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I'm looking for someone twice a week, 10-12 hours a day to took after my elderly dad. They would need to prepare meals for him. What is a reasonable amound of money to pay someone for this type of service?

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Depending on the level of care, as far as I know it can run from $20 per hour and up. You could call Elder Services in the town and they could give you information and referals. Good luck. Take care.
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A lot of this is how comfortable you both (you & your dad) are with the legalities. You can go the insured, bonded agency route that you can write a check for or go with paying someone under the table. The cost difference will be huge.

With my mom when she was still in her home, the home health type of agency ran
$ 17 - 25 per hours with a 4 hour, 2 day minimum. Interviewed 5 agencies. the first one was one that a good friend of my mom's used. Although her friends caregiver was great the ones the agency sent were less than stellar. They either were late or last minute substitution of caregiver. Not good. Then went with choice # 2 and they were really very good and did a email note at the end of each visit to me. An easy and nice touch. We did this after my mom had rotor cuff surgery and needed help with everything from bathing to supervising her exercises and being driven to PT appointments for about 3 months.They had to drive my mom in my mom's car - they cannot drive their car as per company rules. It becomes expensive if it is something that is not a limited short term situation. I live in another state and using an agency worked better for us and I knew going in it was maybe a 3 month situation. It ran about $1,400 a month 4 days a week 4 or 5 hrs.

One of my friends from high school, Carole, who's mom lives a block away from my mom's house, has a worker come over 3 days a week/6-7 hrs a day who does everything from cleaning house, laundry and personal hygiene stuff and takes her to grocery store and weekly hairdresser and pays her $ 9 hr cash. She doesn't work when school is out though. About $ 900 a month. She found her by asking about at another neighbor's funeral as she was there taking another elderly to the funeral. Carole lives in town and goes to see her mom pretty often so can tell is stuff is amiss so that works for her but this wouldn't work for me. Sometimes the nursing homes will have a list of workers for doing this while the future NH resident works though the financial and medical and family stuff to move from their home to a NH.

Also see is your dad's area has a Meals on Wheels program: 2 reasons - 1 to get a meal delivered to your dad each day and get him used to having someone come by daily or during the week. 2 Meals too might have a list of home health providers that are independent and not part of an agency. My mom had meals delivered 3 days a week, ran about $ 3 a meal and they provided a styrofoam cooler that sat outside her back door for those days when she wasn't there. Your local Area on Aging usually has a list of Meals or other supplemental food sites. Most of the Meals volunteers where my mom lives are retired military so they are a young retirees so Meals was totally dependable.

Also you might look for adult day care with lunch and snacks- some of these have a van that picks them up around 8/9 AM and brings them home either around 1/2 PM or 5/6 PM as the vans seem to also be used for school kid special needs transportation. My mom did this once a week for maybe 2 years when she was still living at home and it was co-ordinated through OASIS - which does senior community outreach in some states. Good luck.
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