Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
For single people in high tax-brackets who also save aggressively, the ratio of annual spending to theoretical gross salary, can be very small. By "small" I mean something like 20%. For such a person, with lengthy and steady earnings history, Social Security alone can be enough to cover the lifestyle to which one has become used. Savings therefore become a vanity-project, rather than a necessity.
I wouldn't promote the idea in blue to younger people who may be reading this in Retirement forum - it may deeply mislead and harm them, even with qualifiers.
And also, the average Social Security monthly payment now is about $1500 per month. And that is the amount most people receive. When I retired 12 years ago, it was $1100 or $1200 per month
Often the mortgage is paid off around the time retirement begins. Subtract that amount and no more contributions to retirement funds and suddenly there’s a lot more cash. Now add SS and start taking a 4% withdrawal from savings. Have a pension? We will be close to what we are making right now in our mid fifties. The X factor is health and costs related to health.
I don't understand. The current max SS benefit is $37K. That is not likely to cover but a small portion of the expenses for a "high" earner.
Agreed. I don't see SS being a stand-alone retirement income for "high earners". I don't consider myself a high earner, but I will have a decent pension. That, with SS, will provide me with probably a greater net that I have now while working.
We will have a bit more take home pay when I retire in a few months than what I take home every two weeks now.
A lot of that is due to working for the same entity for the last 36 years and over that time slowly increasing my contribution into my 401K and a few side investments. We also did a 22 year mortgage when we purchased the house where we are now when I was 40.
My take home pay is dramatically reduced thanks to my contribution to my 401K so I will only take my SS and my small company pension and let the 401K soak and we can continue our current lifestyle.
While I am perfectly content in our preparation over the years for this time of my life I look where we are now and I am amazed how my 401K and other investments have grown over all those years and think about how an extra $50-$100 a month really adds up and wish I had invested a bit more but again we are fine.
There is a tremendous amount of great advice on this forum and if I can give one piece of advice to those here, is share your knowledge with those family members and friends just entering the workforce.
Every year I get about 30 new apprentices assigned to my group and I don't preach but I do tell them about the benefits of our agency's 5% match to their 401k and a few other bits of advice. Some get it and right out of the gate they start with 10-15% contributions, others have been here 20 years and are only putting 5% away and a few don't even make the match.
Everyone has their own priority's and I was lucky to have an older gentleman mentor me on investments when I first entered the workforce. My 401K and DRIPS and increasing my investing slowly over the years with my raises and COLA's really paid off. I owe a lot to both he and my mom who was a depression era baby who taught me wisely about life's priority's
A spouse gets one half of that, so the total monthly benefit becomes $4669
In many areas, with a paid off house and no debt, that's enough to live on.
a spouse only gets half , if they dont file before their own fra and if their own fra amount isnt more than half the higher spouses so not everyone gets half.
max benefit from ss is age 70 and is 3895 a month. but spousal does not use delayed credits after fra
would i want to live on that Here ? nope
like i said , our combined ss is only 28% of our yearly spending
Last edited by mathjak107; 11-20-2021 at 07:39 AM..
"... A spouse gets one half of that, so the total monthly benefit becomes $4669
In many areas, with a paid off house and no debt, that's enough to live on..."
We're near that on SS, and have small dividends on top of that. Due to lack of debt, cost of living for us is $18K per year. This allows far more discretionary income for us than we ever had when I was making 6 figures in salary.
Last edited by MichiganGreg; 11-20-2021 at 07:47 AM..
We're retired for just about 11 years now. We currently have "take home pay" of slightly more than our working take home pay. We retired several years before we were eligible for SS, so we bridged those years with income from my hubby's investments, and a temporary annuity from my pension plan. We moved to a lower COL area shortly after retirement. That makes our actual buying power quite a bit higher than when we were working in CA, and our lifestyle is definitely improved. Our current income is a combination of our two pensions, our 2 SS payments, and rental income. My investments are primarily untapped, so I don't include the unrealized capital gains as income, unless I sell some of my mutual funds, and that has rarely occurred since retirement. If I included the unrealized gains, then our income would be significantly higher than our working income.
We're retired for just about 11 years now. We currently have "take home pay" of slightly more than our working take home pay. We retired several years before we were eligible for SS, so we bridged those years with income from my hubby's investments, and a temporary annuity from my pension plan. We moved to a lower COL area shortly after retirement. That makes our actual buying power quite a bit higher than when we were working in CA, and our lifestyle is definitely improved. Our current income is a combination of our two pensions, our 2 SS payments, and rental income. My investments are primarily untapped, so I don't include the unrealized capital gains as income, unless I sell some of my mutual funds, and that has rarely occurred since retirement. If I included the unrealized gains, then our income would be significantly higher than our working income.
I just "un-retired" a few months ago, because making money is more fun than spending it.
I netted $3500 in October in addition to SS ($2k). This month I'm projecting $7500 plus SS. The first three weeks of December should be about $20,000 plus SS. Thus is the life of an Internet entrepreneur.
Historically this is a very poor 4Q showing for a business I've run since 2012, but pandemic and supply chain snafus have caused many competitors to close up shop.
Aside from his SS I have no idea how much DH is bringing in. His mother is still sending him money from beyond the grave. Not that there actually is a grave. That would have cost money, which is abhorrent to that clan when there are BMWs and airplanes to buy instead. I think she's probably on someone's mantel. I hope she likes the view.
Apart from the tax-deferred accounts we don't touch our investments.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
