Is SS more than you expected?

wmc1000 said:
As I understand it Family Maximum applies only in the case of survivors or disabled beneficiaries.
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If's that's the case, I guess I am dead and do not know it? On the bright side, you will be happy to hear, Death is just like ER!
 
NYEXPAT said:
The "Family Maximum" ranges from 150%-180% of your FRA benefit. It is for beneficiaries who have a young family. Children under age 18 each receive a benefit as does a spouse until the youngest is age 16.

In my case when I started at age 62, My spouse was 34 and my sons were 10 and 7 mos old. Each of my sons gets a check equal to a little more than 1/2 my check. My spouse would also get a check, but has never lived in the USA and does not have a SS# (required). We will move to the USA this year and when my oldest son ages out, my spouse will qualify and receive benefits until my youngest turns 16 or if we have more children in the future, until the last born turns 16.
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Ah. So what you meant was that you started collecting at 62 and your family receives something like 180% of your FRA. That makes more sense.
 
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Having retired 10 years ago at age 45, I have been living off only my taxable investments. SS, my frozen company pension, and unfettered access to my rollover IRA are what I call my "reinforcements" which begin arriving at various times starting at age ~60. That doesn't include access to Medicare which will reduce my health insurance costs compared to the expensive ACA.


Even without SS and the frozen pension, my WR is around 2%, so I am not in any way dependent on SS to provide me its full benefit. If SS takes a haircut at some point, it won't be a big deal because of the other reinforcements (and Medicare).
 
jasg said:
At age 25 I had just started my first real job at a leading research institute. I remember a very vocal group of older co-workers agitating to leave SS for fear it would disappear or be cut back when they retired. I thought it was crazy then and still do.
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Taxation of SS Benefits = Cutting back SS benefits.

I always had a rough idea of what I'd collect since I made over the max most of my career, so I can't say it was a surprise when I started collecting. I was part of the group that could File and Suspend but DH died 2 years ago, before I reached FRA. I ended up getting a higher check than he'd gotten because no Medicare B premiums were taken out; I had ACA coverage. I'll file for a benefit on my own record when I'm 70.

SS would pretty easily cover the essentials but my life is far better with income from investments and a couple of small pensions from my previous employers. Those extra sources of income mean I can travel, donate to charity and add money to my granddaughters' 529 accounts. If the time comes that I need LTC I should have many options.
 
We were pretty happy when we added up our pension and SS benefits. In hindsight one of the benefits of living in a high cost of living area during our working years was higher income => higher end SS benefits. And our SS benefits stay the same now even if we moved to a lower cost of living area in retirement.
 
Not being sure how much of my income I would need in retirement, as I made a lot more than I spent and banked it in various retirement vehicles, I figured I better plan for any one of the three sources of my retirement income to cover all my basic expenses; my pension, my investments and SS. I retired at 56 with the understanding I had enough in pension or investments to cover expenses with the rest for enjoyment of life. At 62 I started taking my ss and I started receiving checks for $2,100 a month from them, which covers almost half a month's expenses, but still is all gravy with my budget. I now bring in my pension at around $5K and my SS at a little more than $2K and don't touch my investments which are 100% equities in index funds for Dow and S&P. I won't need to touch that until forced to a RMD age 70 1/2 years old. It will fund a retirement/nursing home if I or DW ever needs that service.

I'm so happy with the extra dough from SS coming in at this age, affording me to hang on to my inheritable investments. I'm banking most of that SS as it is; around $15K a year. Next year I'll use it to build a barn / shop building as working in the shed these days is getting less fun without heat and air. Not much else in life I want out of money than I already have and use.
 
was doing pretty good with SS until they decided to charge me $507/mo for medicare... the rest of it goes to other health care premiums and the monthly car/insurance payments for the Mercedes... Oh... and don't forget that you get to pay income tax on SS too... so its never how much they tell you that you will get... :mad:
 
My Social Security

If we claim at 70 the SS site site shows will get $71,000 per year. That is $60k in today's dollars, or about 60% of our expenses. That's much more than I ever expected.
 
Current plan is for me to collect at 65 and DW at 70. Most calculators say I should collect at 62, but I plan on several more years of Roth conversions before taking SS.

The combined SS should be somewhere around 50% of our annual spend. There's enough "fluff" in our spending that we could probably get by on only SS, but I didn't save for years to just "get by".
 
SS at 66 (FRA) and DW at 62 would cover all expenses. It does not make too much sense to delay claim to age 70 in an attempt to receive maximum benefits since we will be at a higher tax bracket resulting from RMD in addition to the max SS benefits. It seems better to claim now and start some Roth conversion to take advantage of the lower tax bracket and to avoid higher medicare premium payments.
 
There seems to be a lot of people who are skeptical about social security. Should they also be skeptical about pensions? They seems to think that pensions are much more secured than SS and the possibility of running out of funding is small.
 
Spanky said:
SS at 66 (FRA) and DW at 62 would cover all expenses. It does not make too much sense to delay claim to age 70 in an attempt to receive maximum benefits since we will be at a higher tax bracket resulting from RMD in addition to the max SS benefits. It seems better to claim now and start some Roth conversion to take advantage of the lower tax bracket and to avoid higher medicare premium payments.
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Couldn't you do more Roth conversions now if you deferred claiming? Might be a wash for you, but I'm hoping to get my tIRA converted before I start SS, to try to limit/avoid the SS tax torpedo.
 
RunningBum said:
Couldn't you do more Roth conversions now if you deferred claiming? Might be a wash for you, but I'm hoping to get my tIRA converted before I start SS, to try to limit/avoid the SS tax torpedo.
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Sure, we should start the conversion soon regardless. Thanks.
 
I will start SS at the end of this year (age 62). It will cover about 80% of my essentials and about 40% of the total cost for my standard of living.
 
Sunset said:
I found out about WEP to my disappointment, so no, it will be less than I had hoped.

I started getting $300/mo. (USD) pension, and when I start SS, they will take away $150 minimum of it from the SS.
So it will be quite a bit less than the avg 2018 SS.
"The average monthly Social Security payment .... is $1,404."
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What is WEP, please?
 
DH and I are both collecting SS. For future years (not this year when we are doing some remodeling and not last year when we moved), it will cover about 60% of desired spending for a few years and then closer to 65%. It would cover probably about 80% of basic necessary expenses.
 
I knew the numbers, but it was not until I got serious about retirement planning that I figured out that my pension plus mine and DW’s SS will cover most of our expenses. Certainly all of our necessities. To cover all expenses, we’ll only have a withdrawal rate of about 1%. I thought SS and pension would pay for a meager existence but it will do much better than that.
 
Spanky said:
It seems better to claim now and start some Roth conversion to take advantage of the lower tax bracket and to avoid higher medicare premium payments.
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I don't understand your statement.... It is working just the opposite for myself.... I am 67 now and will delay to age 70.... By not receiving S.S. now, it keeps my income lower, so that I can convert more to my Roth, because my Tax Bracket is much lower without collecting S.S. ---
 
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Cut-Throat said:
I also don't understand the 'higher medicare premium payments' --- Medicare is not based on 'Tax Brackets'....
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It can be. If your income is high enough your Medicare premiums do go up.
 
Cut-Throat said:
I don't understand your statement.... It is working just the opposite for myself.... I am 67 now and will delay to age 70.... By not receiving S.S. now, it keeps my income lower, so that I can convert more to my Roth, because my Tax Bracket is much lower without collecting S.S. ---



I also don't understand the 'higher medicare premium payments' --- Medicare is not based on 'Tax Brackets'....
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It's called IRMAA

https://www.medicare.gov/your-medicare-costs/part-b-costs
 
I was born just in time to use the restricted application. DH began taking his at 62, he is 6 years older than me. When I turned 66 last year, I was able to take spousal benefits and delay my own benefits until age 70. This is a loophole is only available to those born before 1954.
 
I partially retired at 57 to spend more time with DP who is significantly older and is collecting SS now. I will fully retire next year at age 60 (no pension). Based on my calculations, the best time for me to claim is at 65 - balances the spend down until SS starts vs. the increased amount if I wait. My calculations assume I'll live to be 97 and that my spending will ratchet way up at 90 (assisted living). Call me pollyanna, but I believe there will be no cuts for folks born before 1960 (we've already contributed to SS sustainability by having our FRA age ratcheted up). My calculations include almost no increase in SS once it starts, tho - that's my conservatism.


When I start collecting, our combined SS will cover about 60% of our expenses, with a nice, but not extravagant, lifestyle.
 
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