Retiring on Social Security

RETIRING ON SOCIAL SECURITY (If you want to call it retiring)

Stretching a dollar is second nature to people living on Social security. Long before the recession deepened, they were experts at making ends meet. Long after the recovery comes, we’ll still be masters of frugality. We’re survivors, Americans who live only on Social Security. We’re also becoming models for younger Americans forced by the recession to trade in their spendthrift ways for a leaner lifestyle. Trying to survive on only our Social Security check is probably the hardest job we ever have to hold down. We were suppose to be enjoying our leisure time for all those 9 to 5 jobs we held for 40 years. I work harder now than I did as a nurse, just trying to survive from month to month. We get no cost of living raises, what happened to our stimulus check for seniors?

Retirement was supposed to be built on the proverbial three-legged stool of pensions, savings and Social Security. But life has intervened for many retirees, and two of the legs have been kicked out from under us. Many retirees worked their entire adult lives but never qualified for a pension or earned enough to put anything aside. Others started retirement with a nest egg but never thought it would have to last 20 or 30 years.

A fifth of older Americans now survive on nothing but Social Security. A third depend on it for at least 90 percent of their income. For a retired worker, the average monthly benefit will be $1,153 this year. Some retirees gets $960 a month from Social Security – just a few dollars more than what the government defines as “poor.”

No debt

The retiree has neither a mortgage nor a car loan. Utilities eat up the biggest part of their Social Security. To conserve electricity, we do housework by daylight, turn off the TV at 10 p.m. and uses battery-powered lights.

People often make the mistake of spending their check all at once and leaving nothing for later in the month. You can’t...