Prices of things

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, it can be really helpful when you know when you're getting ripped of and I want to prevent you from being ripped off.

So I thought I'd start listing off services/items and prices that I've encountered (and I'll put in parentheses the location of those prices, since they can change dramatically from city to city).

Services:
Car

• Smog Check: $40 (including certificate). After searching around for the cheapest possible smog check I found this place in San Rafael in the Canal Area. A lot of places will advertise a price and then say +certificate, which is always about $10 extra. So for Marin I think $40 is the cheapest you'll find. Other counties are probably cheaper.
• Diagnostic (of an old car): $99. I didn't do as much research as I should have for this diagnostic, but $99 seemed to be the going rate.  They would have given me a free diagnostic if I had a new/fancy car that the computer/machine could read easily, but alas the machine could not read my car's check engine light. =(
• Oil Change: $30. Not many places in Marin County will offer an oil change for $30, but I found one. Though I wouldn't recommend it, my car fell apart shortly after, and I'm just not sure about them anymore. Plus they tried to tell me I needed to get all these things fixed and it was going to cost tons of money. I hate when mechanics do that!

Ok that's it for now. Please, please, please let me know if you have found different rates/prices for things or know something I don't about these services! 

Budget blues update #3

So when I first started writing this post, I was going to talk about how happy I was that my budget plan worked!! I actually saved A LOT of money on groceries. Almost half in August...and how is that possible you may ask. I'm not exactly sure, but somehow knowing what I wanted to buy before I went to the store prevented me from buying extra or miscellaneous things that I really didn't need.

Anyways, now I have a new problem. So even though I did "oh so great" for the month of August, I'm back to square one, because my boyfriend moved in. All my single meals are now turning into double meals >/.
I'm a little disappointed in my-self, because I pretty much just dropped the ball for these last two weeks, being too lazy to figure things out all over again.

I will be updating on, hopefully, some progress soon.

Asset limits prevent people on SSI/SSDI from obtaining financial stability

Most of us have experienced the harsh effects of the financial crisis, but what if you had no savings or 401K to cash in to give you a little buffer? What if you were not allowed to save for an emergency like this? Individuals on SSI or SSDI are in this situation.

At the SparkPoint Marin Center we say that everyone should have three months of expenses in their savings. So when things go wrong, which they eventually do (trust me on this), you have a cushion to fall back on.

When you are on SSI/SSDI fixed income, not only is it close to impossible to put money aside for savings, but the government actually discourages it. Currently, you are not allowed to have more than $2,000 in assets in order to receive disability benefits. $2,000 is not a lot for when, for example, you break a leg or another financial crisis occurs. People’s savings need to be higher.

After talking to several people living on SSI/SSDI, I have learned about the utter lack of resources our elderly and disabled people have. However, even with their limited income and barriers to extra revenue or savings, they were making ends meet…until the financial crisis hit!

So why can’t they save? Asset limits are designed to restrict who applies for benefits and who deserves benefits, but it doesn’t always work. Since assets are technically defined as any personal resource, such as cash, savings accounts, a car, a retirement fund, or a valuable heirloom, benefits programs can strip away someone’s livelihood before beginning to help them.

Not only are these asset limits really inhibiting to individuals receiving benefits, but enforcing them is expensive. In fact, the percentage of people who “trick” the system and get benefits unlawfully is so low it does not equal the amount of money spent on enforcing asset tests. Many states have actually done away with their asset limits. For example, 5 states have gotten rid of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) asset tests, and all but 2 states do not do asset tests for Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) (CFED: Eliminating the Incentive to Save). While many state benefit programs are tending to move away from asset tests, the federal social security act has not been updated since 1970 and continues to enforce outdated asset limits.

(I wrote this for the Marin Grassroots Network)