What If Social Security Is Your Only Retirement Income?
For as long as you have been old enough to read the news, there have been news reports about how Social Security will be gone by the time you retire. If you read enough of these, you can make yourself feel relieved that there are any Social Security payments at all. You are fooling yourself if you think your Social Security income will make you rich, though. If you think that people with full-time jobs are stressed out about how much everything costs these days, imagine how Social Security beneficiaries on a fixed income must feel. Unfortunately, the retirees whose only income is Social Security checks currently number in the millions, and that number is only going to increase in the coming years, as people who worked in times where employer-provided retirement accounts are scarce get closer to retirement age. If you are a middle-aged person who has never had a retirement account, then the question of what life is like when your Social Security check is your only income is not just an economic thought experiment. For help strategizing until you come up with practical solutions about making the most of retirement with no income except Social Security, contact a Dade City estate planning lawyer.
Social Security Can Cover Your Expenses If You Have a Paid Off House, a Multigenerational Household, or a Close Group of Friends
Even if you wait until you are 70 to start drawing Social Security, the amount is not sufficient to cover all your expenses if you are solely responsible for your household bills. Consider that many households with an income of $100,000 live paycheck to paycheck, and about a third of their income goes to rent or mortgage payments. The key to making ends meet if Social Security retirement benefits are your only income is not to be solely responsible for a housing payment.
The easiest way to do this is to own your house outright, paying off the mortgage before you retire. This is only possible if, even though you weren’t lucky enough to get a job with an employer-provided retirement savings plan, you were lucky enough to buy a house when houses and home mortgage loans were affordable.
A more attainable solution is for your Social Security income to be just one of several income streams that contributes to the household. You can achieve this by living in a multigenerational household with your child and your child’s spouse, so that the income of three adults, including your Social Security check, can sustain the household. Another option is to form a Millennial Golden Girls or Golden Guys household with several of your retired friends; you can rent a house together or live in a house that one of you owns.
Contact a Florida Estate Planning Attorney About Making the Most of Your Social Security Income
An estate planning attorney can help you make a realistic plan for retirement if you do not have retirement savings. Contact The Law Office of Laurie R. Chane in Dade City, Florida to discuss your case.
Source:
moneywise.com/retirement/retirement/65-no-retirement-savings-hybrid
