How Many of you Retired at 62, took SS, and invested it?

[Perryinva]

@mathjack: My point was that the vast majority of couples are not delaying $40k/yr for 8 years by delaying. I’m sure there are some out there that are (and for high earners, even more) but my point has always been there is no right or wrong answer for all the same reasons that a thousand threads about it have been launched upon.

One of the wealthiest persons that I personally knew had never had actually earned her income in her entire life. She never had an actual job, where she performed duties, (besides SAHM), just a title in her fathers company, with all her investments inherited and handled first by her father, then her husband. At 62 she filed for her SS simply because there was no reason not too. It was literally an inconsequential amount to her. At 65, she went on Medicare, and immediately was paying the highest IRMMA tier, which she always complained about. She was a health disaster, and passed away from a stroke at 68.

From an objective point of view, she filed correctly. The financial aspect was clearly moot. Of course, this is an extreme example, and most people (including me) would gladly give away their SS if they could have a fortune such as hers.

The OP asked about filing at 62 & investing. You did not. You filed when it made sense to, based on legitimate reasons, both financial, circumstantial, and emotional. But the bottom line was that while for years you were a proponent of delay until 70, based entirely on income financials of the superior annuity that SS provides, once you got there, the certainty of that annuity meant less than the FOMO on the earnings of the withdrawals. You COULD have rather easily delayed as planned. But once faced with the bird in the hand vs two in the bush, you chose to file because realistically, it will not make a huge difference either way, and emotionally, since all your income is investment based, not reducing your portfolio an extra $40k/yr felt better. Or possibly (since I have no personal insight in to your health), you are betting that neither one of you will make it to 90 and you always want a maximum inheritance for your heirs. Your reasons are your own.

SS is a major part of our planned retirement income. While I emotionally like the idea of delaying until 70 and collecting a $52k/yr SS, realistically, as the OP has opined, it takes a long enough time to make back what you didn’t collect, but even more time if that collected money was invested.

If I was suddenly single, I would file at 65, (now 64) once I went on Medicare, simply because it is more convenient. I would have plenty of income and want for nothing. It will be somewhere around $36k/yr then, and with my pension and portfolio, more than enough. Maximizing inheritance for heirs is extremely low on my radar. Diversified Income is more important to me.

I only plan on delaying until 68, as that would provide a solid livable income, (coupled with her pension), for DW should I pass first. Most people like to categorize the uses of their income based on their sources. The woman I mentioned always called her SS her wild money. DW collects a small RMD each year from an inherited IRA, and always spends it on art, because she says she likes to think of it as a gift from her mother each year. (I tactfully don’t mention that it was actually her fathers IRA that her mother inherited 2 months before she passed away after her husband did, because that shatters the illusion of it as her mothers gift). It’s all the same to me. Like the old joke, “what’s hers is hers and what’s mine is hers”, she enjoys the “I’ll pay for this with my money” when she wants something that is “unnecessary”. I know she is not really a spendthrift, so I don’t question any purchase she wants. I stopped saying a long time ago, it’s all the same money, just where it’s held is different.

So while “her” SS always sits in her savings account earning nothing, so per the OPs question “No, we do not invest that SS”, I do invest a bit more aggressively to make up for that, so in essence we do. (Periodically she pulls a large amount from it to pay for something, like travel or part of a car purchase. It is entirely an emotional based financial movement, that makes her feel good. That’s all that counts, at that level.)

On a similar note, she does not like that I am doing Roth conversions and paying the IRS & state taxes early. She doesn’t like the decrease in the portfolio balance. Every time I tell her that a quarter of what is in our IRAs actually belongs to the government, it bothers her. My job is to pay the least amount of taxes legally that we can, based on the current tax laws, which maximizes our income for the long haul. We can only guess how long that haul will be.

[mathjak107]

For many it is really something that becomes not even worth dwelling on . Non investors , those who are tight for money , etc may want to try to maximize things delaying but even they need money to live on .

So it really becomes a much discussed topic that ends up being a moot point for a lot of us .

As I said pretty much what should happen is your draw is your draw regardless of whether you file early or delay .


If one has to step down in lifestyle or wait years to first spend more and enjoy the money then delaying has to be evaluated .

So income shouldn’t change , only the make up of that income should change ….taking ss early will have it less of your money early on and your own investing , money providing more of it after 70 vs the reverse filing later .

What changes is the balance left over in both cases and since most of us don’t bounce the check to the undertaker the balance being a bit higher or lower at the end becomes irrelevant since either case can end up bigger