Say someone owns a nice home and it’s completely paid off. Also, they would get the max social security benefit once they reached a certain age. Could the retire with $0 saved if they wanted to? Or would it still be difficult for them?
Say someone owns a nice home and it’s completely paid off. Also, they would get the max social security benefit once they reached a certain age. Could the retire with $0 saved if they wanted to? Or would it still be difficult for them?
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It’s $48,000 a year. And it is taxed.
Where are you going to buy a house with no property taxes?
I don’t see why not as long as they live within their means. Top ramen every day.
In rural West Virginia where property taxes are a few hundred a year? Probably. In any major city or suburb? No way.
My mom is trying. Isn’t going well.
A nice house will have nice (expensive) property tax. Mine is close to $10K – and it is not a nice house. Then, you need home / car insurance – and home/car maintenance cost.
Then you have to hope that you don’t need too many years of assisted living – which can deplete your nice house.
It is possible- but difficult in my opinion.
It would be difficult because you still need to pay property taxes on your house. The house will eventually need repairs which are costly.
Owning a vehicle also requires insurance and repairs/replacement.
My in-laws got into an accident, the insurance company only paid out $10k because they declared it totaled. A new car will cost them over $38K.
They needed new siding and a new roof, there goes more money.
I think the answer is “yes.” The 2025 max benefit is just over $61,000. If your spouse gets, let’s say, $30,000, that’s $91,000 per year. No room for emergencies, but certainly livable, especially with no debt.
The critical factor in this is you must wait until you are 70 to claim your SS benefit. Most people are not willing to wait that long. It might not make sense to wait that long unless you come from a line of long-livers. If you don’t wait until you are 70, the benefit amount is much lower.
You’ll survive, but will you live? Generally, no if you never saved up anything for retirement.
Depends on the country
In some, if you are on an unemployment benefit then you cannot own property, so to be eligible you need to sell the house first.
If we’re only talking about retirement and your pension, then yes you can do it, but many pensions are piss poor and are at or just above minimum wage, and you still need to eat, pay property taxes, utilities, etc.
It is possible, but would be difficult depending on the standard of living you want and where you live (since that affects the taxes). With my state income tax included, I take home about 38k annually. I own my house outright, but my tax is about 6500 on it. That leaves about 660/week for everything else. If you’re frugal, this can work – luckily in my case I have other resources including pensions and IRA.
I’m pretty much at the max and my home is paid off. No, you probably can’t. Property taxes , federal taxes, state and local taxes take a bite. Food, clothing , auto repairs, gas , heating all add up. Medicare does not cover all your medical, you will need supplemental health insurance. Maybe if you live,in a place with really, really low taxes you might come close, but you would not be comfortable
It depends where your nice home is existing county wise. If the property taxes per year are too high, you won’t be able to afford them etc
Depends on where you live and your lifestyle, but yes, it’s absolutely possible.
I’m not retired yet but I have no debt and am currently living off savings. My monthly living costs are under $1500, which includes insurance on three vehicles, homeowners insurance, property tax, groceries, utilities, etc. I live alone, so that number would obviously rise if I was feeding more than myself. I also don’t eat out or travel often, which are huge expenses.
Personally I could do it. But I would have to be careful with expenses. There wouldn’t be any vacations, new cars, etc.
Property taxes and health insurance are real things.
I’m disabled. I get SSDI below the maximum. I was never one to desire a lot of material goods so I did save up plenty for my retirement even though I expected it not to come until several decades later. I live in a major metro area and pay rent in a place I think is pretty nice (or at least it was until they replaced the carpet with wood floors and I hear neighbors stomping all day) and I have pretty much everything I want in my life. I haven’t had to touch my savings at all. It has been about 5 years and I’m doing okay.
At the same time, people in my area often say anything below six figures is poverty here, and that’s for a single person. We just have VERY different needs in life. Or perhaps wants is more accurate. I’m also lucky that my disability is something doctors can do nothing about (well, I’m not lucky but my wallet is) so I don’t have much in the way of healthcare costs.
If you retire due to age, healthcare costs can be significant. For that reason alone, I’d strongly recommend having savings for retirement. So I’d say it would still have significant likelihood of becoming difficult for them.
Ok I was not a good saver. I live on my social security payment and my pension. I have another person who lives with me but it’s my house. He pays for food, car maintenance, our travels and home maintenance when it’s a big ticket item, he is still working. I pay house payment, car payment, insurance car and house, and utilities. I have approximately $800 month after all that for gas in car, hobby supplies, eat out, etc. House payment only $900 including taxes and insurance, it was a HELOC of $100,000.
It would be difficult, but not impossible. You’d be living on a fixed income – housing is usually the largest expense, but if that’s taken care of, bills dont usually get discounted just because you’re old. In my present house, that would still be about $400 a month just to keep things up, and about $1500/year for property taxes. Utility rates can go up, while your income wont. Similarly food prices, gas prices, etc. If you’re a homebody and dont go out much you can probably be quite content, but you wont have extra very often to contemplate any wants/needs/desires/trave/vacations. Similarly, a blown water heater or A/C replacement may be out of reach. While insurance exists, there’s also the occasional storm damage that can arise that would be difficult to cover on such a limited income. Having savings and SSI be supplemental is the ideal option.
Oh, and we’re not even touching on the fact that most people in that position have health issues. Medical bills may be minimal due to Medicare, however medicare is pretty shite at covering prescriptions. With insurance my elderly family members were often stuck deciding between medication or food. Medication can easily be $500+ every month.
People are forgetting the cost of medical care.
Medicare Part A is usually free. Medicare Part B is currently $185/month. I think we’ve reached the point wheee a majority get Medicare Advantage, which has co-pays and deductibles of several thousand dollars per year. Others use Medigap, which can average $100/month depending on location, age, and plan, plus they would need part D with a cost varying by drugs needed. And Medicare doesn’t cover things like assisted living, which many people will need. Nor does it cover dental work or vision exams and glasses, nor hearing aids (though many Medicare Advantage plans will).
Southern California: property tax-600, utilities-catv/phones-275, utilities-365, 2 cars/gas/insurance/tags-750, food-750, clothing 100, medical 125. So, 2965 for bare minimum living costs. Our SS is 4100. Around 250/ mo. for discretionary spending.
Doable, but tight. Hope for no emergencies…
I wouldn’t be comfortable taking that chance.
What are taxes and insurance on the nice home? In Florida I would say no.
You still have to pay house taxes and electric and gas and medical bills and food and so on.
The house taxes alone are like $5000 a year.
You can’t count on Social security being there. That sentiment has been there since long before Musk and Trump started trying to hack it to pieces with a chainsaw…
At this point it wouldn’t make much difference anyway if you do save either in cash/bank/etc. or in the stock market with a private retirement fund since the stock market is also tanking big time. And will being going lower till the complete crash of “The Great Depression 2.0”.
It depends how long you plan on living. As long as the answer is in months and not years you’ll be fine.