I'm learning as I assume the responsibility of trustee and POA for Mom. Is it better to do the work and pay yourself or hire someone who charges twice as much?

Yes, you should be paid for caregiver, but please don't berate your family members for not helping. Some are just not caregivers and others could have good reason not to help. Hire someone to fill in for you when it's not convienient for you to help and let it go. .

G, You ask below how you can keep track. You MUST keep track as once you assume being the trustee of the trust and the POA acting financially for your Mom YOU are the one responsible. Therefore to keep track you assume ALL ACCOUNTS as either Trustee if account is in Trust or as POA on all other accounts. You can give your Mother a small account of her own for spending money, and you can give her spending money, but as YOU are now responsible you cannot wiley nily giver Mom what she wants. YOU need to be accounting for every penny just as you would expect a Fiduciary to do. If you hire a fiduciary will you allow that person to say to you "Mom wanted money????"
Please, you are missing info you need to have. PLEASE see an elder law attorney as to how to do this. It is a JOB, and it is not an easy one, and it wouldn't even be easy for me to BEGIN to tell you all you need to do.
As to moving stuff? Yeah? You know someone who can do it, pay them to do it. If not you are down to paying movers. Just like anyone else moving anywhere at any time. I moved my bro into ALF from his small home, then out of ALF after his death. In one instance we looked about for the cheapest handy guys to do it, and in the second, a friend helped (and I paid him for his trouble as that was in Covid times and restrictions.

A TRUST is different from a POA. You cannot operate a trust with POA papers. Being Trustee of Trust whether the grantor is dead OR alive is entirely different. Even how you sign checks to pay bills is different. When your elder is alive but has assigned you Trustee of her trust you sign all checks from ACCOUNT IN TRUST as your name, followed by TTE. As POA you are added to account as POA. You sign checks as your Mom's name followed by your name as POA. All entities from phone to anything else need copies of all your papers. All of this requires careful keeping of all records and files and accountings of any penny in and any out including what the Trust and /or POA documents stipulate as pay for you. You can hire a fiduciary. The elder law attorney will have names of some trusted ones as they deal with fiduciaries hired by the courts for elders without family.
This is a tough job and you will be on the phone for hours hiring movers in your area, getting phones set up for ALF, and etc. The first year was a year in hades for me.
I would never do this again. I learned a lot and am glad I did do it for my beloved brother, but I wouldn't do it again.
Start with an Elder Care attorney, take in all your papers. Have you been to the banks to set up the accounts yet with your papers? Just start with attorney. After an hour of time and getting all your questions answered will let you know if you are capable of, but more importantly do you WANT to do this work.
Fiduciary in California (So Cal) as of two years ago about 90.00 an hour. Your documents will stipulate what you can get paid, and it won't be that. I would hire this out, making certain I had a trusted Fiduciary in your area.
Oh, and movers. Call those in your area after finding them online. Stipulate how much an hour and how many hours needed. If you know a handyman with a pickup you are in luck. Otherwise, good luck.

Safe yourself the hassle and pay professionals for the work she needs to have done. And I strongly advocate that you consult an attorney that specializes in elder care to cover your bases; the minimal cost is well worth it!

You indicate that your mom named you her POA while she is alive, and the Trustee when she passed away. I’m assuming you have a notarized copy of her Will, Trust, POA and HCPOA documents.
* Bank Accounts: if you haven’t already done so, take the POA document to the bank and have your name added to her accounts. Bring your mother with you can. My mother’s bank required her signature AND they drafted a bank POA form in addition to the POA document we already had. The new document had to be notarized.
* Paying her Bills: For your convenience, you can set up autopay for your mother’s bills.
* Caregiver Services/ Personal Care Agreement:  Use the search function to review articles on this Forum describing pay for a family caregiver. You cannot be paid from her estate once she’s gone unless you have a formal agreement - in writing - that is signed/dated by mom. A Personal Care Agreement spells out the duties you will perform and the compensation you’ll be paid. Without it, you could find yourself with legal problems should other beneficiaries (if there are any) challenge you.
* Trustee Compensation: Check your mother’s Will to see if she made a provision for compensation. The percent of compensation varies by state and is governed by state law. It is paid from the Trust after her passing.

I think that the alternatives of performing the work and paying yourself vs. someone "who charges twice as much" only address those issues. There's also the issue of who can do the work better, safely, and more efficiently.

I hire qualified and insured companies for heavy work, such as collecting heavy items and transferring them for disposition. I can't do that alone, and never would try. But I can handle the legal work better b/c of having worked in law firms for decades. The only work I would hire through a law firm is something with which I'm not familiar and can't figure out on my own.

I've used Excel for years for taxes and other inventories, including household goods. At one point I made entries on the days that the expenses occurred, but wasn't able to do that toward the end of my father's life. There was just too much happening too quickly.

Ask yourself what are your skills, your strong points, as well as your weaknesses and less developed traits, and consider starting from there. If there are aspects at which you excel, do those yourself. But hire reliable and insured companies for heavy duty work, and possibly taxes.

All expenses pursuant to the trust have to be documented, especially if there are other heirs as you can anticipate that they may demand accountings as to use of Mom's money. I think over time you'll find that some activities are so repetitive that you can just copy and paste in an Excel document.

I also think that charges to act as Trustee can vary depending on the assets in the Trust. Is it fully funded? Are all assets in the Trust?

Just keep excellent records! And it will be taxable as income if paying for your time. I am assuming you will be over the maximum allowed that would be tax free. I think it is $600.00 for the year.

Mileage for business is now reported by the IRS as 58.5 cents per mile.
I don't know if that includes gas expenses, but you could look it up.

Looking back at caregiving expenses, I should have been reimbursed! But I kept thinking this won't cost too much, it won't be for too long, or I did not want to charge family.

Is there no hourly rate built into the document?

I am Mum's POA. It states that I will be paid $15 more than the current minimum wage. It is not a large amount of money, currently just over $30/hr in my province.

I also can claim mileage and any out of pocket expenses.

You should write a cheque on Mum's account and keep a copy with a breakdown of your hours, mileage and other expenses.

I, too, live in California, and I paid myself $20/hour because that's what I could live with when it came to writing checks to myself. I also only did it for about the first year I was Trustee, because it was a time-consuming learning process and I was driving back and forth an hour + each way to deal with things multiple times a week. I haven't paid myself since then because I could do much of this stuff in my sleep now, and I don't drive back and forth as much. However, we're now getting my parents' house ready to sell, so the trust sure as heck will be paying for my gas again.

It depends on what you're comfortable with. You do deserve to be paid for your time -- no question -- but you could talk to your trust attorney to see what he recommends. (Mine was less than useless by telling me to pick an amount and go with that. 🙄) Some people get paid a percentage of the value of the estate, but that would have been way more than necessary in my opinion.