What should my parents pay me as their durable POA to handle their finances, make doctor appts, take them to appts & shop for them?

I read with horror statements that a person is bad because they need to be compensated for helping their parents. "They didn't charge to raise you" . Phooey... You didn't ask to get born. It's the parents responsibility to care and feed you. It has NOTHING to do with you having to care for your parents in their old age. People need to get off their high horses about what a grown child's responsibility is or isn't. Take a person who stopped working to take care of a parent. How do you expect them to pay their own bills with no money coming in? When the time comes I fully expect my son to get paid for taking care of me. It's a job and he needs o be paid for that job. It's not a lack of love on his part, it's just something that's only fair.

My MIL lived with us for two years and I did the large majority of her care. A year into her living with us, she needed to go on dialysis and was weak from that and her numerous other health issues.

We looked into Visiting Angels for her but decided against the service because of the six hour minimum. The extended family talked about it and I agreed to take time off of work to care for her at the amount that I was paid at my regular job. My bills didn't stop just because she needed more help. I did not charge for the time I did her grocery shopping because I was there anyway but all of the other away-from-home care added up.

After she passed, my SIL saw how much I had been paid and was surprised by the amount (she was on MIL's account but had never bothered to look or ask about it). I had kept good records of every doctor's appt, manicure, hair appt, trip to Walmart, etc. She didn't like it but couldn't argue with it. I also think she didn't realize how much I was doing.

For me, it comes down to the fact that your time is valuable. You are giving up the freedom that your siblings are enjoying and you should be compensated fairly for it.

That you are doing the work of a Geriatric Care Manager seems to be raising the hackles of several posters. Ignore them.

The national average Geriatric Care Manager salary is $51,534. That's $1,073 per week for a full-time job that offers benefits. The average hourly salary alone is $27, which seems reasonable and defensible if your parents income justifies that hourly rate. Benefits are worth an additional 25 percent, which brings the true hourly rate up to $34.

I would not wait until they have died to expect to be paid from their estate because they may outlive their money. And guess who has to deal with there being no more money to pay for their care? You, their POA.

My husband is POA for his dad and I know exactly the toll it takes on a person. Hubby and his brothers have been begging their dad to downsize at indy living for years because he's burning through his money at an eye-watering rate. My husband just sold his parents' lake cabin to generate some cash. And if your parents run out of money, you too will be faced with selling assets to pay for their care. My husband put in close to 150 hours to sell that cabin. He got no where near the $4,000-$5,000 it would have cost my FIL for a Geriatric Care Manager to handle that transaction for him let alone the $10,000-$15,000 it would have cost to have an attorney do it.

Your parents want to pay you. Your siblings are on board. That's the right way to do things.

Finally, to everyone spewing holier-than-thou venom trying to shame DaughterInTown for accepting money to be POA for her parents: perhaps if you, your parents and siblings treated one another better you wouldn't be so bitter.

I have found that people have very strong feelings about whether or not children should be paid for taking care of parents disabled by diseases in old age. Evidenced by the answers here😀. Old age happens. Diseases make it harder on everyone. If parents have planned for retirement, I believe it’s in the best interest of everyone for people to be compensated for their time. Obviously your parents had the foresight to recognize this, and your siblings are in agreement, which is fantastic for you. Administration of accounts would pay less, around $15/ hr, and actual caregiving would pay more, the going rate around $25/hour. Unless there’s an abundance of wealth, I would either be paid hourly, or take mileage. Depending on the situation you/your parents estate could report the income/expense or not.
My sister and I are caregivers for our mom (and I was for my dad until moving him to SCF) but my brother (out of town and clueless to the situations) felt we should care for parents out of the kindness of our heart. This while he sits at his highly compensated desk job. I lost countless paid from an hourly job, which I ended up having to quit, and from tending to my own business caring for parents that honestly never did a whole hell of a lot for me. For a short period of time, yes, it’s ok to help out, but for an indefinite period of time, caregiving is hard, and usually only gets harder and more frustrating. My mother is abusive and always has been. I won’t be shamed into thinking I’m not worthy of compensation and neither should you if your family is agreeable to it! I would say just keep it fair to what kind of job you are doing for them.
best wishes.

To those people that are shaming the daughter regarding her parents desire to pay her for her services and time, please stop !
If all the parties involved are in agreement that paying her is in their best interest, who are you to shame her for this?
If the family has taken the steps to confer with an elder law lawyer that the payment does not run afoul of the estate planning (wills, trust etc) that is already in place, and that the payments are documented so that they can be accepted by the IRS if audited, it`s not for you to pass judgement on what she and her family are doing.

I have not read through the responses here, I have a pretty good idea of the polar opposite views likely expressed and while I hope everyone was respectful to DaughterinTown while expressing their personal views my fear that this is not the case and I am sorry for that.

As I considered this question and the responses it probably solicited it struck me how contrary our thinking and advice can be. I can't count the times we have all given the advice to a family member who has given up their ability to earn an income and provide for their own old age that they should be paid like a caregiver with a contract in place or move out, take care of themselves. So why would this posters situation get any push back? My guess is it's because there is a blurred line here, one she and her family are sharp enough to recognize. She is getting to that edge where one side is the things we do out of love for our parents to help make their daily lives easier and the other side where something has to give so she is hiring sitters for her kids and taking off work or quitting her job to have the time to do all the things her parents need. Most of us have experienced it, you take on mowing the lawn and shoveling the snow, then keeping track of the meds, dr aptmts and paying the bills. You pick up groceries for Mom and Dad when you do your own (easy right?) and then find you are making 3-4 trips a week between your household and theirs. You slowly add these things to your plate out of love and respect for your parents, it's natural and each thing seems like an easy thing to add or incorporate into your life duties, then at some point you realize something has to give, you can't do it all, your plate is full and very often it's your job, your home, husband and kids that start coming up short. Becoming a "paid" caregiver seems cold and wrong and it isn't why you care for your parents, wasn't even a thought over the years as you took on the running of their household as well as yours.

This poster and her family seem to be way ahead of the game, eyes wide open and finding ways to enable Mom and Dad to stay where they are as long as possible its exactly what most of us are doing too. For me the logical point to consider a financial arrangement is when the care giving time starts to affect the caregiver financially, even if it isn't recognized as direct, taking of a few hours of work for doctors appointments (even when paid they may be replacing the time meant for their own doctors appointments), using FMLA or "vacation time", hiring babysitters or calling on friends to transport kids, hiring a cleaning service for their own home so they have time to make dinner for LO's, that sort of thing. Also for me personally I would likely set it up hourly at the lower of the going rates and "bill" for the time that is really affected (work, sitters...) to find that balance between "I'm doing it out of love because it makes me happy to help you" and "I need to be paid like a hired caregiver" but I don't answer to an employer. The other thing that comes into play from my perspective is parents finances, are they living on a very limited income or could they afford to private pay a care giving service? Will there likely be money/assets left when they pass or will they be on Medicaid should they need long term facility care? I am NOT suggesting cheating the system or hiding money but I also don't see any reason not to take advantage of the things offered. Meaning, Medicaid allows a realistic amount for care giving and I don't see a problem with using that money for that purpose, family or not. Tax wise a person can gift x amount each year lessening their worth so their hard earned assets go where they want why shouldn't they pay who they want for a real service simply because they are family. The value of having a family member over a stranger to me is immeasurable but as the family caregiver I want to make sure their future isn't compromised. DIT & fam are being proac

I cannot believe some of the answers to this relatively simple post.  The lady is only asking for how much she should be paid for having POA, and doing the things that she specifically states that she does.
On this same site, I have heard people gush over a man who obviously has money and outside help taking care of his wife . Wives have taken care of their husbands and everyone else since time began but hardly anybody raves about them. And some of the posters on this site especially South American ones rant on about how one needs to take care of their parents because "they gave you life" "they took care of you when you were young", etc. Until the "pill" came along, there was no effective birth control (especially to Catholic women). We Catholic girls were taught to respond to the question "how many children do you want to have" by saying "as many as God wants to give us". We were taught (as countless generations before us were) that it was a wife's "duty" to have sex anytime a husband wanted it. I had wonderful parents but I doubt that they decided 9 months before I was born to "let us give the gift of life to a little girl tonight". And a young parent taking care of an infant or small child is not the same as a 120 lb. older woman herself  trying to care for a mother and father with dementia.

Also, look for the money trail. An older friend (of my grandmother's) who died was forced to work by her parents after high school not only to put her brother through college but also through law school. When my grandmother's friend's husband died, the lady had to go to work as a hair dresser. When the parents died, their assets were divided equally. In past generations, it was assumed that any money available for childrens' education went to the son because "the son in law would take care of their daughter". But that was not necessarily so. 
A book I read years ago was written by an attorney who wrote the story about one of his elderly clients whom he attempted to address the fact that they had spent a fortune sending their oldest son to UCLA where he was in a fraternity, and then sent him through medical school. The daughter had married right out of high school and her husband was an accountant. The other son went to community college. At the reading of the Will, it turns out that the parents money had been left in equal shares to the 3 children.  The accountant son in law thought this was unfair (as do I) and asked the successful doctor if the  doctor didn't think that it would be equitable to give some of his share to his 2 siblings which infuriated the doctor who never spoke to his 2 siblings again.

And not all parents are "wonderful". Is a daughter who is a victim of incest or whose parents beat the crap out of her still supposed to work for free for parents who may live to be 95 years old? If the parents and "surprisingly" a sibling want her to be paid, it is nobody's business what she is paid, whether she should be paid at all or anything else. As for the South American posters, all of the women I know from there believe in their "Machismo" society where it is expected that the husband runs around. I don't know it the wives are proud that their husbands are "desirable" to other women or the wives don't work and have to do as their husbands say. This is how my ancestors from Sicily lived. I took care of my maternal grandmother as well as my parents until I had to call in outside help. I My health was destroyed,  Even though my siblings and I each shared our family real estate equally, 2 of my brothers sued me because I hired sitters for my grandmother and parents. My 2 brothers thought that I was spending what should have been their inheritance on the people who  earned the money. My father in law left my mother in law nothing and taking care of her ( who used to beat my husband with a hairbrush until it broke when he was a child) destroyed out retirement planning. So unless a person knows the whole story, don't comment.

DaughterInTown, I was the in-town sibling, also. When I mentioned compensation, my mother practically yelled at me, "You don't pay family." When she was hospitalized (gallbladder infection) for 17 days, then rehab, then NH, she was beyond being able to take care of her bills (she'd lived "independently" before then). My brother (POA and successor trustee) paid me $20/hour from that point on, and even gave me back-pay.

It became very difficult for me emotionally to do things for her, so the pay made me see it as a job, and it was much easier for me. My brothers weren't participating in her care, and I was. Thanks to my help, she never entered AL (she refused), so I ended up saving everyone money.

This site is for people who need help and support and experience from those who are in the same unfortunate circumstances in regard to their elderly parents. Can we not judge and shame each other here? We don’t know what others lives are like and it is unfair and unreasonable to assume that everyone else’s situation is the same as ours. There are millions of websites across the internet where people can be mean and tear each other down all they want. If you disagree with something here so strongly that you need to respond in this way, please go to one of those and just don’t bother responding here.
Happy New Year to all.

My spouse was paid $ 50 an hour for financial management of his father's affairs (and estate after he passed.) Since the estate attorney was paid in the range of $ 1,000 an hour, spouse's compensation was modest, and agreed to by the attorney and spouse's siblings who didn't want to deal with that. If you turn finances over to an accountant or attorney, you won't be paying $ 20 an hour, I can guarantee that.

And there was a LOT of time needed to manage all the financial issues, pay his bills, balance his checking account monthly, manage all his financial accounts. That was time taken off work (spouse is an engineer with an MBA,) and is not paid $ 20 an hour at his regular job. The time off did impact his job reviews negatively. So that's a possibility. And he spent hours and hours tracking down several missing checks in the thousands of dollars, checks that were taken by my sister in law, who forged FIL signature, to pay her own bills. She was a spendthrift and had no use for any of the family other than when it came to have her hand out. I'm glad this is all done with...it was very stressful for my husband.