Save for a cruise or care bills?

I am unsure how to begin this letter other than to ask you for the details of your bank account and personal assets. The question seems inappropriate unless you are an institution seeking to avoid paying care costs for the elderly and ensure that these are passed on to those who have saved.My father was recently hospitalised, which meant our family had to face the question of care. This had the potential to negate his last will and funnel assets into an area that should have been an institutional responsibility. Unfortunately my father has passed away but his surviving family have similar concerns.

There is an alternative. The pursuit of a hedonistic lifestyle would in essence be an ideal solution. Spending on ourselves would force institutions to look elsewhere for the cash. Those elderly who had already adopted this approach have benefited by receiving free care or at least funded by the state.

Hedonism is alien to my economic psyche and the lessons taught to me by my parents. It would also exclude any proposed inheritance intentions I have for my son. If my wife and I have a heart attack, commit suicide, get run over in a traffic accident or have a swift death then my son would gain. If we live to a long age and require care then he would lose.

Tony Blair once said that he did not wish to live in a country where the elderly have to pay for their care. As I understand it he still resides in the Downing Street area and has done nothing to prevent the state from legally mugging the elderly.

The impact of the aging population has been known since the 1960s and therefore the solution to the problem was for Government to resolve and not to subordinate these costs on those who have saved their assets.

What I did not realise, nor do many of those who now take on mortgages, is that once paid, your home may be earmarked by government to cover their economic shortfalls toward care provision.

Do I go on a world cruise this year and toast the government for my free care when I become old or do I save?

Henry Maj, Rugeley Road, Armitage.