I was recently made aware that people can start collecting at age 62, even when they have not yet retired.
Yes, you heard that right. I had an employee that recently retired at age 69. In his exit interview, he casually mentioned that all his bills were paid off because he had been collecting social security - on top of his salary that we were paying him - for the past 7 years!
Is this crazy or what?
Sure, you can do that, but SS caps out your outside earnings. After you earn a certain amount ($16,920 in 2017) SS starts to deduct $1 from SS for every $2 you make after that threshold. So, yeah, you can “double dip” but you have to be careful.