The news is in, a week late this year due to the current government shutdown: The expected increase in Social Security benefits will be 2.8% for 2026.

Our most common regret, as seniors, is that we didn’t save enough for retirement, or that we didn’t start saving early enough in our lives.

Somewhere along life’s highway most of us learned to balance a checkbook. This task usually involved a pencil, the back of a used envelope and some basic math.