When you decide to retire, you’ll have a lot of decisions to make. It is best to plan ahead. Whether that date is today, in 2030, or sometime after that, you don’t want to wing it. That’s particularly true when it comes to your Social Security decisions. Here is what you need to know before you collect your first Social Security check.
You decide when, or if, you take Social Security
You don’t actually have to claim Social Security if you don’t want to. Of course, most people will, but the timing of that decision is massively important to consider. You can claim as early as 62, but your payment will be reduced relative to the check you’d collect if you waited until your normal retirement age. If you claim after your normal retirement age, your check will increase.
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The Social Security Administration is very clear about what to expect. If your normal retirement age is 67 but you claim at 62, your benefit will be reduced by 30%. You can’t rescind that decision, so your check will always be lower than it would have been if you had waited until your normal retirement age. To put a number on that, you’ll get just $700 for every $1,000 of benefit you would have received if you waited until your normal retirement age. That’s a significant drop.
Waiting makes your Social Security check bigger
Every month you delay claiming Social Security, the amount you will receive increases. And that doesn’t stop until you reach age 70, which is well past the normal retirement age. For each month you delay beyond your normal retirement age, your check will increase by two-thirds of 1%. Your Social Security checks will be locked in at a higher rate.
If you can afford to do so, perhaps living off your retirement savings and investments and waiting to claim Social Security makes financial sense. But, as with all things, you have to consider other factors. For example, if your health is poor or you simply need the money to survive, waiting might not be the best option. This is why the single best decision you can make is to plan ahead before retiring, so you can make educated choices about things, like when to claim Social Security, that will impact you for the rest of your life.
Given the very clear SSA guidelines, the timing of when you start collecting Social Security is one decision that you don’t want to make on the fly.
