I care for my mother in my home. She is bedbound and she can not do anything on her own. I think that is considered "Total Care". I have a hired caregiver that covers a portion of the day, typically 9-12 hours that is paid $30/hr. Is it fair to pay myself the same amount?
Are you suggesting you control your mom's assets and you will pay yourself? Because that is a real no no. You could be accused of elder abuse and be in a whole world of hurt for such a thing.
If your mom is able to agree to a contract of care and make one with you and an attorney, the answer is yes.
If your mom isn't competent, but has funds and you are POA you should consult your attorney about your options.
As well as mom paying you to live in your house, she should be paying her share of costs for the rent/mortgage, grocieries, utilities, insurance, etc.
You DO NOT want to charge mom rent, that makes it taxable income to you, it is share of costs, just like a room mate, each person in the house pays a percentage of the costs ie, 3 people each pays 1/3, 4 people each pay 1/4 and each buys their own extras, mom needs chux, that's not part of the grocery bill that is her solo expense.
I do recommend that you have a caregiver agreement with mom, just as your day person has and that you keep good records of expenses, that way nothing can be held against you if someone contests mom paying her own way or in the event she ever needs medicaid.
Right now you are paying $270-$360 a day for the external caregiver. For the sake of numbers I'm going to assume that is M-F? So that would be @260 days a year. So based on that you are paying just the external caregiver $70,200 - $93.600 a year. That's WITHOUT paying yourself a penny.
How many hours are you looking to be paid for? Another 9-12? or 24/7 minus the hours the external caregiver works? When we did the math for my FIL - a 24/7 caregiver - (non-family) would have cost around $263,000 a year (3 shifts of 8 hours or 2 shifts of 12 hours 7 days a week).
How long can your mother sustain even the nearly $100,000 in part time caregiver expenses? Can she actually afford to pay you even a fraction of that $30 an hour for even less than the remainder of the time?
I mean if she can afford roughly $263,000 a year indefinitely, then this is certainly an option. But the reality is that even an extremely expensive SNF or LTC facility would probably cost you way less. Average costs for LTC is between $8,000 - $12,000 a month (roughly $260-$400 a day for 24/7 care) . Which is still significantly cheaper than what you would pay for full time home care. And if she runs out of funding at some point, she could qualify for Medicaid to pay as well - something you can't do with home care.
Whatever you decide to do, consider ALL of the costs. Because there are non-monetary costs as well. Your ability to work and save for your future, your ability to have time for yourself, to have outside of caregiving - which is PARAMOUNT to being able to manage you mental health.
As Geaton asked - are you planning to maintain the daily caregiver and just pay yourself for the hours that you are awake/caregiving? Are you planning to have 24/7 caregiving between yourself and the hired caregiver? What is the goal?
And as Geaton so wisely stated - whatever you do - have it in writing. If you intend to pay yourself 12-15 hours a weekday and 24 hours on S/Su then you need that documented including the amount you intend to pay yourself. And consider how much more quickly her funds will go once that happens, Are you paying yourself for months or a year and then you will still have to consider moving her to LTC? Can she afford to pay for 24/7 care in her home?
My MIL was in an excellent facility for 7 years in LTC on Medicaid.
Are you thinking of doing all the care yourself? Or just getting paid for the hours you caregive?
Make sure to have a written contract so that if she ever needs Medicaid it won't look like she was "gifting" money to you. Also, if you are not retirement age, you should be working to contribute to your own SS income... if you don't do this you are robbing from your own future care resources.