Living on Social Security: A Year-Long Experiment

Hello, everyone! It has been a minute since I have updated this blog.

My latest money experiment involves an idea I had after talking with a family member whose only source of income is her Social Security.

Her income is so low, in fact, that she is eligible for every single supplemental program her state allows: food stamps, energy assistance, non-emergent medical transportation, and perhaps most importantly, a housing voucher.

“How does she do it?!” I thought.

Sometimes, it is a struggle for her to make ends meet. She does not eat out. She buys groceries on sale. She doesn’t buy something unless she absolutely needs it. She wants to have a pet as a companion, but doesn’t feel she can afford it, especially if the pet would need medical care.

When talking with a semi-retired individual about my experiment idea, he remarked,

“I would not be able to live on Social Security only.”

So, it seems this experiment might be a challenge.

Before I begin this challenge on February 1, 2025, I want to map out some ground rules I will have for myself, as well as some hypotheses, to see if they’ll ring true at the end of the experiment.

Ground Rules

According to the Social Security Administration, the average Social Security check in January, 2025 was around $1,976. My family member’s check is a mere $1,266. But, thankfully, her other benefits help her situation.

For this experiment, I’m going to use the $1,976 monthly figure as my personal monthly budget.

Here are our expenses, for reference:

  • Mortgage & home insurance: $488 (split from $976 monthly)
  • Car, life and pet insurance: $256 
  • Electric bill: $130 split (our bill ranges from $120 to as much as $400) (We have an electric car)  
  • Water bill: $15 
  • Car payment: $321
  • 1 dog pet meds per month: $32
  • Internet bill: $42 (split from $82.99) 
  • Visible cell phone bill: $25
  • Gym: $24
  • Netflix: $18
  • =$1,351

So that leaves about $625 (times two, for my husband and I), for monthly household essentials, pet food, groceries, gifts, gas, entertainment, and going out to eat (if we have enough left over for that, ha!) We’ll be working with $1,285 total for the month to account for two people’s essential expenditures.

Normally donations are also at the top of our budget, but for this experiment, I’m leaving this out of the equation for two reasons: 1. We have a car payment, and hopefully when we do officially retire, we will plan not to have one and could instead be donating that money, 2., We don’t want to share to whom or how much we are donating as we believe that is a private matter. But, we will be donating what we normally would, based on our incomes.

During this experiment, we also plan to try to keep up with our “mostly clean keto” dietary plan.

Hypotheses

1. It will be hard.

I’m going to guess, that although it looks generous at the outset, that this is going to be a challenge for us.

During the holidays, we went out to eat a lot to catch up with friends and family. So, we’re going to pare this down to the bare minimum.

2. We will want to have an additional source of “income.”

When you take Social Security, you can work. But, you can only earn a certain amount before the Social Security Administration deducts money from your benefit payments.

“If you are under full retirement age for the entire year, we deduct $1 from your benefit payments for every $2 you earn above the annual limit,” the site says.

The limit for 2025 is $62,160 for full retirement age. So, you can earn that amount without penalty.

I am going to guess that we would want to take advantage of this, especially if Social Security was our only source of income. So, you may see me finding other ways to earn income if our budget gets too tight!

3. We will learn to be more creative.

As the old saying goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

During this experiment, I plan to make different recipes at home, in addition to finding low-cost date night activities and finding other ways to save. (During Covid, I learned how to cut my husband’s hair!)

I’ll be posting our progress here, if not weekly, then definitely monthly. If you’d like to come along for the ride, feel free to subscribe below!

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