Social Security benefits after a divorce.

Also read this. It applied to me when I divorced, and being able to delay receiving my Social Security payments (thus allowing them to grow to their maximum) while receiving benefits based on my ex's was a great help to me financially:

"If your ex-spouse was born before January 2, 1954, and has already reached full retirement age, they can choose to receive only the divorced spouse’s benefit and delay receiving their own retirement benefit until a later date.

If your ex-spouse’s birthday is January 2, 1954 or later, the option to take only one benefit at full retirement age no longer exists. If your ex-spouse files for one benefit, they will be effectively filing for all retirement or spousal benefits.

benefithttps://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/applying7.html#:~:text=If%20your%20ex%2Dspouse%20was,benefit%20until%20a%20later%20date.

No, don’t cut money for kids. A lot of families with kids are sorely struggling because they lost jobs or couldn’t work or had to pay for childcare during the pandemic. My perspective as a senior, age 70.

I would never encourage anyone to be dependent on schools teaching student good financial habits. If those choosing teaching really understood how to make and acquire wealth it's unlikely they would have chosen teaching as a career. The responsibility of educating one's children about money should rest with a parent or family member.
My 1st W was a big believer in entitlement rather than responsibility. It took a huge amount of effort to convince my sons there were few if any free rides in life. Now my oldest son is passing along those same philosophies of independence, self reliance and finance responsibility to his sons and daughter. If you want your progeny to understand how money works, and how to make it work for them, then instill a respect for it and educate them to be responsible with their finances.

And I agree with you on Soc. Sec. If I had been able to invest the money withheld every week by the gov. for future benefits I would probably be a millionaire now.

In my jurisdiction schools don't teach financial responsibility.

I think they should, but the fact is, they don't.

In any event, the example YOU set (be it a good example or not) for your kids is the one that might stick. There's no guarantee either way.

My two kids (adults now) were exposed to the same example by me and my then missus back in the day. My eldest was financially responsible, my youngest was not.

Then of course, there's what Brother Handy says. The advertising of financial services that are a straight out rort.
And in my jurisdiction, the proliferation of pay-day lenders and suchlike all adds up to people (not just kids) being beguiled into the instant gratification of "having it now".

Western economies are built on this principle.
If we were individually all financially responsible, then collectively, the world economies would stall and crash.

So be glad that there are plenty of financial idiots who take on enormous debt via easy credit .... they are the ones who keep the wider economy ticking over.
That, can work in your favour if you are prepared to make some short term sacrifices for a longer term gain.
You don't have to follow the sheople.

Baza
The advertising of financial services that are a straight out rot.

We uses to have car title loans but the state government curtailed that practice because the actual interest rate was somewhere around 40% or 50%.

OK, I saved part of my first 1965 Army pay, a $1 dollar bill and a $2 bill. Those 2 fiat currency instruments will now only buy 10% of what they used to buy and that is a reason why inflation (really devaluing the dollar) hurts savers. OTH, land and real-estate investments really increased in value.

Army pay in 1965 for me was $68 a month and we were paid in new bills, 3 twenty's, a five, a two and a one dollar bill. Yes two dollar bills were common in Army pay. At the time I was supporting my mother so I sent her $40 and the Army added another $50 a month.

As long as we believe the numbers mean something. Exactly, baza.

One of our past Federal Reserve chairs once quipped, "money is spiritual." I think most people miss the depth of that. The only thing that gives it value is our belief that it has value.

That extends beyond fiat currency. When gold and silver were the standard, they still fluctuated in value, but at least there was something of value there. Today, I can't even burn a digital dollar to keep warm. Even the promise that the government won't print so many that they become worthless isn't in vogue, anymore.

Everyone who invested in Enron is grateful for social security.
Basic finances aren't getting taught.
I've zero faith in Americans investing acumen.
You'd have half the country buying Gamestop just as it's about to crash.
The 2009 crash was a bunch of broke rubes trying to get rich.

Further, Social Security also is built in disability insurance.
It never runs out, unlike many people's nest egg. (Ignore the tripe about the trust fund being insolvent, deficit spending will cover the living expenses of the most reliable bloc of voters before it ponies up for anything else.)

Absent Social Security taxes, that financial incompetence would have many people spend it all, drive up inflation, and have it vanish from their future, leaving them no better off today and without even social security income. We're back to seniors begging in the streets 1930's-style or dragging down the prospects of their kids. This will also drive more people to have more children like their do in third world nations. There's much angst about declining birth rates, but our world population must stop growing eventually. Physics demands it, not philosophy.  More immediately, the energy resources we require for Bitcoin mining and other stuff is pointlessly extravagant and potentially going to bring about a much harsher population reduction that a birth rate curb.

We pay for others' retirements. A little discussed benefit is the stability it brings to society. Manual labor that ends in poverty makes the prospect of illegal activities a sorely tempting option. A livable retirement becomes the finish line. One that doesn't exist in poverty. It is a goal one looks forward to rather than a looming age of doom. Third world nation government corruption and oppression is fueled by this fear of a future with no connections to resources and wealth. Economic savvy means selling pieces of your soul. There are jobs to be had in countries where wealthy tourists get kidnapped. But typically no plump 401Ks.

If everyone invested only as well as you, the ubiquity of millionaires would mean houses would cost 2 mill on average and it wouldn't be that great. Only works if only you don't have to pay those taxes.

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Teachers not savvy about their future? Not everywhere.
www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/20-states-where-teachers-more-090000269.html

Multiple states pay their teachers more than their state's average. If not for unions putting math and science teachers' earning power on an artificially level playing field with English majors, the skewing might be even more profound. Or perhaps the salaries would sink to the state average with the STEM teachers earning well above and the humanities a touch below. You know, like professions in general.

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The credit revolution ran its course.
Everyone inclined to buy with it did to their level of comfort.  Bankruptcy reset some of the consumers and left the rest of us pretty embittered that we're doing the right thing.
It resulted in the exhaustion of credit by everyone who uses it poorly. We've reached equilibrium and money velocity is settling to that which existed before credit was a thing.
Mortgages are at very low rates, savings interest is very poor. 
Fiscal policy is screaming for investment and consumption but everyone who could borrow has and everyone scared of borrowing refuses to pay the minimal interest banks demand.

After the dot com boom busted, what was left?

Cash infusion. Stimulus.
Trillions poured in.
Earned income tax credit-Clinton
Tax cut, Medicare Part D and two Wars - W
Tax cut, "shovel ready" projects, Cash for Clunkers and Obamacare - Obama
Another tax cut and Enhanced unemployment - Trump
Infrastructure overhaul, more unemployment help, baby-making bonus, and now rural internet and child care subsidies push? - Biden

The Fed worries about inflation but four presidents have been pouring money in trying to stop inflation from going below 0%
People that live on a cash basis like me didn't need the stim checks. Result, so much cash in our account that we're taking a river cruise she's always wanted. 
A reckless foolish move that people used to put on credit cards. But they can't anymore.
Trump and Biden needed me to start buying stuff and I couldn't as long as my bank account didn't increase. Keynesian hammering of the unemployment rate and helicopter money is what was necessary to get timid spenders like me to open our wallets. 0% interest rates weren't low enough. We were not paying for unnecessary things with our slavery.

Trillions added to the economy and a 2% inflation rate are the endgame of the credit revolution. Some living in perpetual servitude to the banks. Others living humbly until the economy sputters and they are bribed into enjoying life just a little. The plutocracy will become increasingly unhappy that people must be persuaded to spend their time creating wealth. There will be a reckoning. And another one after that.

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Free cell phones.  Heh.
I have a ZTE $30 phone connected to TracFone prepaid. I get zero respect from the cool kids.
I pay $6/month. I can't eat their respect and envy.

1965 is about the worst starting point for savers possible. Nixon unlinked the dollar form gold and the dollar assumed an equilibrium after Carter appointee and Reagan holdover Paul Volcker strangled the money supply to stop the bleeding.  The same methods have been keeping inflation at 2-4% most of the time and I have every expectation the same methods will tame any overshoot Biden is causing with the massive cash avalanche. Raising interest rates from near zero to two should be a hard brake on inflation and give savers somewhere safe to put money again..

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Never did like the canard that money only has value because we believe it does.
If you don't get some money, your clearly tangible, valuable property will be seized or a court order can place a lien on it.

Money has value as long as the state has tax collectors.
Taxes are what give money value. States, counties, and cities cannot endlessly deficit spend even if nations do. The local principalities will always ensure that fiat currencies in stable governments have value. Nearly all criticism of fiat currency is levied at unstable governments with no reliable collection mechanism (sometimes the reliability has been sabotaged by unreasonable expectations of the populace and thus, tax evasion)

This makes for interesting observations of nations that don't print their own, Germany, El Salvador, Greece, and especially Britain which did, and did not, print their own currency, (pound and euro simultaneously) before the Russia-sponsored Brexit vote broke the best economic model in world history.

Money being spiritual may have been alluding to "consumer confidence".  If millionaires are concerned bread will cost $50,000 per loaf tomorrow, they may be inclined to spend all of it now and drive the bread up to 20 grand today. I've heard of such philosophical musing from economists. It doesn't mean money is ethereal. The meaning of money can decay, but seldom vanishes like a ghost.  Except when Rick Sanchez flips a bit in the Galactic Banking center.