We are all taught from a young age that saving money is important to future success and is just smart. Growing up my parents gave us an allowance of $1 a week for our age (so if you were 8 you got $8 a week and so on). However of that money we had to divide it among 3 categories- save, spend, and give. Early on I realized I loved saving and watching the amount grow. I remember how excited I was to get to open my first bank account and get to deposit my money, man I felt so grown up!
Flash forward however to being an adult and realizing that the current legislation for disabled individuals discourages saving by taking away benefits if you have more than $2000 in assets. If you go over this limit they cut off your services and sometimes make you pay ridiculous back payments. This includes a 401k, house, car and basically anything else people get to support themselves. This is NOT FAIR and laws need to change. Thankfully I have some options I can use to save money for the future (which I will discuss in another post) but still why punish people for being financially independent? If the goal is for people to work and earn a living wage why punish them? In my case I work but still need assistance to cover my care costs so I can live normally, and because of this I cannot own a car, house, or save for retirement traditionally. Is the thinking tht all disabled people live like vegetables? Because honestly that is quite insulting and the thought process needs to change! It is 2021, come on!
These laws are not going to change unless people fight to change them and I hope to do that through this blog. Nothing will change unless people realize it’s time for them to change. I am tired of things being unnecessarily hard simply because I use wheels to get around instead of my feet. I don’t think that is a reason why I should be punished. Times are changing and it’s time that the laws changed with them.