Calculating Spousal Social Security benefits

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. Inflation has been remarkably low in the past several decades.

And while the COLA for SS isn't as good as it should be, at least it's there. Until 1975 there was none. Whatever you got when you started collecting, was it. People would talk about living on a fixed income, and they were right.

Here's an interesting chart of the COLAs for SS. https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/colaseries.html

Notice how relatively low it's been in the past decade.

You clearly had circumstances a lot different from many people, and did give it a lot of thought.

But still, a lot of people underestimate by a lot how long they are likely to live. As well as how long the break even point is. Most of us should outlive our parental generation by at least half a decade, possibly a lot longer, especially if that generation all smoked, which is highly likely.

There's a very interesting book out there, Get What's Yours by Laurence Kotlikoff, Paul Solman, and Philip Moeller It's all about maximizing your Social Security. They cover lots and lots of scenarios. I recommend it highly.