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99% of articles just say if you make over XXX this much of your Soc Sec MAY be taxed, I wanted to find the formula to determine exactly how much it would if based on certain incomes. I finally found an article somewhere that if my income plus half your benefits is more than $32,000 but less than $44,000, I'll only be taxed on one half of the excess over $32,000 OR one half of the benefits(Whichever is lower.) I did some basic math on my own numbers and was OK with the result.
To be honest I thought "oh, that's not that bad. I thought the hit would be worse than that the way people talk about Soc. Sec. benefits being taxed." But that doesn't mean I didn't start investigating ways to keep RMDs low. I sure did.
Believe me, I get being frustrated by not finding the info you're looking for.
I use Turbotax to model this. The only thing I don't have is future tax bracket and future social security. So I make a wild guess. Like if I max out at SS today at 70 is $3500 a month, what would it be when I'm 70, my wild guess is that it would be $65k per year vs $42k per year in 13 years.
But I have no need to be exact, I just need to know roughly so I can plan.
there are quite a few websites today that for a fee can do all the scenario's for you depending how much you want to pay for a report .
they can combine it with your assets and look at delaying ss , rmd effects , annuity effects as well as if a couple getting the biggest bang for the buck .
while 80% of married men die married , 80% of married women die alone .
in the end most women may be single
I hear this all the time women get along so much better than men being alone after long marriage or marriage in general. Women have friends and hobbies and groups they join and overall do better alone. It took some doing and years but the longer alone, the better alone. I play bridge and that is a GREAT out let mind and social card game, and we have a few men but rooms are filled with women.
Not much advice received, but I do keep reading how being a single elderly person shortens my expected lifespan.....not sure how picking up a nagging wife would make me want to live longer......
Not much advice received, but I do keep reading how being a single elderly person shortens my expected lifespan.....not sure how picking up a nagging wife would make me want to live longer......
When a retiree (or anyone, I guess) goes through the loss of a spouse and then into empty-nester status followed by downsizing and then possibly moving to another state...the tax changes can take a few years to stabilize. I went through several years of tax-related life changes that finally stabilized about three years ago.
I'm comfortable living alone (OK, full disclosure: I have a cat) and after ten years it would be hard to do otherwise. I guess I'm fully retired at this point and relish the independence. My social circle is smaller than I wish it was...my wife was my social secretary and I had to learn how to make friends when she died. I also moved 1,000 miles so I have long-distance friends. I am also in a writers' group so I have friends from India and Philippines to Israel, Belgium, UK and across the US but I don't "see" them except on very rare occasions. I play bocce with a group of friends and have a local circle of pub friends. My daughter lives about 15 miles away. She came for a visit and decided she likes the area so we see each other each week.
It might be a little morbid but I post something on Facebook every day and tell people to come bang on the door if I'm quiet for more than a couple days. A friend has a brother who was on the floor for three days with a stroke before they got him to a hospital. He is OK now but the brother couldn't get the landlord to go into the apartment and the police were unwilling to go in until the brother convinced them that something was wrong. Single retirees need a rescue plan with a friend or relative because lawyers have made police and landlords reluctant to intervene.
The financial side of the equation is pretty simple. I have a retirement nest egg I don't touch except for special expenses like home improvement or maintenance or maybe a special trip. Everything else is based on what comes in each month and I tuck some of that away in a separate savings account. As a couple we had more monthly income but more expenses. I'm drawing my wife's survivor social security but will switch over to mine in a couple years -- which will be a boost. My financial guy recently convinced me that I was taking too much risk for my age so I eased off the gas on some nest egg investments and I'm still doing OK.
My father-in-law lived for 15 years in a single room of a retirement hotel in the center of a large city and was as happy as he could be. He didn't mix much with "those old people" but had a circle of resident friends. He was a very "urban" person where I'm more "semi-rural". He would be lost where I live and I'd be unhappy where he lived. Everybody has their own preferences.
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