>> The power of tracking expenses. 
>> So as many of you have guessed, it's very important for everyone to know what their money is going. Tracking expenses are going to help customers reconcile the differences between planned and actual expenses. It's also going to help customers prioritize their spending. And seeing the numbers in a tangible format can lead to customers having that ah-ha moment or a wakeup call. So, it's important that as a service provider we maintain a judgment-free zone so that customers feel comfortable creating a spending plan that works best for them. Tracking expense is the first great step towards creating a spending plan, which then helps customers create action plans towards financial empowerment and a financially secure future. With a spending plan, customers can create plans to fund financial goals or make purchases. Examples of a goal can include getting an apartment, an emergency savings fund, saving for educational or assistive technology and saving for medical expenses, or saving for vacations and gifts. With a spending plan, customers can also create a plan to pay down debts. The spending plan would really help identify spending leaks and ways to maximize income for customers. Of course, spending leaks can include a wide variety of things. It can include subscriptions that are hardly used, high-cost plans that can be lowered and, also, high-spending trends. Tracking expenses is also necessary for customers to secure or maintain benefits. If customers are proactive in tracking expenses it makes navigating the complex benefits system with the different asset and income limits a bit easier. It would also ensure that they are receiving the accurate amount of benefits that they are entitled to. For example, by keeping track of medical expenses an otherwise ineligible household may suddenly become eligible for SNAP benefits. Or if they're already on SNAP benefits, they may be able to increase that amount. By keeping track of and by reporting their expenses such as IRWE's or impairment-related work expenses, which we're going to learn more about later on in the presentation, customers can lower their countable earnings and income. And of course, you know, tracking expenses is a standard format that can help with audits and other times when customers have to provide proof of expenses and income.
Some spending plan resources that we mention and that other mentioned, there's Mint. That's the link there. It's free. There's also a "Nerd Wallet" article with budgets and templates and they're all downloadable, but I do want to note that proceed with caution whenever you're downloading a document from an online website. Just make sure that you trust the source. And there's also the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Your Money, Your Goals toolkit. That includes companion guides will fillable PDFs. And also, NDI has a really great financial education toolkit with spending plan and also a spending tracker, so a weekly spending tracker where everyone can track their daily expenses. And customers should also contact their personal bank to see if they have any online banking or mobile app that tracks expenses.
>> So, there are a lot of incredible work incentives that exist and I encourage you to connect with the work incentives planning and assistance program near you for more individual support, especially because these counselors, kind of, live and breathe this information every day, and they typically have relationships with the local Social Security offices that can, you know, be a really critical bridge to you all as providers and customers and consumers. And today we're going to look at IRWE's. An IRWE or an impairment work related expense enables SSI beneficiaries to reduce the countable earnings due to out of pocket expenses that support their disability-related employment needs and their disability related employment support needs. So, for an IRWE expense to be allowable it must be directly related to supporting the disability. The cost must be paid out of a person's pocket and not covered by other funding sources, such as medical insurance or Medicaid. Expense must be paid in a month the wages are earned or has been earned, and the expense must be reasonable. So, there are cases where a person might have to make that case for an IRWE. So, there's, kind of, three major things to remember here. It's an item that I've paid for myself that's related to my disability, that ultimately allows me to go to work. And if the item appears to, kind of, meet those three criteria they should definitely be submitted as an IRWE and the person should request -- the beneficiary should request that they be considered for deduction.