I am an expert: Ask me your questions about money

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If you've been working full time, how can you go back on disability?
Haven't you proven that you are 'able' enough to work?

Unless you've used up your eligible Ticket to Work time which I think is 9 months, you'll probably have to go through the 2 year evaluation again.

I work two jobs and spend very little beyond basic necessities like shelter, clothing, and food. I use an antenna for TV instead of paying for cable/satellite, play board games/D&D instead of more expensive hobbies, have potluck dinners with friends instead of going out to bars/restaurants, etc. Then, I invested all that saved up money with Vanguard Funds in VTSMX (or VTSAX once the savings go over $10,000). That allows me to earn enough money to go on a fancy trip now and again without it hurting me financially.

It's very difficult to find professional financial services that will not purposefully screw over a person with autism. Most finance professionals have low/no morals and they have absolutely no qualms about doing anything they want to get your money. Your best bet is simply to educate yourself and handle finances on your own. As a starting point, I recommend "The Money Book for the Young Fabulous and Broke" by Suze Orman, which explains personal finance in a really convenient question and answer format and tells you the truth about everything. This book is available at most libraries for free.

Also, I just want to reiterate that you should never trust a personal finance expert with your investments. Simply invest with Vanguard Funds in their major index funds like VTSMX/VTSAX. If you are starting out at the very beginning invest in the Vanguard Star Fund (VGSTX) with a minimum of $1000 and then exchange that for VTSMX once you reach $3000 and VTSAX once you reach $10000.

I don't recommend hiding income, because if the government finds out, they will penalize you PLUS charge interest on taxes owed PLUS possibly give you jail time. That being said, there are legal ways to shelter your money: 1.) Start a Roth IRA and earn money tax-free for retirement, 2.) Work in exchange for gift cards, which aren't taxed, 3.) Stash your money in cryptocurrency like BitCoin that legally works pretty much the same as gift cards.

Here are some ways to reduce your expenses to make that easier:

1.) When I was starting out on my adult life journey, I rented a room from someone off Craigslist instead of getting an apartment which cut my housing expenses to 1/3 of what I had been paying.

2.) Cancel all subscription entertainment services like magazines, cable/satellite TV service, WoW or other MMO games, etc. Replace them with a TV antenna or Hulu if you can't get an antenna signal, borrow books and movies from the library, play free video games, etc.

3.) Get a membership with a warehouse store and buy all your groceries there instead of the grocery store. I save thousands of dollars a year that way.

4.) If you can, replace your expensive cell phone plan with Republic Wireless, which costs $5/mo. There is no data plan with it, but you can just use your home wifi and public wifi spots, which are pretty much everywhere these days.

5.) Buy your clothes at Goodwill, Salvation Army, or other thrift shops instead of department stores. I save hundreds of dollars a year on clothes that way.

6.) Use a bicycle to get around or walk instead of using a car. You will save thousands by not paying for gas, insurance, registration, etc. Plus it has health benefits.

7.) Eat less meat. Meat is expensive and makes you fat. Vegetables can be purchased really cheaply and will make you thin and healthy.

8.) Instead of buying furniture, electronics, etc. at stores, go on Freecycle and check if anyone is giving them away. This will save you thousands of dollars.

9.) Offer to trade your skills for goods instead of buying them. I frequently do this for people over Craigslist, etc. and I've gotten a lot of stuff that way.

10.) Fill out surveys for Pinecone Research and use Bing Rewards for Amazon gift cards and then use that money to buy long-term useful items that will save you money. I used my gift cards to purchase a portable solar panel set which I use to charge my cell phone/laptop. It's saved me hundreds of dollars over time.

Hope this helps.

Well, what you do is think about what you do for fun and then figure out how to sell it. For example, a lot of people in China/Korea play World of Warcraft for a living because they sell rare items in game or they sell entire characters they have created.

Other people have crafty hobbies like knitting/sewing/woodworking/making T-Shirts or Mugs and then they sell them on Craigslist and Etsy.

It just takes a little thought to figure out what you know how to do.

I saw some posts on here talking about how to keep food costs down. Here are a few suggestions:

1.) It's almost always cheaper to prepare food at home than to eat out so if you stop eating at restaurants or takeout, that will dramatically decrease the cost of food for you.

2.) Eating cheaply does not have to mean eating food that is unhealthy. You do not typically need to eat canned food (which has a lot of sodium) or pasta/ramen noodles (which has almost no nutritional value.)

3.) The more you make things from scratch, the cheaper it typically will be. I have a warehouse store membership and I buy flour in 20 lb bags, sugar in 10 lb bags, yeast in 4 lb packages at a time, vegetable oil in gallon jugs, etc. Stuff that keeps a long time can be purchased this way and then you use it over the course of months to reduce your food costs. Always check the unit price for the real value of the goods, instead of looking at the sticker price.

4.) Getting a few household appliances off Craigslist will save you a lot of money. I bought a bread machine off Craigslist for $30 and I have used it to produce $4000 worth of bread and pizza dough for myself and my wife. If you make your own pizza dough and purchase cheese and sauce separately, you can make a pizza for about $1.50 instead of paying $15 from a pizzaria.

5.) Buy frozen vegetables instead of canned vegetables. They keep for a really long time and are low in sodium. I buy 5 lb bags of peas and other vegetables very cheaply at the warehouse store.

6.) Use free recipes off the internet to make all the comfort food you enjoy when you want a treat. I found recipes online for making General Tso's Chicken, meatball subs, etc. and I can make it much more cheaply and much healthier than I can get it at a restaurant. My wife loves it.

http://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pub ... /08704.pdf
Calculating the cost of preserving food.

Freezing large quantities of cheap food may not make much sense if you live in a place where electricity is expensive.

I do like to bake cakes and freeze them in individual portions to eat as lunchtime deserts. They taste great

If you have a talent for numbers and have to pay both state and federal income taxes, it can be very advantageous to put money in a traditional IRA and tweak your income to avoid tax cliffs. Tax cliffs are the unfortunate situation where that last dollar you earned may cost you much more than that dollar in taxes. You may find that a tax credit goes away because you earned too much money. Putting that money in an traditional IRA may give you back that tax credit. Of course, you can't put that money in an IRA until you know how much to optimally deduct.

I own my own home, so I'm not paying rent - just rates, insurance and maintenance.


I don't have any subscriptions, don't have cable, I already borrow books etc.


We don't have any food warehouses where I live. It's a small town.


I don't have a mobile phone plan and I don't pay for the wifi I use.


Already do that. I don't really need to buy clothes. I have heaps.


Already do that.


Here it's the other way around. Meat is relatively cheap but vegetables are expensive. I grow a lot of my own veges.


I don't really buy furniture. I already have loads of furniture.


I don't think anyone would want to buy my skills. My capacity to work is limited.


I'm not quite sure what those things are.

I should have mentioned that I'm already quite a frugal person.
I just don't see how I can tighten things up any further.
But thanks for replying.