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Hi, Friends!
My dad used to tell me he'd "wait for the news to say it's official" before believing anything about his Social Security check and honestly, that instinct has stuck with me more than I expected. I think about it every fall when the early COLA guesses start showing up in my inbox and I have to remind myself: not official yet, don't panic yet. That's really what pulled this edition together. I want to walk you through how I personally read those early estimates so they don't rattle you the way they used to rattle me. And right alongside it, I'm finally saying out loud something I've believed for a while, that the "seven income streams" advice floating around out there just doesn't match how real people actually retire. I'd rather hand you the truth than the trend.
Warmly,
Mike Bridges
"It's never too late to build the life you were waiting for — start with the next decision, not the next decade."
Mike Bridges
FEATURED ARTICLE
I had a reader email me last week asking if the COLA number she'd seen online was "the real one" yet. It wasn't, and that mix-up happens more than you'd think this time of year, because early estimates and the SSA's official number aren't the same thing at all.
Inside: the month-by-month shifts behind this year's estimate, one year the early number missed by a wide margin, and what I look for before I trust any number that isn't official yet.
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More income sources sounds like more security, until you're the one keeping track of seven of them. I've watched that idea create more stress than it ever solved.
Inside: the number I'd actually aim for instead of seven, a sample household budget built from four simple income sources, and the trade-off that makes chasing extra streams backfire for some retirees.
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