Write an article based on this "Estimate your Social Security benefits. Figure out your income from pensions and annuities. Add in other sources of income you will receive in retirement. Calculate how much of your expenses are left."
Your actual benefit amounts will not be known until you apply for them. However, you can estimate your benefits if you are close to retirement by visiting the SSA's website and using their calculation tool. The tool can be found here: https://www.ssa.gov/retire/estimator.html. If you are younger, you can estimate your Social Security benefits using another calculator provided by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/retirement/before-you-claim/. At any point before you retire, Social Security benefits could be reduced, increased, or eliminated. If at all possible, it's best to plan for retirement until the assumption that you may not receive these benefits. For example, imagine that you qualify for $2,000 per month in Social Security benefits. This would give you $24,000 per year and $480,000 over your estimated 20-year retirement. This would reduce your total amount needed for retirement from $840,000 to $360,000. Depending on your choices before retirement, you may receive income in retirement from company pensions or annuities you have purchased. Calculate how much you will receive from these benefits over the course of your retirement and subtract that amount from the total that you need for retirement. For example, if you expect to receive $6,000 per year from these payments, this would give you a total of 20*$6,000, or $120,000 over the course of your retirement. This would reduce your total required retirement amount to $240,000. Determine if you have any sources of passive income that you will continue to benefit from in retirement. These can include rental properties, royalties, dividend securities, and business investments. Add up the total value of these payments over your retirement years and subtract this figure from the total. Subtract your Social Security benefits, income from annuities, and passive income from your total retirement cost. This figure is how much you will need to save before retirement in order to meet your goals. Using the previous figures, you would need to save a total of $240,000 before retirement.