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"I privately hire an aide for 6 hours a week to assist in his personal care and to watch my husband while I attend to chores, grocery shopping, etc."

Please check out:
https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/home-health-services

You would have to coordinate with his doctor and the agency (if you have privately hired, you might have to use an agency for the services that Medicare might cover.) This could fall under the "Part-time or intermittent home health aide services (personal hands-on care)" The agency we had hired mentioned this benefit, but because mom didn't need/refused any "personal hand-on-care", we had to private pay, so I don't know how it all works or if there is a limit to the coverage.

When you need to get out for errands, sanity, etc and need a "sitter", that you would still have to pay for, but if you can get some Medicare coverage for some of his personal care, it could save you some. The page referenced above even mentions that the agency "should tell you how much Medicare will pay. The agency should also tell you if any items or services they give you aren't covered by Medicare, and how much you'll have to pay for them." It can't hurt to explore this...
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Thank you all for your suggestions. I do have Senior Community Center a short walk from me. Also, my husband has finally agreed to sell his car. (I had already taken the keys away, which he only noticed today). We now have only one vehicle which is fully paid. That’s one less parking spot to pay for and less on insurance.
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disgustedtoo Aug 2019
Baby steps!!! Glad to hear about him giving up the car - selling it brings in a little money, saving on insurance and parking is another win!! More baby steps as you can...

I certainly can relate to the fixed income issue. I only care for myself and my cats (I do all the non-hands-on work for mom, which does add up and gets progressively worse), but my place needed a lot of renovation when I bought it, got laid off and stuck between two houses! I was finally able to move forward on the other house and sell it, but finding good workers (I have most of the materials needed) who stick around is a different issue! At the moment, I am not even looking for anyone because the money issue has reached a point of soon to be negative - a few more months to get through (til April) when I can pay down a big chunk of the mortgage and use the remainder to hire people to do work. Tired of living in limbo! But, I made a plan, and then had to adjust it when something else failed (brakes on my plow jeep), but... baby steps... hopefully I can get this place done and clean up so I can try to enjoy some of my "golden years!"
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Although finances are an important consideration, mental, physical, and emotional stress of being a care-giver are also front and center. Basically, caregivers are trying to live two lives and it can be overwhelming.

I was researching this exact situation for a post for my senior's website and came across a novel idea I think just might work for some people who are stressed out from being caregivers. You can read about it here if you like.
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