Never Retire - Questions For 2023
#1: How come you never talk about Social Security?
Ahead of our big February-March plans for the Never Retire newsletter, we’ll spend part of January going through subscriber comments and questions I have collected over the last few months.
You can see details on what’s to come at the end of this post or at the link above. Either way, now is a great time to upgrade to a paid subscription, as most of the posts after January will go behind the paywall. For the longevity of the newsletter (forever), I have found this is the best approach.
Question #1: How come you never talk about Social Security?
Actually, I do. However, this question comes from a new subscriber, who missed our discussion about America’s most famous entitlement program.
In June of last year, we had a detailed discussion about the importance of Social Security.
For whatever reason, Social Security doesn’t come up enough in our discussions around retirement, particularly Never Retiring, where it can be extra important.
First thing’s first—Social Security is an entitlement program. Meaning you’re entitled to collect it because you’ve been paying into the fund via a tax on employment income.
So there’s no shame in factoring the entitlement into your financial planning.
The article above provides one way to quantify Social Security within a budget come relative old age.
Today, I’m passing along some research on Social Security that illustrates something I was unaware of. If you’re delinquent on federal student loans while collecting Social Security, the government can withhold some of your monthly payment. Not surprising.
Details on that are in the full study here. Now, some other observations.
I didn’t realize how many people at retirement age have federal student loan debt.
While Biden’s forgiveness plan—if it ever becomes a reality—will ease some of the brunt, the research foresees delinquencies rising among future beneficiaries. It could result in a loss of 4%-to-6% in household income.
This is a big deal.
As I noted, Social Security can go a long way for those of us who keep a low cost of living now and intend to maintain or even lower our already low cost of living in relative old age.
A few percent of income can equal a property tax or insurance payment. Or, if nothing else, a long series of morning coffees and pastries.
So, Social Security absolutely does matter.
For some people, it’s their main or a primary source of retirement income.
Even if you consider it a supplement, a bonus, icing on the cake, whatever, take it into account. Because an extra $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 or whatever a month can make a massive difference, especially if you go into your sixties with the aforementioned low cost of living and no or low payments on your two biggest expenses, particularly housing and transportation.
Now, as for what’s to come—
As you might know, my partner and I will spend February in Spain and Italy.
The itinerary—Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid, Rome, Naples, Barcelona
For the month of February, I’m currently planning a month-long series of 20 Never Retire newsletter posts in 28 days.
Each post will include the following (in no particular order)—
Photography from the cities we visit.
Thoughts, observations, highlights from the cities we visit.
A breakdown of what we spent each day to compare the cost of living in Spain and Italy to the United States and elsewhere.
A Never Retire checklist item. A total of 20 practical money/work/life-related boxes you need to check to live the semi-retired life you wanna live now and for the duration.
Then, in March, I’ll do 20 posts in 31 days, meticulously detailing each of the 20 items.
From a recent hike from Wisdom Tree (near the Hollywood Reservoir) to the Griffith Observatory and Fern Dell Trail in Los Angeles.
If you’re in or ever visiting LA, Uber or Lyft to the Wisdom Tree trail and follow the signs to the Hollywood Sign. It’s the opposite path 99% of tourists take!
