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People who want to try living on SS alone can move to Kentucky. In a lot of places in Kentucky, the cost of living is very low. Especially if you have $50,000 or more in savings. That's the down payment on a house in a lot of places, but in Kentucky it's the full price of a house, if you aren't too picky about what house you want.
$50,000 in savings might be construed as a key test of whether you can live well on SS alone. Because, if you haven't managed to save up that much, your money management skills might not be good enough to live on SS alone.
It might be important not to have a mortgage payment if you're trying to live on SS alone. And if you have any credit card debt you can't pay off immediately, you've already sunk your own boat. But with no debts, you can live reasonably well in Kentucky on SS alone, unless your SS amount is unusually small.
Get your groceries at Aldi and Sams Club. Don't take expensive vacation trips. Don't drive your car a lot, but just stay home most days. If you like gardening, Kentucky is a nice place for gardens. If you want a back yard swimming pool, get a cheap above-ground one from Sams Club for $200. Anyone who spends thousands of dollars on anything for entertainment, while trying to live on SS alone, is asking to fail. There is plenty of entertainment available very cheap. And of course internet access gives you the world. And millions of very argumentative people to argue with all day.
What a practical if pithy guide to living on SS alone. I enjoyed reading it. In an age of political correctness, it is nice to read something that doesn't beat around the bush.
I met a man in a senior community when I was looking around for a place who told me his wife had just died and he wasn't going to be able to afford to live there anymore with the loss of her social security income. Kind of sad really.
It's not true that two can live as cheaply as one. Two argue about how to spend the money. Each spends some of it their own way. Each spends in conflict with the other, instead of managing all their spending coherently. One of them says not to go into credit card debt to buy something, and the other says not to be a scrooge. One of them secretly buys something the other doesn't want them to buy. Etc. But one person living alone has full responsibility for all the money, and nobody to blame anything on. So that one person living alone is more likely to be frugal than the two of them.
with housing costs the biggest expense that usually means that 2 do live cheaper than one . yeah , partners can have different spending patterns but they would do that anyway if single so when the two separate expenses are added together the average is lower and that is the point.
in your example you can also say it is likely that the frugal wife may rein in the spendy husband and he can't spend the way he did.
there are endless scenario's we can dream up on both dides but overall you will find by combining incomes and sharing expenses folks do live cheaper than 1 most of the time .
Didn't vote because I am not there yet. I should have what I consider pretty substantial savings, mostly tax deferred. I plan to retire without a mortgage possibly just using equity selling current home, but may require some savings also. I might get a mortgage if rates are still crazy low and the tax implications make that cheaper. I am not going to decide about when to start drawing until I am very close to retiring, also largely because of tax implications. 66&8 is FRA for me and I will almost certainly take by then. Almost certainly, but not absolutely sure. Anyway, I do plan to try to keep expenses below what SS pays, which will be somewhere in the 30s per year range depending on when I start drawing. I may do a little free lance work also and semi retire, but not sure.
A percentage of income is not very defined. If you defined it as "assuming a 4% withdrawal rate from savings" then it would be more apples to apples. If one has a million bucks saved, and everything is paid for, but lives entirely off of SS and a small pension, his numbers look to be more dependent on SS income than someone with a lot of debt and a mortgage and withdraws much more from savings to make their "income" number. So did you mean "as a percentage of guaranteed income" or your "current income needed to cover what you spend"? Wildy different answers.
I met a man in a senior community when I was looking around for a place who told me his wife had just died and he wasn't going to be able to afford to live there anymore with the loss of her social security income. Kind of sad really.
Happens more often than you think.
People go on about spousal survivor benefits however it comes at a price. If the household was getting two SS checks the surviving spouse will now only have one; theirs or if they qualify the spousal benefit. Either way one check goes away and the household goes from two income to one.
People who want to try living on SS alone can move to Kentucky. In a lot of places in Kentucky, the cost of living is very low. Especially if you have $50,000 or more in savings. That's the down payment on a house in a lot of places, but in Kentucky it's the full price of a house, if you aren't too picky about what house you want.
$50,000 in savings might be construed as a key test of whether you can live well on SS alone. Because, if you haven't managed to save up that much, your money management skills might not be good enough to live on SS alone.
It might be important not to have a mortgage payment if you're trying to live on SS alone. And if you have any credit card debt you can't pay off immediately, you've already sunk your own boat. But with no debts, you can live reasonably well in Kentucky on SS alone, unless your SS amount is unusually small.
Get your groceries at Aldi and Sams Club. Don't take expensive vacation trips. Don't drive your car a lot, but just stay home most days. If you like gardening, Kentucky is a nice place for gardens. If you want a back yard swimming pool, get a cheap above-ground one from Sams Club for $200. Anyone who spends thousands of dollars on anything for entertainment, while trying to live on SS alone, is asking to fail. There is plenty of entertainment available very cheap. And of course internet access gives you the world. And millions of very argumentative people to argue with all day.
Your post makes a few assumptions with one being these persons are getting near or the max monthly SS benefit.
For this year the top SS benefit is 31,956 a year, with the average $15,444 per year. I know parts of Kentucky and the South in general are inexpensive but is living on $16k per year possible?
Happens more often than you think. People go on about spousal survivor benefits however it comes at a price. If the household was getting two SS checks the surviving spouse will now only have one; theirs or if they qualify the spousal benefit. Either way one check goes away and the household goes from two income to one.
Well, one person has gone away as well. You'd expect costs to decline some. And typically, the survivor would continue to receive the higher of the two prior benefits. Still goes to show that SS alone is not something to try to live on.
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