In other words, the formula makes no allowance for contributions to a retirement plan while your kids are in school.

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Now, in terms of the COLA, the formula -- COLA stands for Cost of Living Allowance, so it's put in place to make sure that Social Security is keeping up with inflation.

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Based on the formula for calculating income, the allowable distribution was only about 29K per year representing an allowance of less than 4%.

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