S/O Social Security...I just realized as a hs mom, I will not get any

[HappyGrace]

Sigh...I hope we're not eating cat food in retirement.

 

I only worked as a waitress for awhile thru college, and then at another job for a few yrs before I got married/had kids.

 

Anyone else in the same boat?

[Shellydon]

We established a retirement account for me a few years back and put the max into it each year. I would count on SS at this point anyway.....

[WiseOwlKnits]

I won't get any either. Before I was a hs mom, I was a teacher. In the state of TX, you pay into the teacher retirement system, not Social Security. So even though I worked for a number of years before staying home, I won't be able to claim Social Security for them.

 

I honestly don't think Social Security will still be around when I'm of retirement age though.

[Chava_Raizel]

Sigh...I hope we're not eating cat food in retirement.

 

I only worked as a waitress for awhile thru college, and then at another job for a few yrs before I got married/had kids.

 

Anyone else in the same boat?

 

Yup, me too. I worked in fast food for a bit right after we got married, and I worked at Dollar Tree for a bit as well. Mostly, I've always been a stay-home mom. I don't know what I'll do in the future as far as work. Honestly, if we homeschool all the way through high school for all 4 kids, I'll be almost 50 when my youngest goes off to college. Maybe I should shoot for being a Walmart greeter? :lol:

[FairProspects]

I thought if you had been married for more than 10 years, your SS was based on your husband's salary? Do I have that wrong? I don't really know the ins and outs of SS since it is so far away for us and we are not counting on it anyway.

[Plucky]

I thought if you had been married for more than 10 years, your SS was based on your husband's salary? Do I have that wrong? I don't really know the ins and outs of SS since it is so far away for us and we are not counting on it anyway.

 

You are right. If you have been married at least 10 years your ss is based on half of your ds's ss. If he gets $5000 at retirement you get $2500 and so the couple gets $7500. However, don't count on SS being around when you retire.

[Susan in TX]

Unless the law has changed, and as far as I know it hasn't, a married woman can choose her own social security or, if she hasn't worked enough, she is entitled to her own check that is based on a percentage of her husband's lifetime earnings. I don't know if this only applies to women or if they changed it to apply to either spouse.

 

Susan in TX

[Plucky]

Unless the law has changed, and as far as I know it hasn't, a married woman can choose her own social security or, if she hasn't worked enough, she is entitled to her own check that is based on a percentage of her husband's lifetime earnings. I don't know if this only applies to women or if they changed it to apply to either spouse.

 

Susan in TX

 

 

It applies to men, too.

[Plucky]

Now, if your ds is a minister or priest, they can bow out of paying SS, but then neither you nor he will ever receive benefits. This is important to be aware of, because I do know a couple that didn't understand that not paying meant never receiving SS.

[Jennifer in MI]

Now, if your ds is a minister or priest, they can bow out of paying SS, but then neither you nor he will ever receive benefits. This is important to be aware of, because I do know a couple that didn't understand that not paying meant never receiving SS.

 

True. My husband and I have opted out of paying SS and we've invested that money ourselves. He can opt back in at any point.

[Plucky]

True. My husband and I have opted out of paying SS and we've invested that money ourselves. He can opt back in at any point.

 

I wish we could invest our SS money instead. I didn't know you could opt back in. Interesting. :001_smile:

[Tap]

I will tuck a little plug in here for retirements for the at-home parent.

 

My mother didn't pay into SS. My father did. There are several years between my parents ages. My father died after he began collecting SS. When he died, my mother was not old enough to collect SS. She had NO incoming money for several years, until she got old enough to collect his SS.

 

 

She had to find a job at almost 60yo after being home for many, many years....just to minimally support herself. At one point she had to take out a loan on the house (which was paid off) to have some money. Now, she is old enough for SS, but has a mortgage payment to pay so her portion of SS to actually live on is less than $500 per month. She has almost zero assets. They believed that SS would take care of them. Her house is decomposing around her as she doesn't have the money or strength to maintain it. She can't sell it for enough profit to repurchase a smaller home.

 

 

She and my father always counted on him living a lot longer than he did. Living into the upper 90s is common in his family...but he died at 75yo with cancer.

[sassenach]

True. My husband and I have opted out of paying SS and we've invested that money ourselves. He can opt back in at any point.

 

I don't think that's true. Once you are out, you are out. You have to sign a religious objection to receiving any government aid, so we didn't opt out. We may not think SS will be around by the time we retire, but we didn't have any religious objection to SS. I also believe that you lose Medicare when you opt out.

[Pegasus]

It is important to understand how social security works. It's been pretty well covered here but you should also know that if either spouse dies, the other spouse will continue to receive the higher of their two checks, but not the value of both. Also, once you've been married for 10 years, it doesn't matter if you are no longer married when you reach retirement age. A person who has not remarried can still claim SS based on their ex-spouse's benefits. This does NOT reduce the benefits of the previous wage-earner, by the way. People often think that their ex-spouse is "stealing" some of their benefits.

 

I'm careful to use gender neutral language because it does work both ways and in our family, I'm the wage earner and DH is the stay at home parent.

 

Yes, the benefits may change by the time any of us reach retirement age, however, I do believe that we will receive benefits. We may get them later and in reduced amounts, but I don't think it will disappear anytime soon.

 

So, with that in mind, I hope you all also know that a spouse who doesn't work can still fund an IRA or Roth IRA in their own name, as long as their spouse earns more than they are contributing to their IRAs (in total). So, if your DH is earning more than $10,000 dollars a year, you can fund his IRA $5,000 and your IRA $5,000. I think it is important for non-working spouses to have some retirement funds in their own name. We fund ours equally.

 

Pegasus

[Tap]

From SS: Survivors Benefits:

 

How much will I receive?

The benefit amount is based on the earnings of the person who died. The more the worker paid into Social Security, the greater your benefits will be.

Social Security uses the deceased worker’s basic benefit amount and calculates what percentage survivors are entitled to. The percentage depends on the survivors’ ages and relationship to the worker. If the person who died was receiving reduced benefits, your survivor’s benefit is based on that amount. Here are the most typical situations:

 

A widow or widower, at full retirement age or older, generally receives 100 percent of the worker’s basic benefit amount;

A widow or widower, age 60 or older, but under full retirement age, receives about 71-99 percent of the worker’s basic benefit amount; or

A widow or widower, any age, with a child younger than age 16, receives 75 percent of the worker’s benefit amount.

Children receive 75 percent of the worker’s benefit amount.

Maximum family benefits

There is a limit to the benefits that can be paid to you and other family members each month. The limit varies, but is generally between 150 and 180 percent of the deceased’s benefit amount.

[Tap]

Now, if your ds is a minister or priest, they can bow out of paying SS, but then neither you nor he will ever receive benefits. This is important to be aware of, because I do know a couple that didn't understand that not paying meant never receiving SS.

 

True. My husband and I have opted out of paying SS and we've invested that money ourselves. He can opt back in at any point.

 

I don't think that's true. Once you are out, you are out. You have to sign a religious objection to receiving any government aid, so we didn't opt out. We may not think SS will be around by the time we retire, but we didn't have any religious objection to SS. I also believe that you lose Medicare when you opt out.

 

http://www.crown.org/library/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=690

 

Reversal of exemption

Many clergy who opted out of Social Security have wanted to rejoin the program, often to qualify for Medicare benefits. Normally, once the exemption has been approved, it is irrevocable. However, in December 1999, President Clinton signed the “Ticket to Work Act†into law. This act permitted clergy to revoke an exemption by filing an exemption repeal with the IRS by April 15, 2002. Although the Social Security Administration has not yet determined whether there will be any back Social Security tax liability, because of the three-year statue of limitations, the IRS very well could assess three back years of Social Security tax against ministers who nullify their original exemption.

[Laura Corin]

In Britain, one's state pension contributions are paid by the government until the tax year one's youngest child turns twelve. I am planning on getting a more serious job next year, before the contributions stop. I don't know if there will be a state pension by the time I retire, but the timing is not bad for me to go back to work full time anyway.

 

Laura

[DarlaS]

Sigh...I hope we're not eating cat food in retirement.

 

I only worked as a waitress for awhile thru college, and then at another job for a few yrs before I got married/had kids.

Anyone else in the same boat?

 

Yep. I have no retirement account either. My dh is ten years older than me. We do also have a 401k. We are putting much more stock in that than SS.

[AnthemLights]

I don't think that's true. Once you are out, you are out. You have to sign a religious objection to receiving any government aid, so we didn't opt out. We may not think SS will be around by the time we retire, but we didn't have any religious objection to SS. I also believe that you lose Medicare when you opt out.

 

You can opt back in. We just did this year. My husband grew up in an Amish/Mennonite culture and opted out when he first started drawing wages at 18. Now, 12 years later we can no longer conscientiously sign the form that lets us opt out. In 2010, we paid our social security/medicare taxes for the first time.

 

 

I don't think much of the whole system and wish we could just keep investing the money ourselves as a pp said.

 

 

However, if I understand the laws right (and I think I do because we have researched this whole thing to death) :tongue_smilie:, we can never opt out again. IOW, 5 years from now, we can't again decide that we are religiously opposed and stop paying in. Maybe the IRS would see that as being "flaky" :D

[Jennifer in MI]

I don't think that's true. Once you are out, you are out. You have to sign a religious objection to receiving any government aid, so we didn't opt out. We may not think SS will be around by the time we retire, but we didn't have any religious objection to SS. I also believe that you lose Medicare when you opt out.

 

Okay - maybe I need to check into this again. We were told by a church retirement person that we could. And, yes, I do believe we don't qualify for Medicare unless we opt back in.

 

You can opt back in. We just did this year. My husband grew up in an Amish/Mennonite culture and opted out when he first started drawing wages at 18. Now, 12 years later we can no longer conscientiously sign the form that lets us opt out. In 2010, we paid our social security/medicare taxes for the first time.

 

 

I don't think much of the whole system and wish we could just keep investing the money ourselves as a pp said.

 

 

However, if I understand the laws right (and I think I do because we have researched this whole thing to death) :tongue_smilie:, we can never opt out again. IOW, 5 years from now, we can't again decide that we are religiously opposed and stop paying in. Maybe the IRS would see that as being "flaky" :D

 

Okay. Good!!! And, yes. We were told that once you opt back in you cannot opt back out again.

 

I didn't realize that it was a religious exemption form that needed to be signed. Hmmm . . . . sounds like dh and I need to have a talk! I just assumed it was a perk of being a priest. (Dh was in the priesthood before we were married and opted out then.)

[AnthemLights]

Okay - maybe I need to check into this again. We were told by a church retirement person that we could. And, yes, I do believe we don't qualify for Medicare unless we opt back in.

 

 

 

Okay. Good!!! And, yes. We were told that once you opt back in you cannot opt back out again.

 

I didn't realize that it was a religious exemption form that needed to be signed. Hmmm . . . . sounds like dh and I need to have a talk! I just assumed it was a perk of being a priest. (Dh was in the priesthood before we were married and opted out then.)

 

From reading other people's posts, I realized that there must be a different form for clergy than there is for lay people. We signed the Form 4029 and we only had to do it the first year and then it was good for life...unless we revoked it. The clergy file with Form 4361 and I don't know the rules for that one. So maybe you should just ignore my other post. ;)

 

Sorry for the misinformation.

[DawnM]

This is where I am as well. I have about 16 years in the California State Teachers' Retirement system. Let's hope it is still around when I need it!

 

Dawn

 

I won't get any either. Before I was a hs mom, I was a teacher. In the state of TX, you pay into the teacher retirement system, not Social Security. So even though I worked for a number of years before staying home, I won't be able to claim Social Security for them.

 

I honestly don't think Social Security will still be around when I'm of retirement age though.

[mommaduck]

I have kids. Hopefully they will follow the lessons that we've taught them and help take care of their parents. I don't count on SS and yet we've worked our butts off to support the kids...and there is no money for retirement. Maybe one day. DH will work as long as he is capable. Eventually, when the younger children are near grown, I plan to work again or help take care of grandkids. Either way, I don't plan to just lay around in retirement :)

[QueenCat]

I thought if you had been married for more than 10 years, your SS was based on your husband's salary? Do I have that wrong? I don't really know the ins and outs of SS since it is so far away for us and we are not counting on it anyway.

 

You are correct, you'll get it as the spouse of someone eligible. But I'm not sure on the number of years.

[nono]

Also, once you've been married for 10 years, it doesn't matter if you are no longer married when you reach retirement age. A person who has not remarried can still claim SS based on their ex-spouse's benefits. This does NOT reduce the benefits of the previous wage-earner, by the way. People often think that their ex-spouse is "stealing" some of their benefits.

 

 

Yep, and the math simply doesn't work in a society where people divorce regularly....

 

I worked for 25 years. I paid in...It's not that I'll "get" something. The government took my money, and it is unlikely that it'll give it back when I need it.

[HappyGrace]

Wow, really really interesting! I didn't realize I'd be eligible for half the amount that dh gets, just by being married over ten years! That is a relief, I must say.

 

I can't even think about this stuff usually or I get heart palpitations-we are paycheck to paycheck-we do ok, but barely anything in the 401k, and dh is ten yrs older than I am. We wouldn't have any more money to put away for retirement, buy insurance, etc.

 

Sometimes I feel so guilty for staying home, but I believe it is God's plan for us and therefore I have to believe He will provide.

[Tarreymere]

I think with all my kids they ought to be able to chip in and let me live alone in a yurt in the woods. All I ask is that they send me some bulk groceries a few times a year. I was even looking at some yurts today......

Or, maybe I will buy a conversion van and live in that. When I get hungry I can park in one of the kid's driveways until they come out and give me food. I can steal their wifi from the driveway, too......hmmm.....