Templates for Caregivers.

A curated set of 22 spreadsheets, binders and conversation scripts — and the guides that go with them — for the work of looking after someone. Log vitals and blood pressure between appointments, keep medical costs in one place at tax time, and build a home inventory before you ever have to file a claim.

Everything that matters, in one place, before you need it

Caregiving runs on details other people never see — the reading from Tuesday, the receipt for the specialist, the model number on the appliance the insurer will ask about. These templates are built to hold those details so they're ready when a doctor, an accountant or an adjuster asks. They organize and record; they don't diagnose, and they're not a substitute for professional medical or legal advice.

Before any of it is a record-keeping problem, though, it is a conversation. Caregiving stalls on the talks nobody rehearses — driving, money, help in the home, a move, and the sibling who hasn’t noticed there is anything to divide. The Caregiver Conversations Scripts & Letters Swipe Bank writes twenty-four of them for you — and, more usefully, maps the five to seven replies you’re most likely to get and what to say to each, because an opener is the easy half. Read how to talk to a parent about giving up driving, take the free driving conversation script, or weigh it against scripts vs hiring a geriatric care manager, and what a family caregiver agreement is for when one relative's caregiving has become a job. Every script stops at persuasion rather than override, and says so.

One of the twenty-four is free: the driving conversation script, with its full reply map and its written follow-up. No email asked for.

The other conversation — wills, wishes, and where everything actually is — has its own playbook. Having the Talk separates two questions that guidance usually runs together: does anyone else know a thing, and does a findable document hold it. A family can recite exactly what their mother wants and have nothing on paper that a hospital could act on. It works through 48 questions in four short sittings, and it is honest that a conversation produces an errand list rather than a finish line. Four PDFs, 97 pages, bought once and kept — no account, nothing to renew.

Start with how to talk to your parents about their will, or take the free How to Start the Conversation mini-guide — 14 pages: the openings that work, and the whole of the first sitting, with no signup. It also helps to read what an advance directive is and what a letter of instruction is before you sit down.

And when the hard part is the choice itself — in-home care, assisted living, memory care, or a nursing facility — the Elder-Care Decision Helper scores the care, not the lobby, in a workbook you own outright rather than a sales-driven referral service. Try the free elder-care web scorer first.

Before you hire anyone. When the answer is bringing someone in — a nanny, an aide, or a caregiver for a parent — the check before the hire is one of the highest-stakes checks a household ever runs. The Reference & Vetting Tracker puts the same six questions to every reference so their answers can actually be compared, and measures each certificate against the day your arrangement ends rather than the day you looked. It records what you find; it does not search for anything or screen anyone. Read how to vet a care provider for the method itself.

And when staying put stops being the answer, the move itself becomes the job. The Senior Downsizing & Move-Management Binder does the arithmetic a downsizing move actually turns on — every item sized in cubic feet, checked room by room against the capacity of the new home, and the move priced off the volume you keep — plus the timeline and the thirty-eight organizations that need the new address. Start with what senior downsizing involves, the step-by-step guide to managing a parent's downsizing move, or the free room-by-room sort list.

Caregiving isn't only for aging parents. If you're raising a child with an IEP or a 504 plan, the Special-Needs / IEP Records & Care Binder organizes the accommodations, evaluations, therapy schedule, providers, and meeting notes in a file you own — the records your family keeps and carries to every meeting. Learn what an IEP is, or prep with the free IEP Meeting Prep Sheet.

Caregiving eventually raises the questions nobody wants to ask first. The Funeral / Final-Arrangements Planning Binder records what a person wants done — and, unusually, prices it: an itemized estimate set against every fund already set aside, with the gap and the money reachable in the first few days worked out, because a prepaid contract pays at once and an insurance claim takes weeks. Read what a final-arrangements plan is, or start with the free Final Wishes One-Pager — eleven lines, no signup.

And when it has already happened, the job changes shape entirely. The Executor's Estate Settlement Records & Task Binder turns settling an estate into a dated plan: put the date of death in one cell and sixty executor tasks lay themselves out — fifty-eight with a target date that counts down, and two that recur — every asset is sorted by how it is titled into what goes through probate and what does not, and the cash ledger becomes the accounting a court asks for. Read what an executor is or the step-by-step walkthrough of settling an estate, or start with the free First Two Weeks After a Death checklist — the first two weeks' worth, and nothing beyond it.

Pair them with the field guides below — preparing for an aging parent's check-in, why a home inventory matters, and the real cost of a year of doctor visits.