Why Smart People Take Social Security at 62

[Nodpete]

I was self employed so I paid both halves of my SS benefits. We both took ours at 62. She gets what equals 1/2 of mine because it's higher than what hers would have been. This was 13 years ago and we still live off of SS. Plus we put some $ in the bank every month. We have never had to touch our investments and they keep growing. But, and this is the answer as far as I'm concerned, we paid off the house before retiring (several years before), have and never have had any credit card debt (pay it off every month), pay cash for our cars and don't live beyond our means.

[TuborgP]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Isn't 62/70 where the lower career income half of the couple collects at 62 and the higher income half defers to 70? If the high income person dies in their 70's, the low income person receives their higher benefit. It's all about the actuarial math of joint survivorship. One of you will probably make it well into your 80's.

Since I'm not married, I haven't paid much attention to whether that part of Social Security law is still in effect. Did killing off file & suspend last year do away with that strategy?

It did away with the higher benefit spouse being able to take spousal benefits at age 66 based on their spouses age 66 benefit not half of what they are now getting. That was the great part as it made waiting to 70 easier.

It was really great with my wife who had a much better than average benefit to begin with and I was close to max. For reasons I have shared before I went ahead and declared shortly after 69 because I didn't trust the government not to shutdown. Irony was the brief hours long shutdown was right when my paperwork would have been processed had I waited. Had I waited and the gov't was shutdown for a period of time I could have been screwed out of a check or two.

Again my wife was able to declare at 62 on her benefit and not mine and has never had anything to do with my benefit.

[mathjak107]

62 /70 refered to file and suspend usually. Your wife filed at 62 and collected . At 66 you filed and suspended . Your wife got a spousal adder if 1/2 yours was more than her full.. It was less than 1/2 your full if she filed early . Then you left yours to grow to 70 .

That option is gone . No one can collect off you unless you collect too unless divorced

[Submariner]

If we were all confident that we were all going to live beyond age 90, then it would be a different discussion. In reality we do not know how long we will live.

My Dw wants to get the most from her SS policy, so she wants to wait as long as she can. But that is the accountant side of her brain speaking. She has already had five heart attacks, and we do not anticipate that she will live to see 90. We do not need the money either way, but she paid into her SS policy for years, and she would like to see some of that 'investment' returned to her.

I have no reason to believe that I won't live long, but as we age our bodies do come down with maladies. My cancer has returned and I start radiation therapy soon. It should not kill me regardless of what happens. But it is depressing. So I am on the fence regarding if I should take it 'early', or wait.

I do hate the idea of investing in a policy for so long and never seeing any of that money returned.

To this thread, claiming it is 'smart' to blah blah, or not. If we all knew our exact time of death, these discussions would become so easy. That critical bit of information is withheld from us, so it is a guessing game.

How are you 'smart' when guessing on how the dice will roll? A guess is still a guess.

[TuborgP]

Originally Posted by mathjak107

62 /70 refered to file and suspend usually. Your wife filed at 62 and collected . At 66 you filed and suspended . Your wife got a spousal adder if 1/2 yours was more than her full.. It was less than 1/2 your full if she filed early . Then you left yours to grow to 70 .

That option is gone . No one can collect off you unless you collect too unless divorced

Hers was more than 1/2 mine so she has never filed or done anything with my SS. I did file spousal on hers at my age 66( got benefit based on what she would have gotten at 66) and never did anything with mine until post 69.

[StillRoaming]

Originally Posted by Submariner

I have no reason to believe that I won't live long, but as we age our bodies do come down with maladies. My cancer has returned and I start radiation therapy soon. It should not kill me regardless of what happens. But it is depressing. So I am on the fence regarding if I should take it 'early', or wait.

Submariner, I'm sorry to hear you have to go through more treatment. I understand being on the fence about SS. Nine years ago I went through treatment for cancer. My doctors say I'm fit as a fiddle, the cancer is nowhere to be seen, and they have given me an excellent prognosis. However, I realize I have to be realistic that the future is maybe a little more uncertain for me than it is for others. Thankfully for all of us, there seems to be new and improved treatment options that may turn cancer into chronic conditions for many or, dare I say it, cure it for good. It really throws a wrinkle in planning for SS, though.

I have 4 more years before I have to make the decision of taking SS at 62. My husband is 11 years older, in poor health, and already collecting. I always thought I'd wait until 70 to start SS, but now I'm thinking I should take mine at 62. That way we would be pulling in his larger amount as well as my reduced amount. I believe that should my husband predecease me, then I would be able to collect his higher amount when I turn 67, my FRA. To the experts out there, am I correct in this assumption?

I realize that at some point survivor benefits may unfortunately come into play. Should that happen, the game plan will change if I haven't started to collect yet. I'm not sure how that would work if I've already started collecting my own benefits 62. For now, I'm putting thoughts of survivor benefits aside, but I remain aware of them.

As it stands today, I'm leaning towards taking SS at 62 so we will hopefully be able to collect simultaneously for a while. I don't have to take it and would probably just save it, but in our situation, I can't see any value for us in my waiting to collect. We would still have more together even with my reduced rate, and I would be fine with just his should I be left alone. His would be just a couple of hundred less than what mine would be if I wait until 70 to claim my own.

I appreciate all of the SS threads and the information all here provide, so thank you to all for sharing your knowledge and experience. One thing these threads have taught me is that there is no one right answer regarding SS.

[mathjak107]

Originally Posted by TuborgP

Hers was more than 1/2 mine so she has never filed or done anything with my SS. I did file spousal on hers at my age 66( got benefit based on what she would have gotten at 66) and never did anything with mine until post 69.

just the fact that our spousal situation is different is reason enough to call that article bunk as advice across the board .

we were the test dummies for fidelity's optimizing social security software . it is used in house only and not an on line tool .

we were one of the first to have it run as a test case .

it was impressive as it went for the most dollars assuming average life expectancy for a couple our ages .

the plan it came up with was after file and suspend was done away with so that was off the table .

my wife filed at 62 and was already collecting . she is 2 years older than me .

so their software had her stopping her early ss at her fra and letting it start to grow again until 70 .

when she is 70 she would start again , i would be 68 and 10 months . i would file restricted application for 1/2 her full leaving my own to grow until 70 ..

at 70 i would file for my own and once i filed she would get an additional spousal adder to her benefit .

so it came up with a pretty complex plan for most dollars and spending ability .

but we decided in the end to let her continue her early benefit . i filed at 65 and she got a nice spousal adder to hers of over 4k a year .

65 worked great for us for a number of other reasons .

at 65 i could file for medicare and be protected under hold harmless .

i could do all my side gigs this year which i like doing , like my teaching at my old company 1 day a week , my drumming which has turned in to quite a bit of studio time and our photography which brings in money through out the year and get the special terms for the year i will be fra . i can earn 3x the limit and give nothing back the way the special rules work for the year you will be fra .

my wife turned fra so now she gets no cut on the spousal adder that is added to her early benefit . if she was not fra and got spousal both hers and the spousal see a cut.

for every year we waited after that she did not see more than 4k in spousal added to her benefit .

it was a good balance for us between market risk and longevity risk .


so you see , while not maximizing the dollars possible by waiting until 70 , it was a good balance because of other factors .