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with all your doom and gloom the chances of someone who is part of a 65 year old couple, seeing 85 is 73% . those are pretty high odds of it being us . you may want to plan accordingly as most of us will go on . in fact it isn't until 90 that a couples chances are reduced from a coin toss when the chances of someone in a couple are reduced to 47% .
that is almost a 50% chance one in a couple will still be here at 90 .
what if i die isn't the problem . the bigger problem is what if i live .
for those living off ss and their own investments they either have to bet on markets and interest rates more , or bet on their own longevity more . the way the last 15 years have been i rather bet on our own longevity by delaying and being less dependent . with average life expectancy extending out 1 year more every 4 years now that seems to be the surer bet .
you can call delaying silly if you want but if you follow any of the polls on forums one of the highest regrets folks have is taking ss to early when they found they really are still alive at 70 . as they say deciding to take ss later is a decision you will never live to regret .
there are lots of reasons for taking ss early but about the weakest reason is usually what if i die.
feeding the numbers into firecalc delaying ss adds an additional 3 to 5% to the success rate depending on draw rate . it actually adds more to the success rate then an annuity would .
OTOH - if you live long - unless you have very cheap long term care facilities and very high SS payments - the odds are SS won't pay for long term care (I know you have some arrangement that is particular to New York - but it's not the norm in most states).
On the third hand - if you're like me and my husband - well if we both needed long term care - we have a lot of equity in our house - and that would pay for any long term care we needed for quite a few years.
This stuff is all so particular and individual. Very hard - perhaps impossible - to generalize.
Note that when my husband and I took early SS at age 62 - our break even age was about 78-79. We're 68 and 71 now. If we both live to 85 - in retrospect - we perhaps could have made a better choice. But I have never believed in kicking myself in the a** for making what I thought was a rational decision at the time I made the decision. Robyn
My husband and I retired quite a few years ago - and have never spent a dollar in principal.
although that only covers about 20% of our annual expenses. Robyn
Doesn't that mean that your portfolio earnings returned 80% of your expenses?
Seems that spending into principal is likely for most every retire we are only seeing part of the picture now due to above average retuns the last few years.
I think one factor is that the earlier you take Social Security, the earlier you will start paying income taxes on it. We can thank the Reagan Administration for that one. Each earlier year reduces your payout.
When I run MY numbers whether to take it at 62, 66 or 70, break even is around 81 years.
Tells me that Social Security is sort of longevity insurance.
Doesn't that mean that your portfolio earnings returned 80% of your expenses?
Seems that spending into principal is likely for most every retire we are only seeing part of the picture now due to above average retuns the last few years.
Well yes it does. And it was even more a lot of years because we retired quite a bit before we started to collect SS.
I really think a lot depends on what you have - what you earn - and what you spend. The second can be variable - and the last can vary as well. I think the attitude of some people here is they want to spend-spend-spend when they retire at an early age. Because isn't that what they've been saving for for decades? OTOH - some people are afraid to spend 10 cents.
I think peoples' situations vary a lot - from one person to the next. And - if you have haven't learned how to use a spreadsheet or spreadsheet type progam yet - planning for retirement is a good time to do so.
Note that although I am not optimistic about the life spans my husband and I might have - at ages 68 and 71 - I think at least one of us will make it to 80 - although I doubt the odds of either of us making it to 90. When it came to our parents - 3 were smokers. The youngest to die was 79. The other 2 were 84. The only non-smoker is still alive at 97. Robyn
I'm pretty sure there's a govt effort to make people believe that waiting to get full benefits is something people should do since I've seen a lot of articles and forum posts about it in recent years.
When I wear my tinfoil cap, it's clear to me that the govt hopes a nice percentage of people holding out for FRA will not make it that far and they won't have to pay it out for those people.
The Social security system is expected to become bankrupt in 2035 so it looks like for some people the payments could stop while they still have 10 or 20 years to live.
The voices in my head tell me to take SS as early as possible and save as much of my retirement money for as long as possible.
Just Google it. A million articles will pop up.
Besides it's ending soon and unless you're 66 by April 30th you can't take advantage of it anyway.
this is not exactly correct :
anyone who is 62 by Jan. 1, 2016, can claim spousal benefits only when they turn 66, assuming their spouse is already claiming Social Security or was old enough to file and suspend by the April 30, 2016, deadline. Filing a restricted application allows you to claim only your spousal benefits — worth half of the other spouse’s full retirement age amount — while your own retirement benefit continues to grow by 8% per year up to age 70 when you would switch to your own larger benefit.
people in their late 50s or just turning 60 or so do not have any such options.
Last edited by mathjak107; 03-11-2016 at 03:51 AM..
I'm pretty sure there's a govt effort to make people believe that waiting to get full benefits is something people should do since I've seen a lot of articles and forum posts about it in recent years.
When I wear my tinfoil cap, it's clear to me that the govt hopes a nice percentage of people holding out for FRA will not make it that far and they won't have to pay it out for those people.
The Social security system is expected to become bankrupt in 2035 so it looks like for some people the payments could stop while they still have 10 or 20 years to live.
The voices in my head tell me to take SS as early as possible and save as much of my retirement money for as long as possible.
statistics show otherwise , a 65 year old man has a 62% chance of seeing 80 , a woman 72% and a couple a whopping 89% .
they know more will live to collect at 70 then die and most will do far better then break even . they can't tell you who will live but the numbers speak for themselves .
there is still a 73% chance someone in a couple will see 85 .
there are so many factors you have to consider as to when to take ss and the least important as i said is what if i die .
the most important can be survivor benefits . if you have a younger wife and you file early and yours was the bigger check , she can see a double cut . she gets a reduced benefit because you filed early and if she now has to file earlier then her fra she gets cut again .
this happens at a time where there is now a loss of one ss check and tax filing goes from married to single .
that can be financially devastating .
each of us has many factors that will determine our optimism age based on our total situation . very few situations will be exactly alike .
odds are if you are basing it on what if i die there will be a ramification to what if you live somewhere in the deal that will hurt you and odds are that is the one that statistically will play out . .
what if i die is rarely as much a problem as what if i or my spouse live . plans should be made around covering the living .
i know my wife wants as much a pay check in the mail box every month as she can get . after being a widow once and having a pile of investments dropped in her lap that did not do well she wants less dependency on markets .
so while i am an investor at heart i have to consider what she wants too .
Last edited by mathjak107; 03-11-2016 at 03:23 AM..
anyone who is 62 by Jan. 1, 2016, can claim spousal benefits only when they turn 66, assuming their spouse is already claiming Social Security or was old enough to file and suspend by the April 30, 2016, deadline. Filing a restricted application allows you to claim only your spousal benefits — worth half of the other spouse’s full retirement age amount — while your own retirement benefit continues to grow by 8% per year up to age 70 when you would switch to your own larger benefit.
people in their late 50s or just turning 60 or so do not have any such options.
If you use the same inflation numbers for something like Medicare - you'd probably be talking about $30k/year for Medicare. OTOH - I don't think the inflation numbers you're looking at are realistic. Note that 20 years is a long time. Robyn
It is straight from the SS Calculator/Estimator........ there are two, one where you can "estimate", and one which pulls your actual data. On the SS website.
And of course I know estimates can be off and things change, but I'm assuming they use a standard 2-3% inflation rate increase, and the numbers line up. And I was including my wife in those numbers too.
I don't know enough about Medicare..... so it wipes out half of your SS, is that what you are saying?
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