<p>Wow, so $2100 to the caregiver means $3500+ administrative fees for your mother, no wonder so many people pay cash under the table.</p>
<p>I can both step back and tell you, “you should do nothing, make your mother do it all yourself” knowing she would not be capable and I can understand your wanting to do everything to make it all work smoothly.</p>
<p>Try not to get started with the caregiver checking in with you too often. You won’t need to know how much lunch and dinner she ate, all sorts of other miscellaneous. Empower her to deal with your mother. One family we knew had the caregivers keep notes in a notebook. Then the family just checked that, periodically. If she thinks your mother needs 911, she calls 911. If your mother screams about you, the caregiver deals with that. </p>
<p>Dharma, you’ve educated us all in the myriad details, thanks for that.</p>
<p>For sure. </p>
<p>Just keep pounding the drum: “Your money will run out in a year and a half (round down, not up). Where will you live after that?” Keep it constantly in front of her that this is a very temporary solution. </p>
<p>Of course, if she says, “I’ll move in with you,” the answer is, “No.” No discussion, no reasons. Just No.</p>
<p>ETA-- I just re-read and it seems she knows she’ll go to skilled nursing when the money runs out? She’s Ok with that? </p>
<p>I’m sure that Mom thinks Dharmawheel will relent and let her move in with her when the money is gone.</p>
<p>Also, broke people have far fewer and scarier choices of NHs and other places to live than folks who can pay for some years. </p>
<p>That’s what I’m afraid of, oldmom.</p>
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<p>Those are not, in the main, “administrative fees.” That’s Social Security, FICA, and other taxes. What Dharma didn’t tell us, and perhaps didn’t understand, was that the $2100 was the caregiver’s takehome pay after taxes. It didn’t include the employee’s taxes, and it didn’t include the employer’s portion of the taxes either. It also includes fees to the agency, but it’s mostly taxes.</p>
<p>Oh I meant $3500 gross + the admin fees to the payroll service, should have been more clear.</p>
<p>Oh I see what you meant. Sorry. </p>
<p>I think nobody understood that the caregiver pay initially quoted by dharma was supposed to be the takehome for the caregiver rather than the wages of the caregiver.</p>
<p>We’ve found that there are financial surprises around every corner with the very elderly, unfortunately. </p>
<p>“Financial surprises” - what a perfect phrase.
Happens during home renovations too! </p>
<p>Cardinal Fang is right. We agreed to $150 NET a day, but I DID understand that the Gross would be higher, unfortunately as yet “undetermined.”(What I DIDN’T know until yesterday would be so HIGH were the employer costs my mother would be charged with) I made it clear to my mother right away that taxes the employee must pay would bring it higher, and early on, even before the caregiver meeting (last Wed), I told mother (right after I met with the lawyer on Mon), that the lawyer estimated $200 GROSS a day. Mother knew that last Mon and still went into the caregivers meeting, with me and all the professionals recommending AL, knowing that. What I DIDN’T learn until yesterday was that bi-monthly my mother was responsible for $364 (if I remember the figure correctly) to pay taxes/costs related to being a employee. That, twice a month, is a huge amount of money. What irks me is that in early research I did go to a lot of sites about employer/employee responsibility, and I know that I read that “these employer charges are not large and the process is easy.” WRONG on both counts. So when I saw that bi-monthly taxes charge, like I said, I had my mother paged I was so anxious about it. I told her how precisely the charges were adding up, how caregiver could come for a month or two and we can explore cheaper AL, and that’s when I got the “tying up” remark. But this afternoon I am STILL leaving the cost analysis comparisons on her dining room table, right next to the $1,800 heating oil bill. But I am just repeating myself, sorry.</p>
<p>Old mom, I’m sure living with me has been in her imagination for years. But at the caregiver’s meeting, when the Social Worker asked her What are your plans? She said, I’ll live at home until my money runs out, then come back here. She actually likes it there; her room is right outside the nurse’s station and there is lots of hustle and bustle, people coming in her room all day… Of course she may harbor her secret wish deeply. But the truth will make it clear. She can hardly walk and I have a peculiar set of stairs in the hallway between my living room and kitchen which would make maneuvering around a nightmare. Downstairs I have only a half-bath and she is kind of neurotic about bathing all the time. If she won’t accept it, everyone–MDs Social Workers, shrink–will tell her I cannot walk her around by the elbow every day and help her get dressed etc. But don’t forget! Out of the blue she told me last week, “I don’t like your husband!”</p>
<p>Dharmawheel, you will drive yourself crazy thinking of her comments as if everything she says makes sense. She says a variety of things to you to “punish” you for not putting her first, before your husband, before your sanity, before everything. I know a lot about dealing with manipulative people like this. They are very good at it. </p>
<p>In her fantasy world, all your kids will be away at school (never mind that she’ll run out of money many years before your youngest graduates from high school), you’ll heed her opinion on your husband, and it will be just the two of you, with you caring for her, giving her the attention she deserves at last. Your house isn’t accessible? Well, maybe you can buy her house back and you can move in with her! No money for aides? We don’t need no stinkin aides, I have daughter Darmawheel!</p>
<p>I am so sorry. My experience with my dad wasn’t really the same except that I was trying to analyze him through my previous experiences with him (not good), not from how he was thinking. That’s where therapy helped A LOT, to defuse my demons and allow me to see him as he actually was.</p>
<p>Popping in to say I feel for your difficulties.</p>
<p>I thought of my late father today when I saw myself in a group photo (not smiling or aware of the camera.) Darned if I didn’t look just like him. Haha not very flattering for me but you can’t deny the genes.</p>
<p>My grandmother used to tell me how we could rehab our house to make it work for her. </p>
<p>Lol Momannoyed.</p>
<p>I don’t think the truth will make it clear, Dharma. It certainly hasn’t so far, at any rate, despite her being pounded with the truth day and night. I don’t know why that would change. She couldn’t care less about the cost estimates and the $1800 bill. She wants what she wants, and she doesn’t care if it’s not possible; it’s up to you to make it possible. </p>
<p>I think you need to stop thinking of her as a rational person, as someone who can be convinced by facts, or by an understanding of the situation. The reality is that she is no longer capable of making decisions in her own best interest. She needs someone to do that for her despite what she thinks she wants. Kind of like when my D was 3 and wanted chocolate for dinner. She simply could not be trusted to make smart decisions for herself. Your mom is exactly the same way.</p>
<p>Oh great wise ones – regarding Dharmamom’s plan to move back into skilled nursing when the money runs out. Can she do that? My understanding is that a SNF placement requires medical necessity, and a doctor’s order. Can someone move in simply because they have nowhere else to go? </p>
<p>ETA – Dharma, I heartily concur with oldmom’s recommendations about therapy. I think it could really help you here. I say this as one who’s benefited tremendously from it.</p>
<p>(and what is the transition b/t the two…)</p>
<p>Yes, I’d ask her CURRENT place to talk with your mom about whether and on what terms they will accept her back–NOW, when she has assets or in the future, after she runs out of assets. I strongly suspect they will help you convince her she needs to move NOW to them, now when she’s broke. </p>
<p>Your mom has already said that her current place I where she wants to go next, once she is broke.</p>
<p>This cannot be “kicked down the road,” while your mom’s assets are rapidly depleted by the reverse mortgage and wages.</p>
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<p>Dharma, at the nursing homes I’m familiar with (and it may not be like this everywhere), the short-term patients are in a separate wing from the long-term residents. And patients don’t get to choose their rooms. Is your mom under the impression that she’d be in that particular room if she went back?</p>
<p>Dharmawheel, with this new information, it doesn’t really seem possible for your mom to live at home and somehow be able to transition to the lovely nursing home. Your mom doesn’t have enough assets to do what she wants to do. If I were you, I would stop. Let her know it is not financially possible for her to live at home. in addition, she is unable to manage the caregivers, coordination and the paperwork involved. Without you, she would not be able to move home. You are making this happen. It is really not her “power of choice.”</p>
<p>I understand. My father wants to put all his money in the stock market. It needs to be safer than that so it is available for long term care. It is an emotional response I get from him when I discuss it, not a logical one. But I keep trying to allow him to make the decisions and I work to make it happen. This is really stupid and I need to stop. I need to take over the finances (all the POAs finally done at the 6 different institutions where they have money), consolidate the accounts, put the money in cash, bonds, and CDs, and turn off any paper copies of anything arriving at the house. Our discussions are circular and emotional. I realize he is not competent to make decisions and I need to have the guts to take over and stop enabling stuff that doesn’t make sense. I’m not there yet. </p>