<p>purplexed:</p>
<p>The household number affects the income protection allowance, not the asset protection allowance (which is affected by your age).</p>
<p>In order to include Mom as a household member (for FAFSA purposes) you have to provide over 50% of her support at time of application and going forward for the next year. That will increase your income protection allowance by about $3,500-- so if it’s just you and your daughter, adding Mom as a household member will increase the income allowance from $15K to $18.7K. Not a huge deal-- but it would shelter some income.</p>
<p>However, if you’re living on limited income, your income may already be so low as to not be assessed at all. Suggest you crunch the numbers using the calculator at FinAid and it will tell you whether you’re contributing to the EFC from income, or not-- and you can also see if it changes by changing the household number.</p>
<p>You don’t need to declare her as a dependent on taxes to include her in Household for FAFSA. </p>
<p>Your asset protection allowance will depend on your age. 40 - 44 = $16.4K, 45 - 49 = 18.3K. Again, the FinAid calculator is very helpful on these things, since it tells you where each component of the EFC came from, and what each of your allowances are.</p>
<p>Not sure about Profile—</p>