Outsourcing Caretakers

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Faced with $6600 per month for a nursing home, Steve Herzfeld did what any loving son would do to care for aging parents.

He outsourced their care to India . . .

His 89-year-old mother, Frances, who suffers from advanced Parkinson's disease, now receives daily massages, physical therapy and 24-hour help getting to the bathroom, all for about $15 a day. His father, Ernest, 93, an Alzheimer's patient, has a full-time personal assistant and a cook who has won him over to a vegetarian diet healthful enough that he no longer needs cholesterol medication.

Best of all, the plentiful drugs the couple require cost less than 20 percent of what they do at home, and salaries for their six-person staff are so low that the pair now bank $1,000 a month of their $3,000 Social Security payment. They aim to use the savings as an emergency fund, or to pay for airline tickets if family members want to visit.

24 hour care for $15 per hour.

Meds at an 80% savings.

Using mom & dad's unspent Social Security checks for family member's air fare.

Priceless.