If my last post made you angry (no judgement, when I think about the current laws too long I get royally P.O. ) then let me tell you some ways to beat the system. I hope these can help someone because I had no one to tell me about this stuff. While these are great tools they are in no way a substitute for better laws so let's not fool ourselves. The two main tricks I have to save money are a special needs trust and an able account.
An Able account is similar to a Roth IRA in that there is a cap on how much you can put in each year. It is free to open and took me maybe 10 minutes online. There is an app and you can directly transfer money from your bank account either manually or set it up to do it on a recurring basis. The limit on deposits is $15,000 per year but recently they passed able to work which allows you to contribute up to $27,000 extra a year. Money is put in post tax and is not taxed when you take it out. When you open an account they send you a debit card you can use to make purchases and I think you can charge things to the account like rent. I personally don’t use this feature. You also get to decide how aggressively you want to invest your money. The two main downsides of this account is one that you need to account for how you spend the money and prove that it is a disability related expense and two any amount over 100k counts against receiving monthly SSI payments and can affect benefits. Total I think you can only have 500k in there. Another benefit is that any can contribute to it so it is not limited in that regard.
A special needs trust is a bit more complicated to open, involving notarized documents and meetings with the ARC. In addition it costs a bit of money to open but was one of the best investments I made in my future. Unlike the able account there’s no limit on how much you can put in each year and therefore it is very helpful for shielding money. As with the able account you can decide how aggressively you want to invest (the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward). I have mine invested pretty heavily because I want to treat it as a retirement account. I actually have two trusts set up, the first being a self funded trust (this is where I put the majority of my money that um saving. I also have a third party trust established for people to leave things too such as a house or a car or money. The biggest difference between the two is who can contribute to them. . Only you can contribute to a self funded trust but you can’t contribute to a third party trust. The cool thing about the trusts is that you can use them to buy things such as a house or a car and technically they are owned by the trust, not you so they are a good way to work around the asset limitations. It is a bit harder to withdraw money, you can’t do it directly you have to fill out a disbursement form to get money. It is also harder to deposit, you can’t do it directly by transferring you have to write a check. A huge benefit of the trust though is that it comes with a team of people to help manage it and after you surpass $250k you have more personal decisions and can decide more specifically about investments.
I am very grateful for both accounts because without these I probably would never be able to retire and pay for what I need. Personally I treat the able account as a longer term savings account and my trusts as a retirement account given the limits on amounts. I am more than happy to answer any questions you have about these feel free to reach out!
