Reading Time: 3 minutes 5 Quick Financial Ideas To Help Aging Family Members
This is a contributed post from Michelle.
A tough stage in life that many of us will or do experience is when parents or grandparents age and require constant assistance, care, and love. In that case, one of the family members has to step up and look after the elderly, regardless of the personal sacrifices they have to make.
Such decisions are often followed by disrupted finances and neglected personal well-being. As much as no one wants to talk or think about it problems such as mistreatment, family conflicts, and other kinds of pain and suffering arise from financial adversity.
What if there were better ways to take care of the elderly without leaving a job or taking a financial hit? What if you could get paid to take care of your family? Let’s take a look at some provisions that could get you compensated adequately for investing time and effort to take care of the elderly who need special assistance in your family.
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Direct Options To Support Aging Family Members:
- A solution within the family by the family – The simplest and most fair solution would be drawing up a caregiver contract. This may involve encouraging every family member to provide adequate financial support to the person(s) already taking care of the elderly. There are contractual agreements that an elderly lawyer could draw up for you to make such an arrangement bound legally. This option gives everyone a fair chance to do the right thing and take care of their family together.
- Federal/State government aid – Another option is to avail benefits from medicaid programs provided by the federal and state governments. If the person who receives care is already in a medicaid program and signed off by the respective doctor(s) for home care, you can get paid by the hour for taking care of your loved one(s). All you’ll need to do on your part is to present proof that shows you can legally work in the United States and are healthy enough to provide care for another person.
- Special care for post 9/11 veterans: There are programs available that could provide medical and other support in a variety of ways to eligible veterans post 9/11. A program called Veteran Directed Home and Community-Based Services (VD-HCBS) particularly pays the family member(s) to get good care for their loved one who once fought valiantly for their country.
Indirect Ideas To Support Aging Family Members
The above mentioned are three direct ways to solve financial worries about taking care of your family and keeping things whole. The rest of the options that we will talk about here might need certain prerequisites. Formalities that were taken care of in the past with diligence by the recipients of care themselves. A couple of them would be long-term care insurance and opting for tax credit.
An insurance policy opted by your loved one back in time might come in handy today and aid you to take care of your family without worrying about hefty medical expenses. This might require you to provide in-home care in association with a licensed home care agency. However, such conditions and their applications will entirely depend on the respective policy guidelines.
As the IRS’s Credit for Caring Act states, you could benefit via tax credit when it comes to spending your savings for taking care of your family in terms of elderly assistance and medical expenses. Check with your account for details.
Greg is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 22+ years experience in Financial Services. He has held numerous FINRA Securities licenses (series 7, 63, 65, and 66), and is an expert on Investment Products and Financial Planning. Greg has 22+ years experience as a real estate investor and degrees in Psychology and Philosophy.
Greg has been quoted/interviewed in Yahoo Money, Yahoo Finance, USA Today, Authority Magazine, Realtor.com, Business Insider, and others.
Greg is an avid runner, and the father to identical twin girls and their awesome brother. His love of budgeting and his kids led him to join The Great Resignation in 2021.
Disclaimer: Any Financial Tips on ChaChingQueen are general and informational. Speak with a professional about your specific situation.