saving
Do note your wife’s SocSec is a % of your draw, so there is someextra incentive to wait till 67 or 70 if your better half is considerably younger and may rely more on SocSec after your own death.
This place ages you.
I was MUCH younger when I signed up...
I’ll be 62 in a few months. I’m divorced, living with my son, and I have health issues.
I’m taking the earliest retirement I can.
Nobody lives forever.
I reach FRA this month, and filed to begin the month after. I was kind of impressed at how fast and easy the process, and how good the communication, were.
I guess, from stories I’ve heard, that I expected it to take a long time and be full of glitches...
BTT
IIRC, my break even point is 80. I’d rather start earlier and have more spending money in my 60s & 70s than have greater wealth to pass to my kids after I die...
Right now I plan to wait until 64-65. That will be long enough.
Simply put, claiming SS early will allow our investments to keep growing a little faster at an earlier than if we waited until FRA to claim SS.
The payout penalties/rewards are based on providing an equal return for a person living to their expected life expectancy. So, if you expect to live long, then wait, if you’re going down early, then start the payments early. Also, because this system uses the same FRA for men as women, and women live about 5 years longer, on average, they should wait longer.
Before deciding to delay social security beyond the normal retirement age, you should compare that outcome with drawing social security, investing the money, and not spending any of that money until the alternate retirement age that you are considering.
Even at a lower than expected 5% annual return, drawing social security and investing it (in a low-fee stock mutual fund) appears to outperform delaying social security payments, and for me it continues to outperform until about age 90 (plus your kids can inherit the money that is invested but not the money that the feds hold) - but do the numbers for your tax situation. Drawing Social Security two or three years early may be an even better choice (for me to about age 85, but again depending on tax rates).
It’s shocking and unexpected that leaving your money with the feds may not be the best investment!
It all assumes that you’ll live that long. Lots of people are going to physical wrecks by the time they hit 70. It’s all really a judgement as whether you’ll be healthy.
Me. Yes probably. Don’t take any medications other than aspirin. 10+ years out. Ride the bike to work and walk the dog for exercise. Pretty sure that I know how to build up conditioning - over the years it’s getting slower to achieve results. OK, make that maybe.
Ive paid the max for avout 20 of the 35 years ive been working, still technically more than 15 years from retirement age
I ran numbers and I’m going to have to collect to I am over 100 years old to get back what ive paid....not counting interest
Years ago, AARP magazine had an article showing how SS was set up. New contributors were brought in to pay for those retiring. But the declared it WAS NOT a Ponzi scheme as all Ponzi schemes collapsed and SS had not collapsed.
A couple of pages later, Jane Bryant Quinn had an article on Social Security showing how it also was set up, just like a Ponzi Scheme.
Now we are aborting all the new workers who should be paying in, so must import workers into the scheme. To keep it solvent, 3 must support 1, then when those 3 rettire, 9 new workers must support them, then those 9 retire, 27 new workers must support them.
Now multiply that by 63 million retirees and you will see how in a few generations it will take BILLIONS of new workers to keep it solvent.
Well....I will grab that money as soon as I am legally able which is 4 years 3 days 5 hours and 29 minutes.....I will also work until I drop...I take time off sporadically say a month or so at a time...so retirement does nothing for me. (been self -employed for over 25 years)
My husband is having me take half of his social security Until I’m 70 than I’ll take my own. You have to be born between certain dates to do this.
full retirement age (FRA) based on his or her birth year. It’s 66 for those born between 1943 and 1954.
That’s when I started collecting.
Two points:
1) Social Security may not be solvent sooner rather than later, so whether or not you believe in it, never rely on it.
2) As soon as you request SS money, you are automatically enrolled in Medicare. Though a majority still prefer to get the “free money” of the two programs, a large number have decided to opt out, to never request benefits from either program even if they qualify. However, the government does not want this to be widely known.
3) Democrats fully intend to destroy Medicare as an impediment to socialized medicine. They may also decide to nationalize private retirement accounts as well to further ensure more government control.