Myth No. 6: You won’t be able to pay the bills
On the other hand, even if Social Security cannot cover all your expenses, it doesn’t mean you will barely be able to make ends meet. There might be many stories out there about people who failed to budget accordingly and lived poorly in retirement but it’s not a universal rule.
According to Frederick Vettese, author of “The Essential Retirement Guide” and chief actuary with finance firm Morneau Shepell, “we seem to think we need 70 percent of our final income [to retire comfortably]. That is a crazy number because no one ever gets there.” In reality, because you no longer pay for some of the things you used to pay for when you were working, like office apparel, commuting etc., you can actually get by with half of your gross income.
