Wayly Budget Calculator: How Your Support at Home Quarterly Budget Works

When you are approved for ongoing Support at Home services you receive one of eight classifications. Each comes with an annual amount split into four quarterly budgets, and you get the full quarter's amount at the start of the quarter.

The eight ongoing levels, effective 1 November 2025, run from Level 1 at 10,731 dollars a year up to Level 8 at 78,106 dollars a year. People who moved across from a Home Care Package sit on one of four transitioned levels instead. The amounts are indexed each 1 July.

Ten per cent of each quarterly budget is deducted for care management, which covers planning, coordination and review by your provider. That leaves about 90 per cent for the services in your care plan.

This is where families lose money without realising. At the end of a quarter, unspent funds roll over, but only up to a ceiling. The amount that carries over is the higher of 1,000 dollars or 10 per cent of your quarterly budget. Anything above that does not carry across and is returned to the system.

There is one exception. If your parent moved from a Home Care Package and brought unspent funds with them, those older funds are kept separately and are not subject to the rollover ceiling.

The practical lesson is to watch your spend through the quarter, not at the end. If services have been light because a parent was in hospital or a carer was away, the underspend can build to a point where some of it will be forfeited.

Support at Home groups services into three streams. Clinical Care covers nursing and allied health and is fully funded by the government, so there is no contribution. Independence covers things like personal care and social support. Everyday Living covers domestic help, gardening and meals.

The stream decides your contribution. Clinical Care is always nil. Independence contributions run from 5 per cent for a full pensioner up to 50 per cent for a self funded retiree. Everyday Living runs from 17.5 per cent up to 80 per cent. From 1 October 2026 personal care moves into the Clinical Care category, so it becomes fully government funded.

Because the streams carry different contributions, where a service sits affects both your budget and your out of pocket cost. A service in the wrong stream can cost you more than it should.

The Wayly Budget Calculator turns all of that into a live picture. You enter the classification and the quarter, and Wayly tracks spending against the budget so you always know how much is left and how fast it is going.

The Wayly Budget Calculator splits spending across the three streams, so you can see Clinical Care, Independence and Everyday Living separately. It monitors the 10 per cent care management cap and warns you if care management is running high. It tracks the rollover ceiling, so you get a heads up while there is still time to use funds rather than lose them. It keeps an eye on assistive technology commitments and your lifetime cap balance.

The point is to give you the numbers before the quarter ends, not after, when nothing can be done.

Dorothy Anderson is on Support at Home Level 4 with Bluebell Care Services. Level 4 is 29,696 dollars and 40 cents a year, which works out to about 7,424 dollars and 10 cents a quarter.

Of that quarterly figure, 10 per cent, about 742 dollars, is set aside for care management, leaving roughly 6,680 dollars for services. The Wayly Budget Calculator shows Dorothy's daughter Catherine how that is being spent across the three streams as the quarter progresses.

In Dorothy's June quarter, the Wayly Budget Calculator picked up that 482 dollars and 62 cents was sitting unspent with the quarter running down. Because Level 4's rollover ceiling is the greater of 1,000 dollars or 10 per cent of the quarterly budget, which is about 742 dollars, the full 482 dollars would actually roll over this time. But the alert still mattered, because a pattern of underspend can mean the care plan no longer matches Dorothy's needs, which is a prompt to review services or consider a reassessment.

The Calculator also showed care management nudging above the cap by 20 dollars and 82 cents, which Catherine flagged with Susan Tran.

Check in mid quarter. The most common mistake is to look at the budget only when the statement arrives, by which time the quarter may be nearly over.

Match spending to needs, not to the calendar. The goal is not to spend for the sake of it, but to make sure approved services are actually being delivered and that you are not quietly building an underspend you will lose.

If the budget keeps falling short or keeps building up, that is a signal. A shortfall may mean it is time for a reassessment to a higher classification. A steady underspend may mean the care plan needs a refresh.

Stop guessing where the quarter stands. Enter your parent's classification into the Wayly Budget Calculator and see your spending, your care management cap and your rollover at a glance, while there is still time to act.