At what age did you begin to get your monthly SS check?

68

Was making highest salaries at end of my hardware electronics career that replaced the lowest of the 35 years the SSA formula counts when I was still a relative peon. Thus my delay was primarily not about the usual logic of delaying in order to receive a slightly higher amount. Now 6 years in, this frugal person has not had to withdraw any of my modest bank savings because am able to live fully off the benefit amount.
 

HarryHawk said:
Waited until I was 70. I was grandfathered so that I could draw 1/2 of my wife's benefit while waiting.

I didn't immediately need the money, it was paying 8 % a year to wait. My main motivation was if something happened to me, my wife would have more income in case she lived a long life. If we both died soon, who cares about money left on the table. My son and DIL are both MD's and have good incomes. They would just waste await our money on trips or expensive watches.

It was a no brainer for me.
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but no one should confuse an 8% increase in ss is with it being the same as equaling an 8% return

that 8% increase comes with a cost …that cost is all the checks you are not getting , any spousal you aren’t getting , any Medicare increases you get that are not covered under old harmless , the spending down of your own invested assets to live on .

your return is zero up until more than age 90 ,so don’t confuse an 8% increase that costs all those things the same as an 8% return
 
mathjak107 said:
but no one should confuse an 8% increase in ss is with it being the same as equaling an 8% return

that 8% increase comes with a cost …that cost is all the checks you are not getting , any spousal you aren’t getting , any Medicare increases you get that are not covered under old harmless , the spending down of your own invested assets to live on .

your return is zero up until more than age 90 ,so don’t confuse an 8% increase that costs all those things the same as an 8% return
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Not sure if your break even math might be off a bit -

Starting at 70, you'd get approximately $970 more a month, or about $11,640 more a year. It would take about 10.4 years to break even, so you'd be 80 and change when claiming your maximum monthly benefit begins to pay off in terms of total dollars.

https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/questions-answers/retirement-benefit-break-even-age.html#:~:text=Starting%20at%2070%2C%20you'd,in%20terms%20of%20total%20dollars.

If a woman makes it to age 70, her life expectancy is 87.6 years. A man the same age has an average life expectancy of 84.1 years.

I decided to play the averages, if I chose wrong - Oh well
 

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HarryHawk said:
Starting at 70, you'd get approximately $970 more a month, or about $11,640 more a year. It would take about 10.4 years to break even, so you'd be 80 and change when claiming your maximum monthly benefit begins to pay off in terms of total dollars.

https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/questions-answers/retirement-benefit-break-even-age.html#:~:text=Starting%20at%2070%2C%20you'd,in%20terms%20of%20total%20dollars.
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That is only true if someone is supporting you .other wise most of us are laying out the money we are not getting from either invested assets or cash we are holding that could be put back invested .

it assumes no spousal benefits are due as well , like my wife couldnt get a 4500 a year spousal adder to her benefit until i filed .

famous researcher michael kitces looked at all the factors involved in breakeven , not just in checks given up .

for delaying ss to breakeven with early ss and a balanced portfolio it took until age 90 without including any spousal due

.

the number you see quoted most often is very misleading because it assumes you are not spending money to lay out the ss while waiting.

we had beta tested fidelitys in house software for them called optimizing social security .

it found the best way to manipulate spousal benefits for the most dollars .

we gave it a thumbs down .

if failed to interface with all the other parameters like spent assets , taxes , ability to do roth conversions , not being covered under hold harmless on medicare premiums .

they agreed , it made a huge difference and they pulled the software out of use


i-KmsGcPL-S.png
 
mathjak107 said:
That is only true if someone is supporting you
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Huh? The math is the math in terms of how much money SS pays out to an individual.

Your chart shows 3% inflation and a 6% return, when was the last time that was true? Did the chart get adjusted for the past two years when inflation was 8% and the growth was - 17%? By picking whatever numbers you pull out of the air, break even could be anytime.
 
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HarryHawk said:
Huh? The math is the math in terms of how much money SS pays out to an individual.
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There are other factors ..

like you need to live on money , yes ? You are spending money to live on without the ss checks .

spending invested assets or money that you hold as cash and could be invested but is spent is a cost of getting those checks .

we gave up 4500 in spousal too delaying since my wife couldn’t collect .

you cannot count just the checks given up …there is much more then that involved .

we made more invested and have a larger income with early ss and not pulling out the money to live on then we would have had we delayed.

from 62 to 70 would have depleted almost 400k That is gone and no longer generating income or appreciation.

so if you are looking only at the checks you could be missing the big picture .

that quoted breakeven works if you are working from 62 to 70.even then it wouldn’t be accurate since if you were working you could have invested those ss checks for fra to 70 so there is a greater breakeven from delaying in that case

.
 
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I can make the same circular arguement about any investment. The money I had invested in A could have been invested in B and made some money or I could have paid my electric bill but since it was invested I had to use other money from my bank account which I could have saved if I hadn't invested in A.
 
HarryHawk said:
I can make the same circular arguement about any investment. The money I had invested in A could have been invested in B and made some money or I could have paid my electric bill but since it was invested the money I had to use other money from my bank account which I could have save if I hadn't invested in A.
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You are totally not getting it ….
if one is giving up the checks delaying they are giving up that amount of money that historically if it was just left alone in a balanced portfolio or put in a a balanced portfolio would average 5-6% over decades ,it always has .

most retirees who delay need to front themselves that money while delaying so they are spending down the money they are not getting .

in our case we would have drawn out about 330k plus colas in checks we didn’t get .

delaying ss would take someone until 90 to get enough in larger payments to equal the same balance as early ss and not spending that money you layed out

if you can’t under stand I can’t help you
 
I waited until FRA (66 and 4 months). I just received my first regular payment this month. I didn't want to wait to 70 years of age because I was not comfortable with the break even at 82 years old. I worked until FRA and didn't need the money. All things considered it was a good move for me. I have a pension, social security, way low debt, and savings. I'm going to go and live my best life.
 
HarryHawk said:
I always has until it doesn't

We agree
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Statistically the odds of a balanced portfolio and early ss meeting 5-6% over a typical long term retirement period spanning 3 decades is about 90% .

in fact. 50/50 has never ever lost money over any 10 or 20 year period

the riskier bet is betting on longevity Since odds of one in a couple making it to 90 is only 47%


so odds are that early ss and a balanced portfolio not being used to lay out the ss money delaying will beat delaying ss for most of us over typical lifetimes …..odds of one in a couple seeing 85 is 74% .

so delaying ss would likely end up behind as well as be a bit riskier betting on the statistics of longevity
 
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I'm 62 and still working part time so I'm not getting SS yet. I'd like to quit working but I'm not sure when. I have no delusions of plenty of money to travel or do anything. I just need to be able to support myself, the cats and a little left over for this and that.
 
I started getting my Social Security when I was 66 years old and was still working. I did something I heard about from a financial lawyer. Because of tax laws I would have had to pay high taxes on the Social Security because I would have been over the limit. Where I worked at there was a 401K retirement plan that I put money into that was not taxed. So, I in effect put the equivalent amount of money I got from social security into my 401-retirement plan. This way it kept me from having to pay higher taxes. I retired when I was 67 and 1/2 years old. Wy wife was not working and started getting her social security money when she was 62, when I was 64. So, from that time onward an equivalent amount of money was put into the 401k plan at work to balance out our taxes. She is on the 401k plan so in effect it is our 401k plan.
 
The irony is that most who retire at 62 and need the bigger payments at 70 , don’t have the resources to live on without spending down their own savings or invested assets dangerously low .

it’s kind of a catch 22 .

For most of us it also wouldn’t be the best thing to do to live a less then lifestyle or not have a full budget to live on for 8 years while waiting for ss to kick in to first spend a penny more .

delaying works best when one can have the same budget all the way through , by simply laying out the ss they are waiting to collect .

but that means spending down invested assets to live on .

it may mean you are spending down more then you will live long enough to get back since you need to make make not only the checks you gave up collecting , but all the gains you may have given up on the money you fronted yourself and the money you spent down you wouldn’t have spent if you had ss .

plus if there is any spousal one’s spouse couldn’t get for those 8 years .

also one is not covered under hold harmless if delaying .

that means your Medicare premium increases are not capped at the cola amount .

I was paying more for Medicare then my wife when we first went on it since she filed and I didn’t .

so the reality is to delay and not have to live on a reduced budget , means laying out money upfront that most Americans don’t have saved.. as well as if they do , the spendown down leaves them dangerously low.

so for most Americans who stop work at 62 , they can’t sustain themselves safely until 70
 
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I started collecting a spousal benefit at my full retirement age of 66. Then I switched to collecting my SS at age 70. I did this because I wanted my wife to have the maximum possible SS if I die first. We were fortunate to not be forced to take SS early. Wife retired at 59 and I retired at 61. I have no regrets for waiting to age 70. Now our combined SS plus interest/dividends from after tax investments more than covers all our expenses.
 
Tom52 said:
I started collecting a spousal benefit at my full retirement age of 66. Then I switched to collecting my SS at age 70. I did this because I wanted my wife to have the maximum possible SS if I die first. We were fortunate to not be forced to take SS early. Wife retired at 59 and I retired at 61. I have no regrets for waiting to age 70. Now our combined SS plus interest/dividends from after tax investments more than covers all our expenses.
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It works out well either way …one can have a bigger balance and higher income for a spouse either way delaying is a heavier get on longevity while taking it early is a heavier bet on markets and inflation .

either had the potential of being the better deal but both will work just fine
 
at 62, 2012. Primarily for cash flow.

Other reasons for early SS:
$2012 the Market was recovering nicely after the Great Recession. We had to give the Markets, time to recover inorder achieve future asset goals.
$LongLived family histories.
$Deferred Variable and deferred Fixed, longevity-income annuities optimized at 10 years, 2018 .
$Above annuities also had purchased option to "step-up" to Market. We placed a option bet...we won, insurance-annuity company lost.
$Needed RE Market to recover because we had land and home that we calculated into retirement assets.
$Desired our son to be more established in his career.


notes:
Since 2018, our Income, is entirely Income base, not asset dependent.
Your retirement Income and assets used for Income, needs to be viewed holistically.
 
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