You have to put your talents into providing a service at which you excel that others will pay you for.
Prayers and best wishes to you.
Another thought .... Check all your credit cards, loans, mortgages and club memberships like AAA, AARP et al. Many of them have small cash payouts or even continued payments should the breadwinner become disabled. I doubt you’ve overlooked any of those, but still .... Just in case.
Did you see your mail?
You could check with Visiting Angels or similar services.
You’ve already had experience as a caregiver - maybe something in home health care, assisted living, practical nursing......
Haven’t much to offer except my prayers and a BTT. God bless.
Your children may have to find their own way...
Guessing at their age from your post but unless you had them late in life they are not an equal concern with caring for your husband.
God will not burden you with something he does not give you the strength to handle.
You must lay it before Him; FreeRepublic can help but is not a substitute.
As for going back too work you have several realities to consider. One obviously is the care of your husband while you work. If the kids are old enough they can help watch over him, give him food drink, etc, and have you to contact in case of emergency while at work. I did that for over 5 years and my employer a health care facility wasn't too understanding when I had to up and leave right then and there. LOL. If not then you have the care of the kids as well as him to consider that's why I say look into SSI.
Another factor like what I said above is you will need an employer who is aware of your home situation and flexible to your husbands emergencies and yes you will have them.
You also must also consider your own health both physical and mental ability to handle both caregiver and wage earner roll. It's not easy and it may even bring harm to your own health if you push beyond your limitations.
Apply for all the assistance you can get. Ignore the ones who look down upon it. Look, your husband and yourself to a very real extent as a stay at home mother paid into several programs that was supposed to protect him, you, and your kids, in the event of catastrophic illness.
I am caregiver to my wife of 28 years and have been such for all 28 years. She is a quad. I worked until my body and mind said no more. That was 18 years ago.
One other thing to look into. There are no programs out there for caregivers except for some churches that offer a daycare of sorts to working caregivers. Their ability to help depends on the severity of the person. That is usually a drop off and pick up later arrangement.
Do you have a spare room? If so you could look into giving a room and meals for someone to help you care for him. Hope some of the ideas help you work through this.
A job you could walk off the streets into that you are qualified to do is Resident Assistant in an Assisted Living Facility. This is a step below nursing home care and as such the workers except for the nurse do not have to be certified. Mostly it’s helping them get up, dressed, to meals if they can’t walk, help in some cases with bathing etc.
Being self-employed your husband has paid 15% of his income into SS and Medicaid over the years on top of income taxes. Time to take some of that back.
If so, you have many options in your state, which I believe is Pennsylvania, based on your past posting history.
There is no shame attached in seeking help and financial counseling in your situation. Hard times may come to us all at some point.
That's why people pay taxes into social security and medicare.
You will lose your property, since you can't afford to pay for it, but you need not become homeless.Over half of USA citizens do not own property, and still manage to keep a decent roof over our heads and food on the table.
If you are not a legal citizen or legal resident,and/or your husband did not pay his taxes, you will have far fewer options.
Just thought of some things to AVOID.
You may see ads for “work at home” make so much money, etc., all you have to do is send them some money for some kits, etc. — do NOT fall for that. These are ALL schemes without exception and by the time you figure it out, it cost you more money than you can afford to lost.
Look for real jobs in your area.
It looks like you're getting a lot of good advice here from people who have been in similar situations. SSDI sounds like an obvious approach, and I'd also look into what the state of Pennsylvania has in terms of Medicaid assistance, etc.
Cleaning houses. That pays a surprising amount of money per hour of work. Try to stay with cash. Even checks fundamentally aren’t that traceable unless a really concerted effort is made to look into your personal finances.
Set up a free craigslist ad in the household services section. If you can’t do it yourself, get someone to help you.
Be sure to top post the ad every 48 hours. You can actually post two ads and alternate top-posting each ad every 24 hours.
Look at how the other ads are constructed for house cleaning services and what the rates are.
Consider using an image of your phone number and email address in the Craigslist ad, rather than text or you will be inundated with email scams and maybe even a phone scam or two, though with my own service ads it’s been mostly email scams. I’ve actually found almost all legitimate responses to my service ads have been via telephone anyway.
Setting up a Craigslist service ad can be a bit tricky as they insist on having a unique phone number to confirm the account when it is created, and a lot of cell phone numbers actually won’t work.
References would be good in the ad, and maybe pictures. Just see what the competition is doing.
Probably your biggest issue will be personal safety. You’ll need to check out potential clients maybe even more than they will you. You’ll need to consult google map information for neighborhoods. Look at satellite views of the property you’ll be going to and even try to google the client’s address, name, and/or phone number.
Hope this might help. Good luck!
You can do this. Don’t be insecure that you’re “out of it” or “not up to speed” when you get out there. The very best employees I’ve had are ones who care and have pride, which you obviously do. You are not too old. You can offer a business the basics that the kids won’t. You’ll show up on time, you won’t steal, you won’t hide somewhere to check your phone every 5 seconds.
Good luck, be tough, and God Bless!
(You don’t need a pharm tech license to go start out at the major retailers. They’ll train you and offer classes to pass the cert test. Just don’t get stuck there. Once you’ve gotten the cert out of them, look for a more sane position that pays better. VA Hospital, for example.)
Some people like to marry young.
Some years ago, when my son had bone cancer - surgeries, chemo, radiation - I had to come up with a ‘job’ with flexible hours that I could work around his care.
I went to housework - as it pays better than most other jobs. Right now, down here. housekeepers get $20-25 and hour in rural Maine - so must make more in cities.
Other advantages, Once I got a list of clients enough for the money I needed, I could start to pick and choose clients, keeping the better ones. Good money, flexible hours, choose clients...and no one standing over your shoulder -
ALSO, need a ‘raise’? Add another client...AND if you lose a client, well, you still have eggs in your basket. You don’t lose your whole income in one blow.
You may be surprised who in your local area would be happy to employ some homemaker skills. Someone to do washing and ironing etc or do windows, house cleaning. My wife brought in decent money for a few years doing those things for people who were working making heaps of dough but were time poor and wanted to come home to a clean house etc. Don’t undersell those skills either - there’s always good money in stuff people don’t want to do. If you are good at it people will pay more than minimum wage and $10-$12 cash in hand is worth a lot more than that.