What do you pay a person for live in care who has free room & board?

Katieann66, I see from your profile that your friend's Mom is 89 years old. I am just curious how you are able to afford every day needs if you are not being paid? Are you running thought your savings account or using your social security check? If that is the case, you need to stop and think about your own future to when you get older.

My Dad was at the age where he need someone in the house around the clock as he was a fall risk. Dad hired caregivers from a licensed Agency to work three 8-hour shifts. The Agency required the over-night caregiver to be awake for her whole shift. Total cost was $20k per month, yes per month. Do you think your friend's Mom can budget for the cost? Are you ready to work 168 hours per week? Lot to think about.

I have read this several times and I think I may be missing something.

You came to visit "your friend" who doesn't stay there or hang out with you. You are staying at her mom's house.

So, did the mom ever actually ask you to be caregiver or hire you or even invite you to stay? You do not have a right to ask for money, ask for days off or even stay in the house. You are a guest that can leave and go home at any time.

May I ask why you are there? - not the visit but why you stayed? Why do you feel responsible for your friend's mother? Do you have a home of your own? If so, what is happening there? If not, is your situation that you are getting a home rent-free if you become the mother's carer? In which case you are a modern day slave indeed as carers get paid, get agreed time off, get an agreed schedule of duties and EXPECT a room to sleep in and use for downtime. If you have a home of your own you need to tell your friend when you are leaving to go back there. If you don't have a home of your own you need to address this difficulty and get a paid job. These last should be your priority if that is the case. Your responsibility is to organise your own life, not someone else's.

KatieAnn, you may have not seen my reply to one of your responses below, but you can call APS to report an at-risk elder.

You do NOT have to continue with this exploitative arrangement for fear of what might happen to your “friend’s” parent.

If you are not being paid you are a modern day slave. Room and board do not equal wages.

There are laws around the payment of live in care givers. They may vary by location, but you can check locally to find out what they are.

Hours of work, time off, days off, a clear list of tasks you are responsible for and which ones are not under your job description. All of these need to me laid out. You also need a properly executed contract and whatever with holding taxes covered.

Katie, on a side note, regarding making breakfast for the teen, I think she should be able to make her own breakfast, ie. cereal and milk or something. Just wanted to mention.

Please read the first six words of your post, “I came to visit a friend.”

Now I am going to ask you, do you really consider this person a friend?

A friend doesn’t use you. You are being used, big time! I wouldn’t want to work for someone like her or her mom.

Find a paying job. Right now you are volunteering for ungrateful people! Say your goodbyes and if you so choose, wish them well.

Please explain your reasons for the visit. How long had you originally planned to stay?

Why are you tolerating her sleeping next door with her boyfriend and feeding her 14 year old daughter breakfast? She can fix her own breakfast at 14 years old!

Please end this nightmare as soon as possible.

Your ‘friend’ is taking advantage of you! She sees your kindness for weakness.

Often times people will treat you the way that you treat yourself.

Show her that you have self respect. Be kind to yourself.

Best wishes to you.

Katie - make sure you save enough $$ to cover at least 3 - 6 months of food & rent for when you have to quit and move out. That day will come, maybe months from now or years from now, but it will come.

Wow!! Okay... I'm in shock because my friend and I got in a HUGE argument the other day from which I am still traumatized. She was yelling at me that she's "been looking it up online" and I'm getting a great deal. So, I came on here. I didn't know if my judgement was clouded by the fact we never do anything as "friends" because she only spends time with her boyfriend. (She won't even watch a movie with me) I've been feeling the sting of loneliness because of this covid and staying inside. So ..Thank you for all your answers. We are supposed to talk and I wanted to have 2 days OFF a week. And I think if she doesn't want to be home at all.. she needs to pay me. She says her mom would be fine without me but I beg to differ. the last time I left and spent the night at my friend's house for a break her mom fell and end up laying there for 2 hours before she noticed. So .. thanks again for the input. I really appreciate all of them

$30 an hour

katieann - if you go an get a job in an office, do you pay rent to be in the office to work? No. So, why do you pay rent to be at the house to take care of the lady who lives in the house?

Also, they BENEFIT from you living there 24/7. If the lady were to fall in the middle of the night, would you just continue sleeping or would you get up and tend to her? If the latter, then you are ON CALL even when you're not actively working. People do get paid to be ON CALL.

You are being paid peanuts while being locked up in an asylum to take care of an insane person 24/7. If you were to quit, the "friend" would have to quit her job, or hire someone from an agency which will cost around $25/hr.

You are being taken advantage of big time.

The annualized cost of what you're doing nears $200,000 where I live. I know b/c of what ILs are paying their people after trying to enmesh their family--of which you're not even!

So they give you a room. Look on Craigslist, see what it's worth. $1000? $1500? That's at most $18,000 not $200,000?

And it's not like it's "normal" rent. It's part of the condition that you stay there to help with this person--which ILs are paying $20 for the indy to do.

You see the disparity that's about $182K before taxes versus some "nice" room right? Especially since you're buying half the food.

Nawp nawp nawp. This "friend" wants to be one she has to pay you AT LEAST the minimum wage for all hours that you are there, and acknowledge what the fair market rate of the room is, and further pay for your food as a courtesy.

Don't, in any circumstance, let this escalate to your being their driver or housekeeper or cooking.

You should have a contract that specifies duties, hours worked and days off, including vacation time.

You can find the information on the internet to help you do a draft document. Once you and your employer, whether this is mom or friend, should have a certified elder law attorney draw up the actual caregivers contract. Moms money pays for this.

By law you can not be required to work 24/7. A lawyer will help you understand what your rights as an employee are and make your friend understand what their responsibilities are to you.

You should be receiving a room, because mom needs overnight care you should not be paying anything for this, nor should it be considered part of your compensation. If you are preparing 3 meals for mom, you should be fed those same 3 meals at no cost to you. Anything special that you want would be at your expense.

You should be receiving a fair salary for your work. This can be whatever you all decide on but, you should have it clearly stated what you will be doing and make it a term of the contract that any changes in duties will require a review of salary. This should be run through a payroll agency so that you have all taxes withheld and matched by your employer, as well as insurance like unemployment and workers compensation in the event that you get injured helping your client.

To often people think that free room and board in exchange for caregiving is an irresistible deal. It is but not for the caregiver. You are taking care of a full grown human and that is a lot of work. Then add in the house and pets, sheesh. In my city a housekeeper earns at least 25.00 hourly, then you would pay 25.00 daily for the pooper scooper with a long contract. Caregivers earn 20.00 hourly for the 1st 8 hours and time and a half or double time for additional hours. So you can see how expensive this could be for a family that is doing it above board and fairly to all parties involved.

Don't let them bully you and threaten you with throwing you out if you don't concede to the unfair situation. You live there and they would have to evict you at this point, because they have not been paying you, you are not considered domestic help. Stand up for what is right and fair for you. They need you more than you need them.

Are you kidding? First of all if you're paying for half of the mom's grocery bill then this job is costing YOU money and that is absolutely ridiculous. There is no excuse for that.
It's one thing to want to help out your friend and her family, but it sounds to me like your friend turned you into an indentured servant. You're being taken advantage of to be her mom's caregiver because they're getting the service for free. That's not a good friend who would do that. Here are the answers to your questions:

1) No, live-in caregivers do not pay rent.
2)Yes, there is always a schedule worked out. Even though a person is a live-in the technically go "off-duty" at a certain hour. This means they aren't with the client although they will do overnight diaper changes, repositioning a client in bed if necessary, give meds, or make sure a dementia client doesn't wander or leave the home.
3)Yes, the caregiver has specific days off that are normally worked out ahead of time before you take the work. A day off for a live-in caregiver is 24 hours. Many families think a day off for their live-in is the daytime. It's not. It's 24 hours.
I hope this information has been helpful to you.

You have to be paid at least minimum wage for every hour you work. This should be taxed and fully submitted to the IRS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

I have to point out that if you are paying for groceries and supplies, you are not even getting room AND board, just the room.

You should be getting paid on top of them providing for your room and board.

If you are being told that you should be paying anything for rent then I recommend that you tell your "friend" that you are leaving.

Slavery is illegal in this country and you are being treated like a slave. Sorry

The caregiver should not pay rent and in some jurisdictions it is illegal to charge them rent. The caregiver should be paid a reasonable wage for all hours worked. The going rate for a caregiver varies by location but pay should be at least a few dollars over minimum wage.