What percent of your annual spending comes from Social Security?

[youbet]

We aren't very fastidious tracking spending, but it looks like our combined SS will have covered approximately 11% of our 2024 spending. Increased gifting and taxes will push that percentage down in coming years as spending increases and SS more or less remains steady.

 

[Koolau]

Probably 40% of income. Spending is variable.

 

[dm]

My wife and I both retired at 50, and took SS at 62. Now at age 67 and 64 it is around 20% of our spending.

 

[DrRoy]

Currently zero. If I wait until 70, it will be 40-50%.

 

[prudent_one]

Last year was 77% for us..

 

[street]

I took SS from day one. It covers 100% of day to day living. There have been times that we even put some of that SS in saving account it has grown more than we like in checking.
To buy a truck or put a roof on the home than 0%.

 

[workmyfingerstothebone]

There can be a difference between income and what you spend.

24% of expenditures .....

 

[Tadpole]

YTD pretax 77%, post tax using projected average rate over all non-RMD income 61%

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

I am delaying SS until 70 and started doing Roth conversions to manage future RMD’s. Also DW is still working for now with no SS.
I think we will need to spend more going forward.

 

[audreyh1]

Certainly a big part of our delay has been pushing the SS income to later years so that we could manage other assets to reduce future taxable income.

Opensocialsecurity.com showed us that optimal would be DH starting at 68 or 69 and me waiting until 70. But looking at the details I found that the lifetime difference for DH starting 68/69 and waiting until 70 was less than 1%. So we decided to take advantage of other tax-related optimizations instead before starting SS.

 

[N02L84ER]

Currently 0%. When we have both filed for SS in 6 more years, I expect it to be around 70%.

 

[camfused]

Currently 0%, but when we start taking SS (in 4-5 years), it should be about 110% of yearly expenses (unless the haircut kicks in).

 

[latexman]

Currently 14.6%. In 2027 at 70, about 50%.

 

[Out of Steam]

With my wife's Social Security right now, just over 20% of income. Adding mine next year, about 35%.

Since 2022, our spending has essentially equaled our income. Because of an expensive trip and a partial year of my Social Security in 2025, that will continue for one more year.

 

[rhrihm]

Retired in 2017. My wife started collecting social security at 67. I won't collect until age 70. Her social security isn't part of our household budget. It is 0% at this point, and I don't see that changing when I start collecting.

 

[Jeffman52]

DW and I have not taken SS yet and will wait until 65 or 67 ( I see no reason to wait until 70). 0% right now, but when we take it, it will be about 50% of our income. A nice bull run could lower that percent and of course a bad bear run could raise it somewhat.

 

[Pointby2]

Once I start taking it at age 70, next year, our combined SS should cover 100% of our normal expenses including most of our travel.

 

[Surewhitey]

Future me says 50-60% of spending will be covered by SS. Another 15% by a small pension. Got 10-16 years to go for us though.

 

[almost there]

SS at 62 1/2 - probably 40% of our annual budget. (But that 40% would cover the basics)
Could live on it if we had to. But wouldn't be much fun...
Funny how things worked out, the 401k I was heavily planning on (now an IRA) and Roth (now 40/60 Roth from conversions) just keep building in 4% ave. CD's. Adding 40k+ a yr or so to the pile. . Maxed both out for decades. Thinking I would be heavily relying on them in Ret. A friend at work told me about Roths in the mid 80's when the max contribution was 2k per year. That was a slow building adventure....
Have not touched either over the past 11 years in Ret. Turns out I guess I overdid it.
Was a bit too conservative. SS, rental income and an annuity from an old cash ball. plan I partially funded in the 80's and started taking at 55 is more than enough.
And allows us to almost stay in the married 12% fed tax bracket. (Which is my goal)
It more than covers our zero debt. spending habit's.
Guess I should live it up a little. Buy some new car's, travel etc.
Great when a plan comes together. Tips from reading this forum over the past 16 years helped as well.
So, thanks!

 

[meleana]

Right now just my husband collecting. He waited to age 70 and started in April.

I’m 68 and also waiting to age 70.

Right now his SS check covers more than 3/4 of our annual expenses.

 

[LateToFIRE]

Not yet taking SS, but when I start would estimate will be ~20% of our spending. That's combined me & wife with spousal benefit vs our total spend, including taxes.

 

[Time2]

We seem to be low spenders around here! At least for our normal living expenses. We spent close to $50,000 on living expenses. But I did buy my kid a house and I bought a lot of the items required to do some repairs. We start SS in March, and it will be $58,000, so unless we learn to BTD, we will be saving some of our SS. The 4% rule plus SS puts us at $158,000, I have no idea how to live on that kind of income.

 

[RetiredHappy]

We seems to be low spenders around here! And least for our normal living expenses. We spent close to $50,000 on living expenses. But I did buy my kid a house and I bought a lot of the items required to do some repairs. We start SS in March, and it will be $58,000, so unless we learn to BTD, we will be saving some of our SS. The 4% rule plus SS puts us at $158,000, I have no idea how to live on that kind of income.

I can spend them for you easily! Lots of travel, country club, fancy cars. We need double of that budget.

 

[Anchors Aweigh1]

Taking a look at my personal financial spreadsheets I can see that my Social Security (I took it at 62 and now 67), provides 58 to 60 percent of my annual spending. The remaining spending is covered by interest, dividends and withdrawals representing 1.1% of my portfolio. My portfolio has grown nicely over the last five years as a result. My low withdrawal rate provides me a very secure retirement and the ability to increase my spending to cope with inflation, take a vacation, buy a new vehicle or just plain splurge on something I like. There is endless debate of when to take Social Security and nobody knows what the right choice is because nobody knows how long they will live. I feel good about my choice to take SS early and my current position. Semi-retired at age 51, fully retired at age 58 and starting to wish I had done it even sooner.

Could be as high as 40% based on low planned spending or 25%based on high end of spending plan…the rest from and annuity of dividends don’t need to touch principal if we don’t want too

 

[bluelight]

For 2023, it was about 38% of our income. I don't have 2024 numbers yet as we have year end dividends coming. The rest of our income comes from DH's 3 pensions (though one of them would barely buy us a decent dinner) and our investments. When all the numbers are in for this year, in a HCOL area we will have made about 15K more than we spent even with a 2 week vacation in Europe factored in. Something that DH and I could ever have imagined.