When to Accept Your Social Security Checks

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When still in our early 60s, Dee and I launched an extended discussion of when to turn on our Social Security income spigot. We were NAPFA financial advisors, so we had more than one reason to examine the question.

We even interviewed the ladies behind the window in the Social Security office in downtown Orlando. They urged us to start taking our money at age 62. We didn’t.

We could afford to wait until we turned 70.

So that’s what we did. For us, it was an excellent decision.

Our monthly income is a lot higher than it would have been had we accepted the advice so eagerly given to us at the Social Security office downtown.

In the May 19 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Waters examines the oh-so-important Social Security question: When?

The example she cites tells us why to wait. Take the earliest possible retirement and the monthly check is for about $1,628. Or wait till age 70 and the monthly income flow is about $2,939. Annually, that’s $19,536 vs. $35,268.

Or twice as much if each spouse qualifies for those same examples.

To estimate your own Social Security retirement benefits, visit the Social Security Administration’s website.