We built this because we needed it.

When my mom's health declined three years ago, we put her in a memory care facility while we waited for something better. It was highly rated. It turned out the reviews were mostly written by staff.

She called us crying. She wanted to come home to her dog and her cat.

When we finally read her healthcare power of attorney, the fine print, it said exactly what she'd been telling us: home, if at all possible. She had already told us what she wanted. We just hadn't listened closely enough.

So we decided to figure out how to bring her home.

I called two local caregiver agencies. Both charged around $40 an hour. Then I found one of those same agencies on Indeed, hiring caregivers at $15 an hour.

There is a lot of space between $15 and $40.

I hired directly. I paid $20 an hour, more than the agency paid its own staff, and I got to choose who came into my mom's home. For 45 hours of weekly care, that decision saves our family roughly $30,000 a year compared to going through an agency.

That $30,000 stays in my mom's retirement. She gets to stay home longer.

What I wasn't ready for was everything else.

Medications, there were a lot of them, and the doctors always asked. Caregiver schedules and shift coverage. Payroll submitted on time every week or people don't get paid. Four siblings who wanted updates and weren't getting them. A house that had to be made safe, locks, stove knobs, door straps, and a dozen small decisions that all lived in my head.

It worked. Barely. Mostly through group texts and spreadsheets.

FamilyCareConductor came out of that experience. I was already running this system. I just needed it to actually work.

Now my whole family sees everything in one place: medications, care logs, upcoming appointments, caregiver schedules. Caregivers clock in on the app. Hours calculate automatically. I get a reminder when payroll is due.

Nobody has to ask me how Mom is doing. They can just look.

The app is $50 a month. For a family using direct-hire caregivers at 45 hours a week, that's $50 a month in exchange for the infrastructure that makes a $30,000-a-year decision manageable.

My mom is home. Her dog is on the couch beside her.

She's in her eighties with real health challenges, and not every day is easy. But she's in her own house, with her own things, and her family around her, which is exactly what she asked for.

We're doing right by her. And I'm grateful we found a way to make it work.

If you're in the position I was in three years ago, staring at a $40/hour quote and wondering if there's a better way, there is. That's why we built this.