Green Retirement Blog

Can a person retire on just their Social Security payments? Yes!

For whatever reason, if you have reached the age when you can collect Social Security, and have not been able to save for retirement you don’t need to delay your retirement. You can retire on only your Social Security payments.

If you and your spouse, collect a combined Social Security payment of $1750 per month, that is your retirement budget. Think you can’t retire on $1750 per month? Think again. I wrote in a previous post, how author Joe Bageant manages to live on less than $500 per month, of course he lives outside the U.S. in Belize. When I lived in Costa Rica, my wife and I had an ocean view home (the view is the photo at the top of the blog), for only $250 per month.

Does that mean that you have to retire overseas? Not at all. Using apartments.com, I did a quick search of apartments, in the United States. I found several apartments in Florida and South Carolina for under $400. Complete with swimming pools, fitness rooms, community centers etc. An apartment in Florence South Carolina, near Myrtle Beach, costs only $325 per month.

Which means that you would be spending less than 20% of your retirement income on housing, leaving you $1425 per month to spend on food, health, travel, entertainment etc. While not an extravagant amount of money, it is still a sufficient amount of money, to allow you to enjoy a comfortable retirement.

Many Americans are afraid that they don’t have enough savings to retire, and that Social Security alone, won’t be sufficient to allow them to retire. As you can see from the preceding example, you can retire on just your Social Security benefits, and you don’t need to leave the country to be able to afford retirement.

I write this not to discourage you from saving for retirement, only to try and reassure you that even if you have not been successful at saving for retirement, you actually and realistically can retire on Social Security. And you can ignore the fear mongering coming from traditional retirement planners, and the numerous articles in the press, that are scaring people into delaying their retirements.

This is the Retirement Blog. Visit the Green Retirement Planning Website to discover how you can retire with less savings, years earlier, and help save the planet.