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Each nursing home has it's own schedules and individual contracts. There are cheaper options, but in her area, they were sterile environments devoid of dignity and proper care. My MIL just wanted to die in her 'forever' house that she and her late husband built together. But even before the dementia diagnosis, a combination of changing rules made it financially impossible. It was never a viable farm - 100 acres of blacksoil in a rainshadow. But insurance & water licensing, and rates all kept rising fast over recent years.

I am not sure what your situation is, but in my mother's case, she paid $250k. This is a bond, though and will be returned upon her death (RAD refundable accommodation deposit). Other than that, she pays a monthly fee that is most of her pension, but she also gets an English pension

I totally agree with this, but I guess I understand if others have a different view. We downsized substantially at the age of 55 in order to retire while still young enough to actively enjoy life. We are unconcerned about leaving an inheritance. We have one son who, thankfully, is much more economically successful than we are, so he is unconcerned about whether he gets anything from us when we go. Moving to a smaller place frees up time and money from maintenance tasks. Throughout our working lives, we mostly pursued jobs we were interested in rather than money, and at times lived on little money. Through super and the sale of our property, we are now quite financially secure, although not wealthy. I do find it unfortunate when people have an asset that they may have struggled to pay for throughout their life, and are not able or willing to enjoy the fruits of it in their old age.

A related 'Random Thought':- We already have a tough system of wealth redistribution in Australia. It's called Aged Care. My Mother-in-law recently moved into residrntial care. This requires payment of $600k, plus other ongoing costs. So far we have already paid over $15,000 over the past couple of months. So, the family home sold for $1.3 million. Less CGT because she had it for less thsn 20yrs. Hooray, she's a millionaire! Meanwhile there are bills to pay along the way. Depending on her longevity, over half of her nest egg will be redistributed. I haven't an issue with 'user pays' concept. I am pointing out that perceived windfalls from selling a family home do not offer the luxury lifestyle that being a millionaire implies. We all have to pay for the late stages of our lives. I prepaid by paying my mortgage during my productive years. But those who never achieved home ownership suffer financially most. They are given no reasonable choices in their autumn years.

One T, I apologise for touching a raw nerve. That was not my intention. I simply stated that I do not know anyone in my age cohort, that can be classed as 'multi-millionaires'. No doubt they do exist. But *mostly* they are people who already privileged. Your own story confirms the difficulties that normal people face. I think is unfair to use artificially inflated housing values, as an indicator of personal wealth. Yeah, technically it is wealth.... on paper. Often such claims ignore the simple fact that the family home for most people, is not bought as an investment. So you can sell it and be a millionaire - so long as you don't mind having noplace to live.

But you're still a millionaire, Peter - because of the massive increase in your house value. Asset-rich, but cash poor, that's for sure. There are thousands of baby-boomers just like you, and they are trapped to a certain degree, by the distortion in property prices. But at the end of the day, you can always cash in on that major value in your house, and purchase something smaller and newer and easier to maintain, such as an apartment. A sizeable number of my baby boomer friends have "downsized", and ended up with a major amount of cash to invest, thus allowing them to improve their lifestyle. You seem to have a lack of understanding as regards legalities and taxes around deaths. "Probate" is the act of determining the validity of a will, and the Court examines the will, determines if it's valid and then issues a "Grant of Probate", which allows the executor of the estate to proceed with asset distribution and finalisation of the Estate. If the family home os passed onto children, it can be sold within 2 years without payment of capital gains tax. If a superannuation death benefit is paid out, it can sometimes be taxed, depending on the circumstances of the beneficiary. As you have no super, there's no super tax to worry about. As to the shares, there's no tax payable upon inheriting them, only CGT when they are sold. There are no death duties in Australia, and there haven't been for many years. I feel our Govt should probably start looking at death duties, just as Britain had to reintroduce them, due to massive untaxed wealth gains.

The only property I have is the house I live in, fully paid off, no mortgage. My car is a 22yo Holden Astra I paid $6,000 18 months ago. I have no super, just enough in the bank to pay my bills and be cremated. When I pay off the $45 outstanding on my credit card next pension day, I will owe nothing. The shares in my name belong to the kids, due to my wife not updating her will. They were left in my name, but she said they were to go to the kids and I will honour that. They decide what happens to the dividends. I've said it before, when I go I want it to be with the very minimum of assets to minimise or eliminate probate.

Nomadpete, I'm a boomer and I set about making money from property and other investments during the period 1965 to 1995. I spent 30 years busting my gut, and along with other family members, ended up with several properties, including a 2000 ac farm. I estimate I had about $350,000 in accumulated assets by 1995, with at least a third of that being property. Then our bank foreclosed on us with no reason (no arrears, nothing), just saying they had "lost confidence" in our ability to service our loans. So they demanded repayment of $1M within 48 hrs, which forced us to sell everything we owned, at fire sale prices. No other bank would even look at our business, as they all ganged up on us, and said there must be something bad going on, that we weren't telling them. There wasn't, we had a good operational business with minimal problems. In the washup, a 5 acre block in Perth city got sold for $300K, the farm was sold for $550,000, a 1 acre industrial block with a huge shed in Kalgoorlie/Boulder sold for $50,000. In the years since, the 5 acre block in the city was subdivided by others, and it reaped multi-million dollar profits for them - despite capital gains tax. The farm is now worth $8M, and has been sold about 5 times since we sold it, and each time, the "baby boomers" who purchased it, made massive capital gains on their investment. The industrial property in Kalgoorlie is now worth several million - more baby boomers made huge capital gains from the ownership of that block of land. The above capital gains have been repeated ad-infinitum by baby boomers. One contributor here talks about he's just poured $500,000 into a subdivision, like he's done the nation a favour. He hasn't. He's made huge capital gains out of that subdivision, greatly enriching himself - and pushed property ownership out of the reach of young people. I feel that Chalmers hasn't gone far enough to tax wealthy baby boomers who have nearly all made vast profits out of property of all types - which property has gone ballistic in values in the last 25-30 years. I do feel for those baby boomers who never did manage to position themselves to make gains from property, because of their circumstances, or the inability to be shrewd with property purchases. I could never regain a fraction of my former wealth, as I had to start again at age 46, suffering from no assets at that age, and therefore no borrowing ability - as well as now carrying a life-long hatred of greedy, avaricious banks - who place unjust gains in shareholder wealth above all else. The baby boomers who are struggling with no property assets, have nothing to fear from Chalmers budget. The ones with banks shares can't lose, their financial gains have been huge, and will continue to be huge, because banks make monstrous profits - the Commonwealth made $2.7B in profit in the March quarter alone. There has not been a year for the last 30 years, where the Commonwealth Bank didn't make a monstrous profit - and this, despite also having to pay somewhere around $1B in fines, for devious and outright illegal corporate behaviour, over many years. There is a need for major wealth redistribution in Australia today, the wealth gap between the haves and have-nots, increases daily.

Trump stepped off the plane followed by billionaires plus Eric and Lara. Imagine how outraged Trump would have been if Biden had got off the plane followed Hunter and his laptop. Now, it seems almost normal. Also, the Justice Department is trying to find a way to settle the $10 billion lawsuit Trump raised against the IRS for not doing enough to stop his tax returns from being made public. They want to settle before they have to go back to the judge to explain why it shouldn't get thrown out of court. The corruption continues.

I think that is the Chinese way. The best way to humiliate Trump is to ignore him as best you can. Xi is a statesman, Trump is a buffoon.

Xi gives Trump the cold shoulder. When Trump arrived in China, no high level Chinese dignatory was there to greet him. Think about that! Here's the "Leader of the Free World" arriving in a country, and he is not greeted by anyone of note. Compare that reception with that given to Obama 2015. I was looking for a video of Trump's arrival, but those I saw failed to point out the snub.

You know it's dry when the weeds are dying. I know that Rain, Rain, go away is Top of the Pops down south, but I won't be singing it.

Nice pics, Octave. Looks like the view from my bedroom window

When your garden's Cactus it will be OK. Nev

OME, It's time you scraped the cobwebs out of the rain gauge. Otherwise those rare drips won't make it to the bottom.

If it rained from "Now till Xmas", you would have a few problems. Nev

Sorry, but most of me disagrees with that assertion. Maybe just I don't mix with the 'right' boomers.

Great song, and Harry Chapin is one of my favourite musos. W.O.L.D. goes around in my head many a time, and I often sing a few bars of it. It was a dreadful tragedy to lose him at age 38 in a freeway crash.

But if you bought them at $20 in 1998, you'd still be pretty happy - especially when you count the massive dividends paid out on them annually, along with the stock splits. One of SWMBO's Uncles was a CTB manager, and he was made redundant around 1997 when the Commonwealth was taken over by the Big Banks. He got a $250,000 redundancy payout, plus 50,000 Commonwealth shares as part of the deal. He's never sold any of them, AFAIK. Imagine what he's sitting on now. I bought 100 local Bendigo Bank shares in 2000 - $100 worth, because that's all I could afford at the time, because I was as broke as they make them. I was a founding customer of that branch at that time. Other well-heeled people bought up to several hundred thousand of those Bendigo Bank shares at $1 each. The shares paid 10% dividend for years, then they started paying 15% dividend, and the last few annual dividends were at 20%. But I know those profits have been at the expense of working people. I only wish I'd had $100,000 at that time, I'd be one of the baby boomers Chalmers is targeting - and I'd be squealing like a stuck pig, too - as they all are. I have no problem with Chalmers grabbing some money off the wealthy baby boomers, most of whom have made incredible capital gains over the last 30 or so years. Most are multi-millionaires.

Yep - banks don't lose value for long.

And the cat's in the cradle with the silver spoon

I am sure it will quickly bounce back.

Angriness takes its toll.

Thank you, Jim Chalmers, for your budget last night. Today CBA shares dropped about $18, which cost the parcel my wife left for the kids a bit over $10,000.