Would it be wrong to charge her? Need help making the right decision...

You don’t say what MIL’s issues are, but if she is at the point she cannot live on her own, decisions will need to be made and these will be decisions that will be difficult for everyone involved. As a couple who also lives paycheck to paycheck, I would not want to spend one of those paychecks every other month on fuel, meals and lodging.

Family caregivers who get paid are very rare. Each state sets their own rules for this, but the most likely way to get paid would be from her own funds. You’d need an attorney to setup a Caregiver Agreement for tax and estate purposes. Depending on the Agreement and her financial position, you probably would get less than what you’re getting now.

Do not enter into a situation or agreement you (both) are not 100% in favor of. MIL may not want to go to a facility, but she may have to. It sounds like these trips will cause you much stress. Be careful.

No but I hope you don't do it. It really doesn't matter what she wants. What matters is what she needs. Your hands are already full. Who is supposed to care for her the alternating months? You shouldn't be sacrificing yourselves in such a manner. I hope you find another solution.

I see more than one issue here.

Being reimbursed for your travel costs is one of them.

The second one is that your lives are being turned upside down. This is more concerning to me.

The third one is that if your mil is at the point of needing nursing home care, she should not be living on her own at all. How are you taking care of her on your visits?

You have not filled out your profile, so we do not know what issues your mil needs help with.

You are not obligated to do anything for you mil. If she does not want to move into some sort of care facility, then it is up to her to cover the costs of in home care.

I would be careful in setting up a caregiving contract that may be difficult for you to renegotiate in the future. If the current situation is causing you stress, being paid or at a minimum having your costs covered is not really going to reduce the stress it is putting on your family.

How far is it from your home to your MIL's home? How long do you stay with your MIL when you go? What do you do for her while you're there? Do you go alone or do you and your spouse go together? Are you the only family members who do this, or do you rotate MIL duty with others during the month? How long have you been doing this? And how old is your MIL (i.e., how long are you likely to have to continue doing this)?

I would think that at a minimum, your MIL should pay for gas, tolls, your meals on the road, and any other direct travel expenses. As for your time --- I guess I have mixed feelings. My first impulse is to say, yes, you should charge at the same rate as a hired professional caregiver --- but I would like to hear what other, wiser caregivers on this forum have to say about that. If I were in your place, I probably wouldn't charge for my time unless I was taking time off from work and losing wages because of the trip. But that's just me.

I hope you get some helpful answers.

Whatever you decide to do please make sure you keep track of every thing you are being paid for. If she ever needs to file for Medicaid benefits, every dollar that left her account(s) needs to be accounted for and thoroughly justified.

My god, of course, given your circumstances, you MUST be reimbursed not only for all of the expenses involved in the trip, i.e. gas, motel, food, other expenses. And given the distance and I assume you are working besides, you are giving your free time. YOU MUST BE REIMBURSED. I can certainly understand not wanting to go into a nursing home but that person must be made aware of the tremendous burden and hardship being imposed on you. YOU MUST THINK OF YOURSELF FIRST because if you don't, you will eventually be destroyed. Another thought is call, write notes and keep in touch. Given she has the funds, how about a caretaker to help the mother in the other state and then visit once every six months? You must take care of yourself FIRST. It is YOUR time to have a life. She had her time.

Just because your MIL doesn't want to go into a nursing home, doesn't mean she shouldn't. All it will take is one fall and she may be there any way. I'm not a caregiver professional, but I do handle finances for seniors. If you WANT to help your MIL and can make the time out of your schedule, then I believe you should ask to be reimbursed for your expenses plus an hourly rate while you are with her. This doesn't have to be a formal contract, and you can try it out a time or two to see if if works. But this will NOT substitute for having a caregiver or another person watching and helping her on a daily basis. Does she have a Long Term Care policy? If so, she could hire someone to help her a few hours every day that would be reimbursed after an average 90-day waiting period.

Leonine1 makes some good points about recordkeeping. I'm going to get the documentation of what home help costs in my area to keep with my records.

I am paid for what I do for my mother (now in a nursing home). I will very shortly be paid back-pay for the 2 years I was her "dummy daughter driver." By being her local child, I was able to save everyone at least one year's (and probably closer to two) worth of assisted living expenses. (My mother has excellent LTC insurance, but it will not pay for assisted living, only for a SNF.) My mother was difficult and didn't appreciate all the time she took up. She also told me my time was worthless. She did give me her car (Blue Book value $3K two years ago), but never any money for gas.

She was hospitalized in October, went from there to a rehab, and is now in a nursing home.

The back-pay for those 2 years will be a "gift" to me. If my mother had had other help, she would have had to use an agency to show need to her LTC insurance company. Plus, she didn't have the necessary liability insurance. That rate is higher than a freelance caregiver. No taxes were taken out, as this was a gift. She will never qualify for Medicaid, so no caregiving contract needed.

We are now waiting for her LTC claim to be approved and paid. 30-day exclusion, then ~$7K/month for 7 years will be paid to her. (She can cover the rest with her SS and very small state pension.) Since she's 92.5 and they are now trying to get us to agree to put her on comfort care, she isn't going to last for 7 years.

She has deteriorated a lot in the past four months. The only ADL she can do without assistance is eating. She is now considered to be mentally incompetent. Prior to that she could do everything without assistance (she only bathed 1x/week and did many things very slowly, but she did them). She refused any in-home help, of course. (She lived alone in a 1-story condo.)

If any of my brothers thought I was wrong to be paid, they haven't said so. (One SIL made sure I knew that SHE wouldn't charge for HER mother -- good for her, but her opinion doesn't matter.) My brothers knew that if they didn't agree to pay me, THEY would then be doing the caregiving (or paying long-distance to hire/supervise pay an agency to do it). They all knew what my mother was like -- I sent them emails all the time and witnessed increasingly more of it whenever they would visit. And interestingly enough, they came up with the same dollar amount/hour that I came up with for my pay.

I know there are people that thought I should have moved my mother in with me. And I suppose many people are appalled that I am not her free caregiver. But I have three brothers who were expected to do absolutely NOTHING. She told me that "you don't pay family." Well, you also don't expect one family member to do it all and act unappreciative and tell them their time is worth nothing.

Two of my brothers are on my mother's trust accounts now (one doesn't want to deal with it, so he's really just backup). The brother who handles my mother's money is trustworthy. My mother has no idea that I am now being paid. And she never will. She was so adamant that her trust be split four ways when she died. And so it will be. I'm getting my pay before the trust is settled.

If you now go once a month, you are considering going every other month? Who is taking care of her the rest of the time? How long do you stay when you make these trips?

It is not wrong to ask your MIL to cover your travel expenses, assuming she can afford it and she agrees that the visits are for her benefit. Say you were acting for her with POA, then too it would be fine to claim back any money you spent exclusively for her benefit, including travel costs.

But. I'm assuming you meant you're thinking of upping the frequency from once a month to once every other week? But even so.

If your MIL *really* needs the level of care that would make her eligible for admission to a nursing home, then visits every other weekend will not cut it. It's not enough. And even if you can manage like that for the time being, before long it will become obviously inadequate.

So travel expenses aside, and other caregiving commitments aside, and the fact that you're both working flat out aside, your MIL needs to rethink her care plan. I just don't see how you and your husband* can be it.

Would she, just thinking aloud, consider moving to a facility near you? Then you could visit her far more frequently and she would still have comprehensive support.

* PS oops my bad. You and your husband or wife, I should've said - apologies for the automatic assumption.