the miser image, but it is a powerful driver. We then get the risk of the unknown - "I need the cash because I do not know what I will need to spend on care and I do not know how long I will live". A rational concern, but in extremis it prevents us from spending anything. So we end with not having properly enjoyed what we have spent a lifetime accumulating.

And what attracts our spending definitely changes. I have accepted that i will no longer fit into a Lamborghini - and even if I did I would need a lot of help to get out :)

In my case, I admit to the feeling of safety from having a relatively material family balance sheet to fall back on. But, learning from the recently departed, I have very open conversations with my daughter, she gets that her "inheritance" maybe a couple of moths in an ageing safe, or a more material sum. The key thing that she and I have agreed is that the balance sheet is for the protection, care and pleasure of me and Mrs MR first and foremost. She shares the feeling of sadness that both my mother and my mother in law could have enhanced their later years, but chose not to. The "honest conversation" has taken away many of the concerns that plagued my mother and mother in law.