The Household Savings Workbook

Why a workbook and not a list

A list of programs is easy to publish and hard to use. The Savings Market workbook is built around your actual bills. You write down what you pay now, work through the pages in order, and finish with a short list of specific actions with a dollar figure next to each one.

What you work through

• The fixed-cost audit. One page per recurring bill, with the questions that reliably lower it: insurance, phone, internet, streaming, banking fees, and subscriptions.
• The eligibility screen. A single page of household questions that tells you which assistance programs are worth applying to, so you do not fill out six forms to be denied five times.
• Energy and utilities. LIHEAP, weatherization, budget billing, and the shutoff protections that differ by state.
• Food and household. SNAP, WIC, school and summer meals, and the grocery savings that survive the end of a promotion.
• Health costs. Medicare Savings Programs, Extra Help for prescriptions, community health center sliding scales, and how to ask for an itemized bill.
• Tax credits. The refundable credits most commonly missed, and the free filing services that will claim them for you.
• The follow-up calendar. When each program reopens, and what to renew.

Two rules we stick to

Applying for a government benefit is always free. If anyone asks you for a fee to apply, that is the end of the conversation. And we are not a government agency: we point you at the official application and tell you what it will ask for.

Get the workbook

Enter your details and we will email it to you. You can also ask us to text you when a program opens enrollment in your state.