Quit your job to care for a family member?
What happens if you quit your job to take care of Mama? You will not be paying into social security. If your employer pays half your social security deduction, you lose that as well.
You take care of your loved one for months or years. Then SURPRISE!!!
You're ready to retire! You plan to play with the grandkids and vacation at the beach! BUT you now learn that your earnings, which you voluntarily gave up, don't provide you with the SS retirement benefit you expected.
If you provide free care for ill family members instead of paying into social security, you lose. But - you LOVE them. You can't "put" Mama in a home! You don't mind the sacrifice! Yet you don't even know what you're sacrificing at the time.
You are better off keeping your job and contributing as much as you can to social security in your lifetime. Hire someone else to take care of Mama.
13 Comments
Popular Questions
Related Questions
- Isn't there a timeframe for when a care conference is done after admission to a SNF/rehab?
- How do I get out of this responsibility?
- What will a hospital do if you tell them there is no one available to take care of your loved one at home?
- If you were in need of a caregiver, what qualities would you most like to see? What is most important to you? Who wouldn’t you hire to help?
Since you rarely hear "I'm a doctor/lawyer/engineer/scientist/bank manager/etc. with a healthy, viable career but I'm planning on giving it all up to take care of my aging parent(s)", I think in many cases, what happens is this: you have an adult child working an hourly paid job. Maybe several to make ends meet. Mom and/or dad are starting to get up in age. Starting to need help with "little things" - laundry, shopping, meal prep, inside/outside chores, etc. Driving becomes a challenge. So adult child figures - here's an idea mom and dad...I'll give up my job, give up my apartment, move in with you and be your caregiver. If you cover my food/auto insurance (since I'll be driving you) and give me a place to live, my expenses will be minimal, and you get live in care - win/win for all of us!
And depending on circumstances, this arrangement might work out for years. Mom/dad age gracefully at home, adult child has no real financial obligations and doesn't really *mind* the work, since it's really nothing more than adult child was doing for him/herself for years. I mean, we all have to do laundry, we all have to eat and therefore need to go grocery shopping and cook, we all should be cleaning our homes on a semi-regular basis, and so on. Doing it for 2 more people shouldn't be that much of a challenge, right?
But then mom and/or dad's care becomes more than adult child can handle on their own. Perhaps dementia comes into play. Maybe parent becomes incontinent. Begins to seriously lose mobility. Or the myriad things that happen once we age. And suddenly adult child finds themself in a really horrible financial situation: place mom/dad in a facility where they will get their needs met but adult child loses home/financial stability *or* they all keep going further and further down the rabbit hole of caregiving until the situation is totally undoable and all involved are at crisis point.
And that's not even taking into account siblings and their expectations of parents' care and money issues, including that sticky wicket we like to call "inheritence".
If you're going decide anyway to give up your livelihood to take care of mom/dad, get a caregiver contract in place and get paid in the here and now for your work, not with a promise of riches to come down the road. And do it above board, with all of the necessary paperwork filled out for the IRS, so when you eventually have to return to the workforce you can show a continuing history of employment.
They also typically fit the rest of the description - lost earning potential, lost retirement fund opportunity, sibling relationship damage.
But typically the move to a facility is ONLY at crisis point. And any claims about not being able to put mom/dad in a home fall flat because no one is buying it at that point. ;-)
Two sisters, #1 Manager & #2 Stay-at-home Mother (kids grown). #2 got divorced, couldn't afford housing, moved in with Mother - care for housing, mutual agreement. Cheaper together + company for each other.
Then needs got too high. Falls, fractures, illness.
#1 is POA. Pushes for Residential Care, round the clock staff, more socialisation. Wants to sell house to fund.
#2 "Never putting Mother in a home!"
"Where would I live?"
Family rift.
Almost went to court.
Some sort of timeframe with extra home help was set as a compromise. No idea how it eventually played out.
Very dangerous place to put oneself.. providing the labour, but no pay, no pension fund, no exit plan + loss of accomodation if quit.
I've mentioned that tale a few times to a family that has all the same components, professional, single parent, elder with slowly increasing needs.
Am told We are all reasonable people, we all get along, we'll work it out.
Hope so.
(My plan is to outlive them & move far enough out of the fallout zone of destruction).
Beatty, spot on "we all get along". Yeah, right. Until you don't.
Not quite the same thing, but I remember the first time I met my husband's extended family - cousins, aunts, uncles, the works. I mentioned in passing 1) having a very small family and 2) not getting along with most of the members of my extended family. I remember their smug "oh my, we ALL get along! I can't IMAGINE what that must be like, we've ALWAYS been close! I can't imagine a time when we WON'T be!"
Until grandma and grandpa died and the inheritence wasn't split evenly.
Then the knives came out. Not among my husband and his siblings, thankfully, but among all of those smug, self-righteous cousins. Now that part of the family is split into warring factions, (still ongoing, years later) and I just it and smile to myself. At least MY issues with MY family are based on how I was treated, not how much money I did - or didn't - get when they died.
There are stories out there. We all have choices, always. Some don't see it that way. My friend SD had a thriving retail business that involved a bit of travel but her mom had dementia and SD had promised her never to "put" her in a home. Mom owned two paid-for homes, but no attempt was made to sell them to pay for mom's care. Mom moved in with SD and husband and lived to be 98 or so. She was stark raving mad by the end of it, coming out of their guest wing wearing her Depends somehow on top and no pants on, etc. SD hired sitters, caregivers, DH helped, it wasn't enough. Retail business neglected, they took out reverse mortgage on their own house, business tanked, so by the time mom passed, SD and DH had lost their home, business, and mom. The money they'd have saved for their own retirement in those 5 years or so was not saved, and SD now has dementia herself. Who will take care of her? She sold mom's two homes but spent the money for a nice house for herself.
Everybody, put on your own oxygen mask first!