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Instead of criticizing siblings, consider they have established boundaries regarding caregiving. It's time for mom to pay for professional caregiving and let her children live their lives, free if this burden
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Maybe getting into some individual counseling to determine why your self-worth is not sufficient to take care of planning for an "adult" life at present and not sufficient to plan for a retirement that is not impoverished. You mention that your "family and mother are so controlling", but the reality is that you are unable to plan properly for yourself as you cannot withstand their disapproval to live your own life. I don't mean for this to sound horribly harsh, but you are your own worst enemy in not planning at all adequately for a worthy, self-sustained life. You are already 54 years old, so if you work at a an adequate paying job until you are 70 yrs or 75 years old, and pay into Social Security while saving money in an Trad. IRA or Roth IRA: You have a chance to have retirement years that are not terribly meager. BUT: It will take consistent work, careful planning, and lots of frugality to get to that goal. Please get some counseling help to make a plan for yourself, and to figure out how to withstand the disapproval of your family (mother included) in doing so. The family will all be gone when you are in your latter years. I am sorry that you quit and earlier job, only to be meagerly "paid under the table", and now: You withdrew your application for a Dream Job....That's maddening and horrifying! Try calling to see if it's too late to say, "I really would like to be considered!". Your Mom needs Assisted Living full time, or other residential placement. Get some counseling to help you understand that you are a worthy person without a need to please Mom or the siblings. A worthy person plans for her own later years, and feels OK about doing so.
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My grandmother asked me to move in to take care of her when I was in my 50's and my mom was worn out. She said she'd pay me whatever the college was paying me. I knew nothing about caregiving then or about money in general, but intuition told me not to do that. Yours did too, but you didn't follow it. I told Grandma I'd visit and take her on walks and shopping on my days off, but no to daily caregiving, I had to teach for my own good. She cried. But it all worked out when my mom got her some help, then eventually placed her in assisted living. I did move in with my mom when she needed help, but kept my job, and got her in home caregiving too, then assisted living, and memory care. You need to go back to work and help your siblings make other arrangements for your mom, or better, let them figure it out because you are done. Please don't continue to ruin your own future this way.
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Something else came to mind even though I answered some where below. I remember missing days at work to take care of situations at home. I worked in sales back then, and family kept calling me at work about problems with mom. She was starting to go in and out of hospitals with her health. It never dawned on her that her health problems stemmed from drinking and taking care of my sister non stop until she got too sick to do it.

Anyway, my boss intervened and told me I needed to stop family calls immediately which I did.

The home health aide who was taking care of my sister years ago told me to get back to work. She said that no one was going to take care of me if I lost a job. She was right!

Continue to be on the upward bound and get as much training as you possibly can. That dream job will come to you, but you must keep working towards it. Keep applying for jobs. I'm getting ready to do the same.
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I run employees for my in-laws care through my business to cover payroll. Care agencies do a poor job of paying workers...with about 70-100% overhead...so the family end up with disenfranchised workers that are unreliable....causing more pain to the family then they are worth. I can't tell you how many have family issues of their own, arrive late, don't sow up, constantly are sick.....etc.

To stop all that we pay $32.00/hr, while most agencies pay HHA or CNA workers $17-22/hr. The cost after benefits is $40.44 /hr....with holidays, pto, and. SEP-IRA, and some insurance.

Agencies in N Texas charge from $34.00/hr to $50/hr. We are on 24/7 care with my wife providing care for free daily...meals, support, part of a shift, shopping, meds, cooking.

Despite the free care for 2 (father-91 and mother-94) our costs have risen from $46,000 to now around $289,000.

Their money will now only last 2more yrs. This is my plug for LTC insurance....don't be fools and push this burden on family members.

One sister supports 10days a year, and makes 2 visits for a total of 6 days, and my wife with 2 PhD's and gave up here career is on her 6th year, at a personal cost to us from not working over $700,000 plus all my hiring and payroll and estate planning, tax planning, and financial mgmt support.

To lower costs we have convinced one sister to help my wife, but she won't without replacement income. They don't have much money. We have agreed to pay her 5,000 /mo after taxes and deductions., and provider her living space....

My wife gets no respite care and we spend nearly no time together or have time for vacations...so we are willing to do this. So I'm going to hire her through my company and bill her parents.

That should lower the costs from $289,000 to about $140,000.

A guy I hired yrs ago at a large Aerospace co before I retired was telling me about his Mother in Indonesia needing 24/7 care and his brother was arguing with him about the costs.....get this...$400/mo. Yes you heard that right...$400.00 per month for lives in full time support.

II told my wife we are shipping her parents to Indonesia.

Last year I helped my mother in FL, away from my wife, for 9mos...when she got a brain tumor.

We are "so over" all of this but it goes on and on. I now have a CSA and HHA certification....to teach me how to manage all of this, and OUR ONLY HOPE after $215k in LTC policies is find a way no never burden my 3 children.

The USA has huge care issues! This destroys lives and retirement, but we are obligated out of love. Be responsible...instead of that home and car....step down your costs in life and buy LTC insurance.
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AlvaDeer Feb 13, 2025
LTC programs have issues of their own. Not only are they too expensive over all, but if you don't get them very early they are enormously expensive, prohibitively so later in life. Not only that, you would be getting if often for two people? Most people in USA cannot afford to do this. Moreover, as their income fails with aging the cost of the insurance, as they near their 80s, is impossible and they lose everything.

Add to this, if you have LTC insurance some policies are in impossible to access and implement when needed because of "rules" in the small print; for instance, facility needs to have RN on premises 24/7. THAT doesn't happen.

Another problem, LTC (reverse mortgages also) can increase your monthly "income" not enough to afford a facility, but just enough to make your income so high that you cannot qualify for Medicaid. Then you are faced with Miller Trusts and Q.I.T. Trusts which most Americans don't even have a clue about, and some states don't allow.

There is a whole wealth of issues, and we in American, thinking we have the best care in the world, have often the worst and the worst mortality, cannot see anyone but an RN or PCP, and have wait times that are enormous.

This is all coming to a head now with many Americans aging, their children desperate, and programs being on the chopping board to cut in terms of Medicaid and Disability programs. If anyone thinks that any political party is ever going to care about the problems of the old and disabled or their families they should think again.

We will see how all this works, but you sure give a good solid picture of how it MAY work, and how much worse it might get.

I myself just wish they would issue us a pill; let us decide when we would like to exit for the good of all.
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