Surprisingly, I'm above the 90th percentile even though I quit working at age 38 and paid very little FICA during the next 31 years before I started collect benefits last year at age 69.

How is this possible? Everyone told me I'd get very little from Social Security.

It's even more surprising for married couples. I left my career after Eldest was born and became a SAHM. DH brought home the bacon, and I invested it back to the value of a whole pig. It helped greatly that we were both already financially established and brought 2 homes to the marriage, so the critical nest egg funds were already in place.

Part of the calculation at deciding to give up my paycheck was to look at the SS rules. Realizing that I would automatically get up to half of his SS, and the survivor when one of us passed would get his full benefit, it quickly became clear that paying into SS (and paying for child care) was not worth much.

The really sad part is how little known this seems to be. When we met with a financial planner, who was HIGHLY regarded in our area, constantly written up in the newspapers as a top FP, he wasn't even aware of the 50% rule for spouses. Even with his alphabet soup of qualifications after his name, he just had never learned to think outside the box of the conventional approach to retiring. Insisted we couldn't retire when we did, until I handed him the spreadsheets and corresponding information to show we could. Hint: if you are already saving about 50% of your gross income, you are really not going to need the conventional 80% of that income in retirement.

IP