In the Planning Paths area of your My Vault account, you'll find a Benefits Planning path called "What happens to my benefits when I work?" Here you can do short activities to help you understand what happens to your benefits when you work.
Save, edit and share
As you work through the Benefits Planning activities, your answers and the results are both saved automatically. You can come back to view, finish or edit an activity at any time. The results of each completed activity are saved in My Vault and you can also share the results with people who support you. Learn about My Vault's privacy.
Learn about each of My Vault's Benefit Planning activities:
This activity has three quick questions to help you see where you are in the benefits planning process and recommends relevant articles, videos and activities for you to try. After you finish each activity, you can view your results as a PDF, or share your results with people you trust.
Do this activity if you want help figuring out what information you need and which activities to do in the Benefits Planning Path.
This activity lets you fill in a simple request form to verify your benefits, so you know which benefits you get and the amounts of those benefits.
This activity sends a request to the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). When DHS gets your request, they fill in the information about your benefits and send it back to your My Vault account within two business days.
Do this activity if you aren’t sure what benefits you get, have concerns about your benefits, when you’re thinking about going to work, or need to understand what would happen to your benefits if you take a specific job. Information from the Benefit Lookup will automatically be filled in the “See How Work and Benefits Work Together” activity (DB101 estimator session).
Share your results
Share the results from this activity with people who support you so they can help make sure you are getting the right benefits.
Edit and update
When your situation or benefits change, get a new Benefit Lookup.
You can use this activity to get a picture of your income and expenses. You can also get a quick glimpse of how your money might change when you work or change your expenses.
Do this activity to see a quick picture of your current bottom-line income and expenses and set a goal for how much you need to work and earn. Once you've done this, use the “See How Work and Benefits Work Together” activity (DB101 estimator session) to see the effects of work on all your benefits.
Share your results
Share the results from this activity with people who support you so they can help you plan and reach your goals.
Edit and update
When your income and expenses change, update the Do a Quick Budget activity with your new information.
This is a quick tool to help you set a goal for how much you want or need to work and earn. Just answer some simple questions, and start a plan.
Do this activity to get started if you are not sure about work, or if you know you want to work but you're not sure how much you will earn. This activity will help you set an earnings goal, which will carry over to the "Work Plan" area of the “See How Work and Benefits Work Together” activity (DB101 estimator session).
Share your results
Share the results from this activity with others on your team, like Vocational Rehabilitation (VR), case managers, guardians or parents, school transition staff, and employment service providers so that they’re all on the same page about your work goals.
Edit and update
When your ideas about work change or you want to start a new plan, come back and update this activity.
This activity starts a DB101 Benefits and Work Estimator session right from My Vault and pre-fills any information from the “Get a Benefits Lookup” and “Make a Work Plan” activities.
Do this activity to see what would happen to your benefits when you work. To do an Estimator session, you need an idea of how much you want to earn (an earnings goal). Doing the “Make a Work Plan” activity first can help you figure out your earnings goal and the Estimator session will show you what happens to your benefits when you earn that amount.
Share your results
Share the results from this activity with others on your team, like Vocational Rehabilitation (VR), case managers, guardians or parents, school transition staff, and employment service providers so they know how work will impact your benefits.
Edit and update
You can add another work idea and earnings goal in the Estimator to compare jobs and see what would happen to your benefits with each. When your situation or benefits change, you can start a new estimator session.
With this activity you can create a checklist of what you need to do each month to manage your benefits. You should first complete the Benefits Lookup so you’re sure what benefits you have, and then this activity will pull in information for the right benefits.
Do this activity to help keep track of your benefits and know what to do to prevent problems with your benefits when you work.
Share your results
Share the results from this activity with others on your team so they know how they can support you in keeping track of your benefits and preventing any problems.
Edit and update
When your situation or benefits change, get a new Benefit Lookup and come back and update this checklist.
This activity helps you organize your contacts and know who can help you with understanding your benefits when you work. You can look through the list and add people in your contacts like your counselor, claims representative, case manager, financial worker and more.
Share your results
Share the results of this activity with all the members of your benefits planning team so that they know everyone who is helping you and so they can work together to support you.
Edit and update
If your team changes, come back to this activity and update their contact information.
Once you’ve finished the Benefits Planning activities that make sense for you, you’ll have a full Benefits Planning report that includes the PDFs from each activity you’ve completed. You can look at your report to see all of your activities in one place, and review your results as you plan for work. You can also share your report with others so they can see your goals and help you plan.
