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My concern is what my wife gets and if all she gets is survivor there's no reason why I should wait to age 70 to draw.
If I wait to age 70 I would draw an additional $683/month.
Figuring interest at 2% if I start drawing at age 66, while continuing to work, in four years I will have $101,856.00 saved. If I withdrew at $655/month it would last to age 85 and in the meantime if I died first my wife would get whatever it left which would be better than $80,000 if I died at 72.
The only way to mathematically prove that one strategy is better than another requires that you know the date that is going on your death certificate. So it really comes down to intuition. The safest course for long-term financial security is to defer payments, although law changes or tax changes or your funeral could really mess your planning up.
I don't think future changes will affect near-retirees.
Last edited by marcopolo; 06-12-2010 at 07:43 PM..
Reason: improve language
See, here's my $.02 worth.
Why work those extra few years if you'd rather retire?!
The bigger issue is retire at 62 or at 66 or someplace between!
At my age, I wanna do what I wanna do, and I'm not going to stress about a couple hundred more a month.
But I'm still hanging on at work myself.
Please contact SS directly and ask them the same questions. What I post is my understanding of what they told me, but you may get a different understanding. I am inclined to start collecting at 66 also, based on what I think I know. It is such an important decision, however, that I keep asking the questions to make sure I understand the SS procedures. For us, a $200 a month reduction could mean the difference between my surviving wife being able to pay the light bill or not.
"There is wisdom in much counsel" the Bible tells us.
I hear ya man but $1500 wont cover the bone and $2100 will.
I hear what you're saying. My DH and I are both nurses (I'm an NP, he's an RN). We are currently 56 and 59 and enjoy good health. Although we still enjoy our work, it seems in the past year we talk about retirement constantly! Mainly the financial end but it has gotten to the point that we now are so looking forward to retiring! We've pretty much decided that we'll retire at 66. My SS at 66 will be just over $2400/mo and would go to just over $3000 if I worked until 70. My husband's benefits are just a little less. In past years, we both thought we'd wait until we were 70 but now, no way! 66? Bring it on!!
Folks do the research on the 62/70 strategy for some married couples. It sounds like the winner for some folks with their stated goals etc. Remember one of you can defer to 70 and start collecting spousal benefits on the others SS at 66 and then switch to your own at 70. I previously posted a link to a
Forbes article on it.
OMG I'd be retiring at 62 and go fishing or something fun. There are AN AWFUL LOT OF PEOPLE who die between 65 and 70 years of age and never get to enjoy the retirement that they worked so hard for.
Party dude.
20yrsinBranson
And so many who lived well into their 90's broke because they blew it all in their 60's and didn't build a solid enough base for life beyond 75. Sorta like those who blew it in their 40's thinking 65 would never really be that important.
Survivor benefits are based on the amount of benefits the deceased retiree was receiving at time of death. So, yes, waiting until you are 70 years of age to collect will provide the greatest benefit to the surviving widow/widower (assuming the survivor benefit is greater than the surviving spouse's retirement amount on his/her own record.) Here's a link to a paper that mentions this and also explores tax ramifications of collecting social security versus withdrawing IRA distributions. http://www.prudential.com/media/mana...Strategies.pdf
I just cannot imagine working until I'm 70.
I can't even imagine working until I'm 65.
I'm tired of working now.
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