The Cost of Caregiving? Expensive or Priceless?

We have blogged on several occasions about the issues surrounding caregiving, including the need for caregivers, who provides care, etc.  Ever wonder what caregiving costs the caregiver? If I said $5,000 per year, would you say that was more than you thought, or less? What if I told you almost 30% of caregivers spend $10,000 or more? Surprised?

Caring ran a story on the costs of caregiving based on a report they recently compiled.  Nearly Half of Family Caregivers Spend Over $5,000 Per Year on Caregiving Costs reports that nearly 50% of the “family caregivers spend more than $5,000 per year on caregiving expenses” (the study considers a family caregiver to be “someone who takes care of a family member or friend, but is unpaid for … services…. [and] caregiving expenses include out-of-pocket costs for medications, medical bills, in-home care, nursing homes and more.” What are the breakdowns for this group of caregivers? “16% spend from $5,000 to $9,999 * 11% spend from $10,000 to $19,999 * 7% spend $20,000 to $29,999 * 5% spend $30,000 to $49,999 * 7% spend $50,000 or more each year.”  The report includes some other interesting statistics and includes this interesting observation

Caregiving not only has an effect on finances, but it can also impact current employment and future retirement plans, too. One-third of family caregivers (33%) spend more than 30 hours per week on caregiving, making it almost the equivalent of a full-time job. Half of caregivers have made changes to their work schedule to accommodate caregiving, while 30% often arrived late or left early and 17% missed a significant amount of work.

More details about the report  and the cost of caregiving are available here