Her plan reaches the end of the projection and every result is marked Complete — she answered everything we asked. Read it beside the stress test, though: 160 of 300 paths last that long. Complete evidence and a comfortable margin are different claims.
Worked example · computed live · published rules
Can I stay in the house on a survivor benefit?
Watch the model answer two of Marguerite’s three questions — and say plainly that it cannot answer the third.
Her three questions
- AnsweredCan I stay in the house?
- AnsweredWhy did my taxes go up after Bill died?
- We can’tCould I switch to my own benefit at 70?
Well-meaning people have told Marguerite all sorts of things, and she has no way to check any of it. Two of her questions have answers below. The third we do not model at all: answering it needs an earnings record only Social Security holds. So we say so, and send her to the one place that has it.
Two of three
A report can honestly say one of four things about any number: we have it, we think we have it, we don’t have it, or there is nothing here to have. Most calculators only ever say the first. They fill the gaps with something reasonable and print it in the same font as everything else, so you cannot tell which is which. That is the real harm — not a wrong number, but a believable one that stops you asking. Marguerite would never have made the call. This report says which of the four it is, every time, and where something is missing it says what would close the gap.
Marguerite Boateng
66, Tucson, Arizona
Marguerite is 66, in Tucson, and was widowed two years ago. She receives $2,480 a month as a survivor benefit and has $400,000 across three accounts.
What they have
- Taxable
- $85,000
- Tax-deferred
- $290,000
- Tax Advantage (Roth)
- $25,000
- Social Security
- $2,480/mo, claimed
- Spending
- $4,000/mo
What they’re asking
Can I stay in the house?
Someone at church said I could switch to my own benefit at 70. Can I?
My taxes went up the year after Bill died and nobody warned me. Why?
She is here because of what her report will not tell her. Two of her three questions have clear answers. The third is the most valuable one she has, and the honest response to it is a phone number rather than a number.
The report works through these in its own order. Every one of them is answered — the answers are gathered at the end.
Run the numbers.
The full report is below, computed in your browser from exactly the figures above. Nothing is withheld and nothing is a screenshot — the controls in it work, and moving one re-runs the whole projection.
Her taxes rose the year after Bill died because she began filing as one person. The brackets did not change; her filing status did. The year-by-year table shows exactly where.
The claiming comparison is marked Not applicable, and that is not a gap in her evidence. Her benefit is already awarded. There is no claiming decision left for us to compare.
You now know enough to know who to call
A Social Security claiming specialist — and the SSA itself, which will tell you free
“Would switching from my survivor benefit to my own record at 70 pay me more?”
It might, and it is a real strategy. Whether it does depends on your own earnings record, which this model does not hold and does not ask for. We would rather say that than estimate it.
Their questions, answered
What the report told them
Every figure below comes from the report above — nothing here is worked out separately, and each answer links to the stop that shows how it was reached.
“Can I stay in the house?”
On these figures, probably — and probably is the honest word. The middle path leaves you funded past 100, and 160 of 300 paths do; the other 140 run out, the weakest tenth at around 85. What none of that includes is the house itself: no maintenance, no new roof, no change in property tax, no move. Spending $200 a month less lifts the funded paths from 53% to 73%, which tells you the size of the margin you are working inside.
“Someone at church said I could switch to my own benefit at 70. Can I?”
Quite possibly — and this report cannot tell you. Switching from a survivor benefit to your own record is a real strategy, and survivor benefits sit outside the deemed-filing rules that would otherwise prevent it. Whether it pays you more depends on your own earnings record, which this model does not hold and never asked for. That is why the claiming comparison is marked Not applicable rather than filled in with an estimate. The SSA will tell you free, and it is worth the phone call.
“My taxes went up the year after Bill died and nobody warned me. Why?”
Because you began filing as one person. Your income barely changed; the brackets did. A single filer’s standard deduction is $16,100 against $32,200 for a couple, and every band above it is narrower, so the same money is taxed harder. This projection begins after that change, so it shows the tax you pay now and cannot set the two years side by side. The rise was a rule, not a mistake — and nobody warning you about it is the ordinary experience, not bad luck.
What we could not tell them
Whether she should switch to her own benefit at 70. We do not model it, we do not hold the figures it needs, and a plausible-looking number here would be worth less than nothing to her.
Your turn
A model that tells you what it does not know is worth more than one that guesses. See what it can and cannot tell you.
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Or read another household. Each one reaches a different limit.
- Can we both stop working at the same time?The modal household. Two salaries, no pension, Social Security doing most of the work.
- Can I retire at 62, three years before Medicare?Three years to Medicare, and a subsidy cliff that arrives a year after the decision that caused it.
- What happens to me if he goes first?A pension election made seven years ago, still deciding the shape of the plan.
- We think we’re fine. Are we?The arithmetic works. The report still will not tell them it does.
- How long will my savings actually last?The model will not flatter him, and no single change fixes it.