ONE MORE UPDATE for anyone who happens upon this post looking for answers to a similar problem, here's what I ended up saying:
"Hi! I just wanted to make sure that you meant to send me the amount you did on (X date) as I usually charge less than that (listed charge in parentheses here) and I was worried that maybe it was a typo or a miscommunication on my part. I did notice that recently my payments from you have been more than usual but attributed it that to (xyz reasons). I just want to make sure you know that X is what I usually ask and I would like to offer repayment or free services to make up the difference if it was in-fact a mistake or miscommunication. Otherwise, I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope to hear back from you soon!"
All is now well, thanks everyone!
Without getting too specific, I have a side-gig which involves me doing free-lance in-home care. A family I work for/with has been overpaying me but never by much, I just thought they were being generous. Last time I worked for them, they overpaid by almost $200. This is quite excessive given the work I'm doing for them and I have no idea how to tell them that or how to handle the situation. These are people who I know fairly well and who I would really like to continue working for in the future. It's extremely important to me not to mess things up with them or make it weird, tbh. Please help!!
Edit: I want to stress how excessive this payment is– it is nearly double what I charge. There has been a recent addition to the service I provide that would normally add $5 or maybe $10 hourly which we never discussed directly (I never brought it up because I did not intend to charge them for this) which I'm worried they feel they need to pay double for. They also pay me via payment services after I leave their home so I'm not there to tell them hey, that's too much!
For instance, let's say you were hired to fix someone's sink and they asked you to fix another sink while you're there. You have already charged for your time and resources in the charge for the first sink. If the second one was an easy, cheap fix, you wouldn't charge double just because you worked on two sinks. But they are paying me double and it's way too much.