In order to save money my daughter and her husband moved in with my 99 year old father to help with meals, cleaning etc. What is fair pay?

Gina, that was so nice of your daughter and her husband to move into Dad's help to be there to do things for Dad.

My Dad had a situation where once my Mom had passed, Dad didn't know how to the things that Mom would do around the house. This brilliant man could invent things, but not be able to put together a ham sandwich.... [sigh].

Ok, price of care is more area driven than nationwide driven. Dad was paying $30/hour for caregivers from an Agency. Eventually Dad needed 3 full-time shifts per day as he was now a major fall risk. Yikes that was $20k per month.

Dad [95] wanted to save money so he checked out Independent Living and found that to be so much more affordable then paying caregivers in his home. The facility was set up like a hotel. He moved in while he was still able to learn his way around, to learn the faces of the Staff, and to make new friends. He loved the place since he was around people closer to his own age, and loved the menu service in the community restaurant.

So many things to think about when we have an elder parent who is still doing pretty good at that age.

I totally read that as daughter and her husband who wanted to save money, can you clarify that Gina?

In order to save what money? Money he was already paying for services from other people? Money he doesn't want to have to pay to a facility?

If you're talking about compensation, one way to look at it would be to assess their loss of earnings. What is it costing them to provide this care? If they weren't spending this time with your father and were free to work at their usual jobs, how much more would they be making in a typical week?

Or, you can look at the market rate for caregivers, add up the number of hours spent on caregiving, and figure out a weekly allowance that way.

You have two issues on the horizon. One, your father is going to get worse, frailer, and need more assistance. Two, your daughter and SIL are going to need respite breaks - no one can live with dementia 24/7 indefinitely, even if they are getting handsomely paid. Do the two of them really understand what they've taken on?

I think I would look at the value of each of the tasks they do separately and add them up, only if he would otherwise have had to move into a facility or hire a full time caregivers should that amount be taken into consideration.

I think it depends on the cost of living where you are. I paid my son room and board plus $1500 a month to care for his grandmother. I did it through care.com, so the taxes and everything were worked out for me. It was for about four hours a day, plus being there at night in case she needed something. He had two days off, when another care person would come for a couple of hours and I covered the rest of the time. He didn't do yard work. I did. He lasted four months and then got another job, saying it was way too hard, even if I'd pay him more. But he stayed in her house rent free to be there at night. Your daughter and her husband might be doing more than my son was doing.