I am growing frustrated in being a caregiver. I moved in with mom and pop after he had a stroke and is partially paralyzed. I worked for a phone company for 17 yrs, put away money faithfully into my IRA, got laid off 1 week before christmas. CAme home for the holidays and told my parents I lost my job.Dad had a stroke Dec 24, 2002. I moved home 1 yr later living off my savings, stocks and now IRA. I am 46.Now I am down to my last 10k, owe 5k on a new van I bought due to dad being in a wheelchair.i had to get it refinanced for another 4 yrs bc I couldn't make the payments.I have gone to local charities, Churches and filled out PRESCREENINGS for food stamps. GUESS WHAT I dont QUALIFY bc I live with mom and dad and they take household finances. My parents dont supporet me. Thank God, Dad has a somewhat good pension, but its enough to barely get by on. The house has not had anything done on it for 10 years, plumbing leaks, paint is peeling, carpets are 20 years old. We dont live in luxary.
I need help financially and cant find any. I need food and healthcare but after 7 years of not working, I cant get it. PLEASE HELP.
I am geting desperate :(
First thing I learned was that all the goverment agencies I called were useless that is unless you can show you have nothing at all, I knew I shouldnt have worked all that overtime to buy myself a small house so my next step was I had my mom put on hospice. Her doctor didnt feel comfortable signing a form saying she had 6 months to live but he did sign a request to have the hospice doctor evaluate mom and thats how I got by that.
Hospice comes in 3 times a week to give her a shower and twice a week a nurse comes in to make sure she is doing ok, they also provide a volunteer to come in and sit with her so I can go shopping and they provide some respite time. they also pay 100% of some medications which saves me a few bucks a month, I made 2300 bucks last year so everything helps. She is not required to stay on hospice so if she has to go into the hospital I will call hospice and state we dont want the help anymore and they will drop her from their care immediatley so medicare will take over again on the hospital charges, when she gets out of the hospital I will just sign her up again for hospice. the services they provide have been wonderfull.
As usual another goverment agency may have given you bad advice on food stamps, so double check this one. you may not be part of your parents household, I suppose they dont claim you on thier taxes and you dont claim them so its just like being roomates in an apartment you file seperate tax returns so you each have your own household but just share a living space. where you may get stuck is if you have any money in the bank or in a 401k or IRA, you gotta spend that or hide it and show nothing on the books then you can qualify or maybe your parents may qualify.
also if a parent is a Veteran the VA can pay you as the caretaker, be carefull here as you can call them 3 times and get 3 different answers to the same question and they will probably send you the wrong forms several times as they did me. I finally went to the local VA office and found a guy that knew what he was doing and submitted the correct forms, they are backed up and it may take 2 months to a year I am told but as my Federaly employed friend says what do you expect having to only work 6 hours a day ( he gets an 1 1/2 half off every day to go to the gym after his hour lunch) with 5 weeks paid vacation 17 paid holidays 10 sick days and 3 personal days there isnt much time left to get the work load done.
this may only help a little but I found its helpfull not to get overwhelmed and take small steps at a time.
http://www.consumerdirectonline.net/