Don’t need social security

[Car-Guy]

Unfortunately, too many of our peers never got the memo that SS would only ensure that you don't starve but would not provide a good retirement and they never saved enough. Sucks to be them, but they had their chance and blew it.

I guess that's true and I have very little sympathy for them... It's those that busted their a**, saved what they could and just couldn't get ahead. No matter if due to lack of skills, education, abilities, opportunity, etc. That sucks and is sad from my POV...

 

[Fermion]

We retired at age 46 and have had 6+ good years already.

We probably will need some SS. We could have worked longer, but I think we took the safe route by retiring early...we will have already won the game if we make it to 70, because most people don't get 24 years of retired life.

 

[jollystomper]

Late to the game here, but wasn't there supposed to be something like a 25% haircut for everyone on SS in 2034 or thereabouts? If that is still in the works, that would/should change the calculations for those considering waiting.

I have considered that, and is a factor on delaying taking it as long as I can. If our plan to wait until 70 works, and we live to the time of the potential cuts, we will still be in good shape. In my view it is tough to speculate too much on this, between politics and inflation who knows what level our SS will be at by that time .

 

[ncbill]

The original 3-legged stool was SS, pension and personal savings. The personal savings are what we think of today as after-tax savings. Today, tax-deferred retirement savings (401ks, tIRAs, et al) replaced pensions, so today's 3-legged stool is SS, tax deferred retirement savings and personal savings.

Unfortunately, too many of our peers never got the memo that SS would only ensure that you don't starve but would not provide a good retirement and they never saved enough. Sucks to be them, but they had their chance and blew it.

Well, there but for the grace of God....the last relative I buried was a single mom who worked for the same company for 28 years before seeing her entire department (IT) outsourced.

There were not a lot of jobs for older IT workers back then...was told she was overqualified for anything else.

Had to cash in her pension plan to make it to SS at age 62, diagnosed with a terminal illness years afterward, then died in less than 6 months.

Having a house helped...stripped as much equity as possible to meet any needs above her modest SS income.

As for any "haircut" as I've posted before Congress has always intervened in favor of protecting the SS benefits of lower earning workers at the expense of higher-earning ones...if any benefit reductions actually happen.