I started at 62 last year. My breakeven is 80 and that’s when males in my family check out.
My wife has had three SCAD heart attacks and survived pancreatic cancer.
When we sit down with folks to talk about retirement planning and they say to plan to live until 90…we both laugh out loud. We are taking the money and running.
SS at 66, and I continued to work another 5 years. Glad I did that.
I also started taking Social Security at Age 62; mostly because I was diagnosed with Stage-4 metastatic prostate cancer.
I was told I had 3-5 years before I would die of it. That was almost 11 years ago.
Like you, I determined that I’d have to live until 79 to break even.
Every situation is different. Having that extra $1,700/month has been great.
I used to think break even was the be all, and all for deciding when to take Social Security. Deeper study showed that there is way more to it than that. There are tax implications. There is the consideration of when and how much you plan to withdraw from your 401k. There are higher Medicare premiums the more you earn.
I was drawing down my 401k and discovered that taking Social Security at 62, those dollars would be taxed at the higher tax braket 4% more than not taking it at that time and waiting until I slowed my 401k withdrawals.
There is so much more to deciding when to take SS than just the “breakeven”guess of how long you think you will live.