Nobody sends a bill for family care. The cost is still paid. It is paid in hours, in money spent on supplies and gas, in missed work, and in sleep. When nobody adds it up, the family cannot plan around it.
This guide shows how to count it.
Count the hours for two weeks
Write down every task and the time it took. Include the short ones: a five-minute call to the pharmacy, a ten-minute drive to drop off groceries, twenty minutes on hold with the insurance company. Group them like this:
Category
Examples
Hands-on care
Bathing, dressing, meals, medicines
Driving
Appointments, errands, visits
Phone and paperwork
Insurance, bills, scheduling, refills
Supervision
Time spent nearby because the person should not be alone
Nights
Times woken up, and how long
Count the money
List what you paid for out of your own pocket: supplies, medicines, groceries, gas, parking, a hired helper, and home repairs or safety equipment. Include money you did not earn, such as unpaid time off or hours you cut at work.
Count what was given up
Some costs have no dollar figure: a job opportunity declined, a trip cancelled, time with your own children, your own doctor’s appointments postponed. Write them down anyway and bring them to the family conversation.
OPA’s free What This Is Costing You worksheet has a page for each of these categories.
What to do with the totals
The totals answer practical questions:
Is the load shared? Put each family member’s hours side by side. OPA’s guide on when one sibling carries most of the work explains how to talk about the result.
Which hours should be paid help? Start with the hours that cost the caregiver the most, such as missed work hours or nights.
Is the arrangement sustainable? If the weekly total keeps rising, the plan needs to change before the caregiver’s health or job gives out.
The Invisible Architecture, Book II of the Operational Reliability Series, follows a family carrying care after the first emergency has passed, when the work that no institution scheduled lands on the people at home. Read about the book.
A first step this week
Start the two-week log today. At the end of the two weeks, add up the hours and the money, and share the totals with one other family member.
If the totals show hours the family cannot keep covering, see how care starts at OPA.
