Started looking after both my parents in late 2007, Dad passed in 2009, I need to do pretty much everything for Mom (age 96 ). All cooking, cleaning, shopping is done by me, plus all care for her as she can barely stand on her own, etc.
My husband is living 85 miles away at property we bought there, Mom and I used to go up every 2 weeks or so and he would come down when he could. Mom now refuses to go up, so I only get up there once very 4 to 6 weeks.
On the food, what I've been doing up to now is pay my half of meals that Mom and I share, and pay for my own food (and she pays for hers) when we eat different things. I pay half of things like paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent and so on. Typically, I put all such charges on my debit card, and then once a month I add up what Mom owes me and she reimburses me.
My husband buys all his own food and the household things needed for our home there.
This method is affecting my husband and I financially every month because we get caught short for about 2 weeks until Social Security comes in. To eliminate this problem, he wants Mom to start paying for my food and for all the things such as the paper towels, etc. He feels that since I'm not being paid for anything I do for her, that the least she can do is cover the costs of my food and those sundries we both need. I would remain solely responsible for food for my pets and for personal items such as deodorant, shampoo, etc.
What do you think? This will probably cost Mom about another $300 a month or so. She can afford it although she may not want to do it. How do others who are caring for family members in their own homes work this out?
I suspect that in future years there are going to be more family caregivers. There won't be any laws mandating the service, but hiring services or placement will become so expensive that many will not be able to afford it and Medicaid may have to cut back on how much it can pay. If someone doesn't contain costs we are sure to see some changes. I do see a problem, though, if one person per family is expected to carry the load at a huge cost to her/himself. Maybe someone should have care receiver classes to teach them how they can help their caregivers in a balanced way. (Of course, my mother wouldn't attend the classes because she knows how things should be already.) :-)
In the early stages of caregiving I certainly did not have a clue how much I would eventually have to do for Mum and how much it would financially impact on my life and my future. As the stages have developed I find it more than a full time job. I can't really leave the house for more than an hour without getting care in and as the law stands shouldn't leave her at all. So in reality I am expected to effectively have a prison sentence in the form of house arrest.
Should I accept that? Absolutely not but I have to pay to be let out and since Mum is a nightmare if we try to bring in an outsider that leaves.... well that would be me then!
Get a life
Oh but then you are able to aren't you...I am not...so butt out
I am fed up of the churches do gooders telling me what I should/should not be doing and has Mum made provision for a donation to the church in her will? WTF I bloody hope not.... apart from the person she PAYS $15 (conversion rate applied - Brit here) to take her to church each weekend (a taxi for the same distance would be $20) we have never seen the minister, no contact from any of the other members apart from one who phones once every 8 weeks or so and she commits about 2k every year if not more....and they want more?
I am just wondering if I am executor when the time comes and she has left them money how long I can string it out before I have to pay them!!!! No seriously she hint left them money but I was shocked they had the gall to even ask
Oh, and they consider my request to have Mom pay for my share of food/sundries here as being "a change in a business arrangement". What business arrangement? Someone should have told me and I would have handled many things much differently than I have.
I would do what I need to do to take care of myself in your position. IF your sisters were there, they would pay for their own food. But the truth is that they choose not to be there, so don't have to do caregiving or help maintain two households. It sounds like they are pretty much getting a free ride on your back. If that is the case, they don't even deserve a word in what you do.
You personally know what is reasonable and what is right. Your sisters p*ssed me off. If they aren't going to participate in caregiving, they can at least support the sibling that is. This makes me appreciate my brothers more. They don't help, but at least they don't hurt.
What really threw me was them referring to this as a "change in a business arrangement". As I mentioned, there is no "business arrangement". Had I been told it would be a "business arrangement", I'm sure I would have at least thought about some kind of reasonable financial compensation as well as scheduling some days off every month. If we figure cost of home care at $10/hr and that being 24/7, then I've already saved my Mom about $86,000. If she'd had to go into a nursing home, by now all her savings would have been gone, all her investments would have been gone, and her property and home would have been sold. As it is, since I haven't charged anything and AM looking after her out of love and appreciation, she still has her assets -- which I feel need to be protected as much as possible just in case something would happen (to her or to me) and she'd have to go to a nursing home and would need that money.
Yes, I'm a senior myself. Just turned 67, and my husband and I are on Social Security plus his disability compensation.
I am DPOA for my mom - the paperwork says I can pay myself - I don't merely because I don't need the money. The papers also allow me to pay my brother for caring for my moms cat - he has said no. But trust me, if either of us needed the money we would take it - and do so without guilt. Think about what you do day and night - day after day - isn't it work .46 cents an hour? Sheez!!!!!
I have been working today on breaking down the groceries/sundries to see exactly how the "shared" portion works out. Because I do keep all the receipts and work it up once every month so Mom can reimburse me for her share, it's easy to go back through the last few months and look at what my share is.
Some things are difficult to determine -- for example, when it comes to food, Mom and I mainly share on the dinner meal because she eats what she likes for breakfast and I eat what I like but I pay for those things myself already as she doesn't eat those things. When it comes to the dinner meal, I eat a larger portion of servings than she does but we are splitting the meal cost 1/2 and 1/2. However, when it comes to something like toilet paper, she uses a lot more than I do and we split THAT cost 1/2 and 1/2. Most of the laundry is Mom's, but we split the cost of detergent 1/2 and 1/2.
Also, I don't typically ask Mom to pay half the cost of my gasoline even though most of it is used for errands around town that are for joint purposes such as going to the grocery store, going to the pharmacy, going for the mail, etc.
To look at the biger picture, from your other posts, mom appears to be declining, in terms of delusuons, verval aggression and lack of cooperation. I'm going to suggest that the time is NOW to take mom to a neurologist/ neuropsych for a cognitive assessment that determines what level of care she needs. Cost that out (AL, Memory care, living with you and hubby with carrgivers and adequate respite). Qhat agould NOT continue is you "giving up" time with your husband and your own interests /activities without any compensation or consideration for what you are doing.
Babalou, I will talk with her pcp this coming week and get a referral for a neurological. Those types of behaviors in her are random, certainly not daily and her mind functions well, so I'm sure she does not (yet) need something like memory care. But her needs go beyond AL, because she can barely walk without her knees giving out, needs help toileting, needs her food cut up for her (arthritic hands ... no pain but crooked fingers and weakness), and does not see or hear well.
I really should let my mother buy all the food. I am going to have to start doing that. She thinks she feeds me, anyway, so I may as well make it true. Sometimes I get so focused on saving her money that I forget that I need to watch my own. I am glad that we had this discussion. It helped me sort out how I feel. If we are wealthy, it is one thing. But to give so much when we aren't wealthy isn't taking care of ourselves. We have to keep things in balance.
Now we'll have to see if we can barter some extra time for you to spend with your husband. He must be a jewel. :-)
Finding out about the loan/s to her didn't bother me, if she needed the help and they could help her, that's fine. Except for one thing: my husband and I have needed to borrow about $45,000 from Mom due to an overly-complex situation that arose during my husband and I buying our own place here after we moved across the country from NC when I realized the folks needed someone here 24/7 -- and my sisters have made a big deal about it. To the point that one sister accused me last week of "getting the lion's share" which obviously referred to Mom's financial assets. Obviously that's not correct, since our other sister has borrowed more than I have, and this sister who accused me has known about that $65,000 a long time. And when I pointed out the difference in what each of us has borrowed from the folks -- and I have no problem with what they have ever borrowed, mind you, I've never said a contrary word to them about it -- it just called down more crap from them.
I feel like I've been played for a sucker. Not by my Mom and Dad, but by my sisters who I've always thought were my best friends come what may. The fact that I was open with them about what my husband and I have had to borrow, because it had to do with Mom's finances, has been turned around and used to stab me in the back. Never mind that if I was not looking after Mom 24/7, I could not even get a part-time job so that we would not need to borrow so much. Never mind ANYTHING that I do for Mom, it's apparently all about the money to them. They don't even give her a call once a week, unless I encourage and remind them to do it. They only live about an hour away but never come to visit her unless it is one of the weekends that they are willing to look after her while I go and spend some time with my husband -- which has at times been up to 8 or 9 weeks since the last time.
I'm just shocked. And at this point, I would not take $150 - $200 from my Mom for my share of groceries/sundries until hell freezes over.
Just recently my mom went into a NH. My middle brother took her computer. During a fit of rage regarding something completely seperate he told me he was scouring her computer for evidence that my parents gave me more money than him. (Sigh) while I never kept totals I highly doubt he's going to find any such nonsense and it just makes me very, very sad that he's even going to try. Greed does awful things to people. I'm sorry you're having to see this in your sister.