Kim Berling anticipates living a very long life. Much of it, though, may not go as she wants.
Berling, 66, and her husband, 72, have cared for her 99-year-old mother-in-law. Both work to support her as her memory fades and her health declines. Berling and her husband, who lives in Albuquerque, make the nine-hour drive to visit her in Texas once a month and help pay for caregivers. Neither of them has anything saved for their long-term care.
“We work because we have to, not because we want to,” Berling said.
Over the past few months, Business Insider has spoken to dozens of families navigating long-term care for their loved ones and themselves. Reporters have spoken to families spending six figures each year on dementia care, spending a year’s worth of paychecks on home renovations to accommodate loved ones, and quitting high-paying jobs to take on full-time caregiving.
In nearly every case, caregiving hurt finances across generations and positioned families to make painful sacrifices to ensure their loved ones received the best care possible. In every case, families said caregiving was a labor of love.
“It wasn’t inexpensive or easy for my grandparents to stay at home,” Erin Dentmon wrote in an essay about her grandparents. “There’s no magic number of children or magic amount of money that would make it so. But it was possible.”
Business Insider recently reported on the skyrocketing prices of eldercare across nursing homes, assisted living, and at-home care. Prices for care have, on the whole, increased faster than overall consumer prices, meaning families have been digging into savings to cover what some families said is over a decade of care.
There are many driving forces behind the price hikes, which have increased by 212% for nursing homes since 1997. Higher insurance premiums, transportation costs, and caregiver wages have pushed up facility costs, coupled with the exodus of care workers during the pandemic and immigration crackdowns. Some families told Business Insider that costs have spiked at their loved ones’ facilities because of private equity involvement.
Many families said that they’ve opted for at-home care, which comes with its own sticker shock. A few families said that at around $30 an hour for a caregiver coming for 40 hours a week, that’s over $60,000 a year. These non-medical caregiver costs, up from a median of about $21 per hour in 2018 to $35 per hour in 2025, have led some to leave their communities to become primary caregivers.
“At the same time, demand is growing,” said Howard Gleckman, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute, a public policy research organization. “Younger people with disabilities are living longer. The Baby Boomers are aging and also living longer.”
A family is spending $11,000 a month for their mother-in-law’s care
Berling, who has five adult children, said she became her mother-in-law’s caregiver after she fell off a ladder and broke her femur at 92. Her home care now costs about $6,600 a month, though other expenses bring the total to $11,000. Long-term care insurance has helped cover some of the costs, though she and her husband cover the deficit.
“We’re grateful that these costs aren’t as high as what I often see,” Berling said. “I hear of a lot of caregiving situations where people are shuffled off to state facilities, or children who have had to quit work to care for a parent.”
Another family spent $100k to move 3 aging parents into 2 tiny homes on their yard
Linda Barton, 55, and her husband were concerned that their parents couldn’t live on their own anymore, so they purchased and renovated two tiny homes in their yard. The combined costs were under $100,000, as her husband did much of the wiring and installations himself.
The decision has been somewhat of a relief, as she knows at all times what’s happening to her two parents and her father-in-law. However, the cost of hiring three caregivers, who are not covered by Medicare, has put them at a crossroads.
“If we don’t pay for caregivers, we end up sacrificing work when they need something,” Barton said. “It’s a constant balancing act for us between our finances, helping them, and making sure we still have money when we’re older.”
One family had their 6 adult children help care for their aging parents, and it still cost them $4,000 a week
Erin Dentmon estimates her grandparents’ 24/7 paid care costs upward of $16,000 a month — even with their six children combining for about 180 hours of care each week.
Her grandparents, who died in 2024 and 2025, wished to live at home. Dentmon’s mom and her siblings held “family meetings” every Sunday to divide and conquer caregiving tasks, including personal care, outdoor maintenance, and legal paperwork.
“It’s hard to ignore that the most important resources my grandparents had in their final years are becoming increasingly scarce,” Dentmon said. “Two siblings, or an only child, simply can’t do as much work as four, five, or six.”
And some have their parents move in with them to cut down costs
After a dementia diagnosis and a major fall, Carla Romagnano’s mom needed 24-hour care, but after her dad died unexpectedly, the family decided that her mom should move in.
In October 2023, her mom relocated to Idaho, and Romagnano hired home care to help with her mobility. Romagnano, in her 60s, began sleeping on the couch outside her bedroom to ensure her mom is safe each night. She said she can’t retire, though she hopes to work for another five years to reach 50 years at her company.
“Our calendars are full, between anything I need to do for myself and my mom’s doctor’s appointments,” she said. “In just one year, I drove 800 miles to take care of doctor visits, prescriptions, and all that. The year before, it was 600. You don’t realize that until you actually go over it and see.”
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