Posted on 06/14/2020 6:46:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I opted to take mySocial Security at age 62. My rationale was that it will be far harder for the government to deny benefits to those already receiving them, than to deny, cut or otherwise alter benefits for those first applying at say age 70. If you are currently in your 50s you are likely to see greatly reduced benefits and if you are younger you won’t get a dime.
“Get it as soon as you can brother.”
Will do.
Every year you don’t take it is a year you might die as far as they are concerned.
“True but then you have to weigh the benefits. I started taking SS at 63. It would take me 9+ years to make up that difference in $$ I received from SS if I retired at 66. So I’d be 75 before I started seeing that benefit.”
Ditto, only I was 62 (last year)
I think it’s best to spread the investments out across 25 or 30 mutual funds with about 25 to 30% in safe funds like money markets, corporate bonds, and treasuries. Spread each of those across both short-term and long-term bonds/treasuries. The remaining 70 to 75% of investments goes to many growth funds in many sectors and different parts of the world (maybe 70% or so in the U.S.). The reason I like 70% in growth is because you need to be sure to outpace inflation in case you live many decades in retirement. The reason you diversify a lot is to almost always have some funds that are us even during severe market downturns. (I.e. my tech fund and health science fund and LT treasury fund did really well during the big stock downturn from mid Feb to late March.)
Of course congress blocked this. They would not have our money to spend.
Galveston County: A Model for Social Security Reform
http://www.ncpathinktank.org/pub/ba514
Workers making $17,000 a year are expected to receive about 50 percent more per month on our alternative plan than on Social Security - $1,036 instead of $683. [See the Figure.]
Workers making $26,000 a year will make almost double Social Security’s return - $1,500 instead of $853.
Workers making $51,000 a year will get $3,103 instead of $1,368.
Workers making $75,000 or more will nearly triple Social Security - $4,540 instead of $1,645.
Galveston County’s survivorship benefits pay four times a worker’s annual salary - a minimum of $75,000 to a maximum $215,000 - versus Social Security, which forces widows to wait until age 60 to qualify for benefits, or provides 75 percent of a worker’s salary for school-age children.
In Galveston, if the worker dies before retirement, the survivors receive not only the full survivorship but get generous accidental death benefits, too. Galveston County’s disability benefit also pays more: 60 percent of an individual’s salary, better than Social Security’s.
Buy stock to make money for retirement.
I have AMD stock right now which at the current value would be enough for me to get by for a few decades even if I spent the principle and never invested it again.
If the stock gets to $110 I figure I can retire more comfortably plus if you add in the near $2,000 a month social security check I would not ever run out of money.
I started trading stock in 2009 with Ford and started back trading again in 2014 when over the years since bought stocks that went up and up. How did I pick the stocks? I did a search on best performing stocks and choose the ones that had done well and what I hoped would be future growth. Apple, Netflix, Nvidia and now AMD. If AMD (53.50) performs like Nvidia (357.30) (similar product) then I can buy me a real nice boat.
My portfolio is mostly Vanguard mutual funds and EFT’s. I spread the portfolio over ten funds. I would pare down the portfolio by two funds, but the two I want to sell have been in my portfolio since 2005 and the capital gains tax is the great procrastinator. At my age (61), my portfolio is not as aggressive as is was a few years ago. My big holding is the Vanguard Wellesley fund: 65/35 bonds/stocks; with an average annual return over the last five years that ranges between 6.07% and 6.54%.
If the social security check only covers about a tenth of your mom's monthly expenses, your dad working the extra few years (if he lived longer) would't have made much of a difference.
Plan well, decide well. Do you enjoy your job? Do you own a business? Do you have life by the balls?
If you are currently working, those $$$ have to be entered into the financial equation.
What, realistically, is your life expectancy?
I still work part time....
the advantage of having a paycheck PLUS having a nice SS check are invaluable....paying off bills, having more cushion every month, having my work payfor most of my health benefits, life insurance,dental, vision, sick time and vacation and holiday time plus I haven't had to sign up for Medicare part B yet....
my husband is retired on tricare so I could have retired earlier if I wanted....I'm so glad I didn't ....
I still am able to save with tax advantages....
I work with younger people and it keeps me on my toes....
the advantages of remaining involved in life with important work are also invaluable...
I'm not very fond of stock/bond blended funds (usually that means target date funds, but in this case the Wellesley fund applies) for retirees. I like it for beginner investors starting a 401K or whatever and needing a quick fund or two to pick to get started. But long before retirement I always suggest in my financial small groups to spread them out.
The reason for that is to help you with withdrawals during retirement (or any other time you plan to withdraw). Let's say you have it all in a blended fund and want to withdraw $50,000 from it this year to live on. You can't withdraw all $50K of it from just the stock portion alone in a year when stocks are high. Nor can you withdraw it from the bond portion alone when stocks are down. About 65% of that $50K comes from stocks and 35% comes from bonds (if it's withdrawing from the Wellesley fund). So it forces you to withdraw some from a portion of the fund that's down at the time.
However if you had it all spread out in about 20 or 30 funds, perhaps with the same 65%/35% ratio of stocks and bonds as the Wellesley fund, when it's time to withdraw the $50K you can choose which fund(s) to withdraw from. And that choice for me is whichever fund(s) have the highest balance(s) at the time -- for whatever reason they're high -- without having to watch CNBC or whatever to try to figure out why some funds are high and other funds are low.
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