can I assume you have a fat govt pension to provide for you generously?....and if you didn’t need to take the “govt’s” money then why did you take it at age 62?
I left the US and retired in 2011 with ZERO pensions and $1000 in rental income. In the 8th month of 2015 my military reserve income kicked in.
So no, I had no “fat govt pension” providing for me. The fat govt pension was about 1/2 of what I would have received if active duty.
While I am not the OP, I can tell you why I took the govt's money at 62, even though I probably didn't "need" it.
The dirt simple answer is that the gov't taxed me to get the SS money for other people all of my life. The promise was that they would pay me when I got old. I had no choice, no opt-out -- they took the money under threat of criminal action against me if I didn't pay it.
I knew at the time it was a bad deal. If I could have invested that money on my own I would be much better off today. So, I did the next best thing. I took it at the earliest opportunity and used it for living expenses. I left my money invested and growing.
There is nothing wrong with this. The government made the rules. I put in the effort to understand them and made the choices I thought would be best for me.
P.S. The common advice to postpone taking SS in order to get a higher benefit is highly suspect. The boys and girls at the SS administration calculate all of their examples without taking the time value of money into account. But if I owe something to Uncle, the friendly folks over at the IRS know all about this time value thing and charge me interest.
Some of us have fat private pensions :)
I took SS at 62 because I’m pretty sure , given my medical condition, that I’m not going to get it for very long.
I retired at 62 as well and took SS. I did the math and it would have taken 15 years to make the difference up if I waited till 67. I didn’t start saving for retirement until I was 45.. I didn’t think I’d live to 45 so I put the maximum away. Wife did the same.
SS was not designed to live on, it was to help. It should never have been a program period and should be phased out.