I help my elderly mother every day and drive her to appointments. Can I recoup my costs from her estate?

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Dear Quentin,

I have been the caregiver for my parents.

That has meant taking time off work to drive them to doctors’ appointments as well as attending the appointments with them, translating medical information into plain language they can understand. I sometimes use my paid time off for this and other times just don’t get paid for those days.

During the COVID-19 pandemic I had to give up thousands of dollars in work bonuses because I had to be available for medical visits. When my father passed away, I took six weeks unpaid leave to help my mother with her grief and with the logistics of learning to live on her own.

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Both of my parents had multiple medical issues that required several appointments per month as well as me being available to help with the activities of daily life. Since my father’s death, my mother has needed even more help. She has multiple medical issues herself.

One of the things that I have helped with is driving her to her financial planner’s office. She changed the payout for some of her investments to have a slightly larger payout to me — due, for the most part, to all of my help and sacrifice.

Don’t miss: I am my elderly husband’s caretaker, driver, butler and whipping post. He promised to leave his grandson his home — is that fair to me?

A furious brother

My brother found out that there was a change in benefits. He was furious when he found out. He lives more than 1,000 miles away and hasn’t lifted a finger to help over the last 15 years that I have been their caregiver.

My mother has been made to feel like she shouldn’t spend her own money because she needs to leave something to her heirs. It infuriates me that she is alone and feels isolated because she has a difficult time getting out. I work full time and spend as much time as I can with her.

I know my mother has the right to do whatever she wants with her estate. I generally spend an hour or more daily with her, as well attending multiple appointments every month. I do her grocery shopping as well.

I’m wondering if there is some way to recoup some of my lost earnings from her estate after she passes. I don’t want to upset her while she’s living. Stress makes her condition worse. I don’t want to add to her stress in any way.

The Good Daughter

Related: ‘She doesn’t like to rock the boat’: My mother will spend millions taking care of my aging stepfather. What can I do?

Dear Daughter,

Medicaid could hit your mother’s estate up for costs. Your options, however, are limited.

You have two choices. You can either view this time and, in part, the income you’ve lost as an expense that requires reimbursement or, better still, you can view it as quality time spent with your mother, who knows she is not alone when you are nearby.

Your mother, like millions of other women, no doubt did the same for you when you needed care as a child. Women are more likely than men to take time off work, do unpaid domestic work and take career breaks than men . LIke you, they can lose thousands of dollars in income.

I appreciate that you’ve taken time off work to take your mother to appointments, but that is what we do for loved ones and, when the time comes, we able-bodied people will be grateful to have someone, a friend or neighbor or family member, who will do the same for us.

We are all, for the most part, temporarily abled. The time will come when we will need the kind of help you have provided your mother, or we will be sitting in a nursing home looking out at the mountains (if it’s a room with a view) hoping to get regular visitors.

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The brother issue

Your brother’s reaction provides a lesson for parents that they don’t have to reveal every aspect of their estate plan to their children. That’s exactly what I told this woman , who received $250,000 from her mother, while her sibling received $1 million.

You’ve made the decision, or so it seems, that it’s not worth asking your mother to remember you in her will or through her beneficiary designations again, due to your brother’s fury and the fact that you don’t want to put her under any pressure.

The National Partnership for Women and Families estimates that every American age 15 and older spends an average of nearly 245 hours each year taking care of or helping family, friends and loved ones — whether it’s getting the kids to bed, babysitting or taking a neighbor to see a doctor.

If this unpaid care work were compensated at the same rate as professional care workers — who are vastly underpaid given their important work — it would be valued at over $1 trillion a year. Your dear brother may be surprised to learn: Two-thirds of this unpaid care work is carried out by women.

Keep doing what you’re doing, regardless of how your mother divides her estate.

Related: ‘I can afford to be generous’: How much should I give my stepdaughter for her wedding gift? I want to be fair.

You can email The Moneyist with any financial and ethical questions at qfottrell@Single Sparkle, and follow Quentin Fottrell on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The Moneyist regrets he cannot reply to questions individually.

Previous columns by Quentin Fottrell:

My husband will inherit $180K. I think we should invest the money. He wants to pay off his $168K mortgage. Who’s right?

‘I’m at a loss’: My boyfriend of nearly 10 years is naming his elderly parents as beneficiaries and giving them power of attorney. Am I right to be upset?

‘We have no prenuptial agreement’: Will my wife be able to take my money if I transfer it to my retirement account?

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