Did you know that your Core Supports budget might be able to fund a range of supports to help you in your day-to-day life?

Your Core Supports budget is the most flexible budget in your NDIS plan and you can move money from one category to another to best meet your needs (there are some exceptions that you can find here).

The four categories of support in your Core budget are:

1. Consumables (e.g., purchasing everyday use items such as continence aids)
2. Daily Activities (e.g., assistance with self-care activities during the day or evening)
3. Assistance with Social and Community Participation (e.g., supports to enable you to engage in social or recreational activities)
4. Transport (e.g., if you are unable to use public transport because of your disability) and you have a transport allocation listed in your plan
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These funding categories are designed to help you with daily activities. It is common for participants to use their Core budget to pay for a Support Worker to help with everyday tasks. But you can get really creative with your Core budget because it’s flexible!

Here are 7 ways you may be able to use your Core Supports budget:

1. House cleaner – if your disability makes it challenging for you to keep your house clean and tidy, then you may be able to claim for a house cleaner to come into your home regularly and help out. This might include tasks like doing the laundry, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, mopping and more.

2. Home maintenance – Beyond the everyday tasks involved in keeping your home clean and tidy, that a cleaner can take care of, there are home maintenance tasks that crop up too. This might be anything that breaks or needs repairing around your home that you would be able to fix if you did not have a disability. If your disability makes it challenging to fix these things when they happen, you may be able to use your Core budget for a professional handyperson to help out.

3. Garden maintenance – Just like with your home there’s always plenty of maintenance to do around the yard or garden and it can get messy if you’re not able to keep on top of these tasks. You can use your Core budget to get help with mowing the lawn, general gardening, weeding and more.

4. Short Term Accommodation (STA), including respite – STA is a place that you can stay, away from your usual home. You may choose to stay in STA, as long as it aligns with your goals, to experience some independence away from your home, to spend time and socialise with others your own age or to develop new skills. You can use your Core funding for up to 14 days of STA at a time, for a total of 28 days per year. Find out more about STA.

5. Sensory Equipment – if you have sensory challenges there are lots of different types of sensory equipment available that can help you such as noise cancelling headphones, fabric tunnels and balancing stools. You will need to provide evidence from your therapist that the equipment will help you and provide better support than more commonly available everyday alternatives. You can talk to your therapist about this for guidance.

6. Low-cost Assistive Technology (AT) – Assistive technology (or AT) is equipment or devices that helps you to do things that you can’t do or find challenging because of your disability. You can claim low-cost AT – which is AT that costs less than $1500 – from your Core budget. There are so many products available, depending on your needs. Some examples are adaptive cutlery, long-handled equipment, a shower stool, orthopaedic footwear and lots more!

7. Apps – apps for your smartphone are considered to be low cost AT. Depending on your needs, there are lots of great apps that can help you in your day-to-day life. Some examples are text-to-speech apps if you have vision impairment, communication apps and therapy apps.

We’re here to help

Our team of Brisbane based Support Coordinators are here to help. If you have any questions about how you can use your Core Supports budget to pay for items to help with your everyday life, we can help.

You can get in touch via our contact form, email us at enquiries@infocusdisability.org.au or call us on 1800 928 437.