Deferring SS

[street]

If you read the posts before your comment, you'll see that most people are keeping to their plan. There's just one person who said that they have changed their mind. Some others are watching & waiting.

Our plan is to have both of us wait till 70, but most calculators are suggesting that the lower earner take SS early and let the other one wait till 70. Our benefits are pretty close in value.

I read all the posts some more then once. Lol

My point was.

If a thread like this came up in the past there would be an overwhelming response of waiting till age 70, not so much the case in the last 3 or so months.

There isn't the responses trying to convince or persuade the waiting till 70 like it was at one time. That is what I was trying to bring out not that there was 3 pages of posters changing their minds but not trying to sell there idea on waiting till 70. There is a lot of rethinking of it now more then I have every seen. Before it was a convincing wait!

The shoe doesn't fit everyone the same way, so do what you feel is good for you, is my stance on SS. No right way or wrong way IMO.

 

[CRLLS]

I am curious as to WHY people are changing their SS plans. Was it because they now feel vulnerable? Was it due to prematurely losing a job's income, changing their financial plan and they will need the money? Was it simply due to having more information now as opposed to when they made their original SS plan? Are they barely FI to start with?

FWIW, DW filed at her FRA. 9 months later, when I was at FRA, I filed for spousal benefits on her records, leaving my benefits growing until I file on my records at 70. I know this is not available to others today. My backup plan was always if the SHTF, I could always file before then if needed. I do not see anything yet in our situation to cause me to rethink any part of the plan to wait until age 70.

 

[Ed B]

The reason I will take it closer to 62 than 67 or 70 is we adopted our grandson this past Feb 19th. Tomorrow, May 16th, he turns 8 and I turn 60. We share a birthday. My wife currently receives SSDI and he will receive half of her benefit once we have his new birth certificate to show Social Security. My SSI benefit at age 62 is twice as much as her benefit. Once I start SSI our son will receive half of my benefit. That is a lot of money that will go a long way toward paying for his college as well as his piano lessons, etc now. The kid is very musically talented.

 

[Tiger8693]

No anticipated change here. Running some calculators, it has said I (higher earner) should take at 70, and DW (about 50% of my earnings) should take at 62. As I approach FRA of 67, we will see where we are on our other holdings and take each year/month at a time. Can always start mine before 70 if needed.

 

[eytonxav]

But you do have an uncanny ability to predict the stock market, even if it's inadvertent.

W2R is good at flashing the time to sell warning, now I want her to come up with when it's the right time to buy

 

[golfnut]

Given the current state of affairs, I am thinking of taking ss earlier than I originally intended. I originally intended to take ss at FRA, which is Oct 2021. I'm thinking of taking it now, or wait until Jan 2021 to get one more good roth conversion. DW is taking at fra this september.

So I won't be taking it a lot earlier than I originally intended since I'm so close to fra. But I do think that a ss haircut 10 years from now would make it more sensible to take ss earlier that originally thought.

Sounds like you and I were born same month/year - Aug/1955. I am thinking about taking ss this august when I turn 55 - comes out to approx. 92% of fra amount. What I need to look into further is how adversely it affects my wife who is 3 yrs. younger and her ss is appreciably less than mine.


I was going to wait until fra but 2 events has made me reconsider - hit a health snag this year and now the market.

 

[tmm99]

I'm still planning to take mine at 66.5 but I may take it sooner if the market turns and I lose, say, 50% of my investable asset or something, but I think that would be unlikely.

 

[CardsFan]

Sounds like you and I were born same month/year - Aug/1955. I am thinking about taking ss this august when I turn 55 - comes out to approx. 92% of fra amount. What I need to look into further is how adversely it affects my wife who is 3 yrs. younger and her ss is appreciably less than mine.


I was going to wait until fra but 2 events has made me reconsider - hit a health snag this year and now the market.

That makes 3 of us in August 1955!

DW took her much lower SS at 65. I will wait until FRA plus a few months and make 2 more Roth conversions.

But I did just sign-up and got my Medicare card

 

[harllee]

I hope I can stay with my original plan to take my SS at age 70--I am almost 69 so only a year to go. I was the higher wage earner and in good health. DH whose health is not as good took SS at 62. I was one of the grandfathered people so I was able to get half of DH's SS at 66 and I will convert to my own SS at 70. I retired at 50 so I only paid in about 27 years or so but many of those years I had a fairly high salary so at 70 my SS payment will be around $3000. Looking forward to that.

 

[Octogirl]

Defer SS

That makes 4 of us in August 1955!

I' ll wait until FRA and do Roth conversions this year.

Plan to sign up for Medicare next week

 

[jollystomper]

Am I to assume that most on this forum are at or near the maximum benefit allowed under Social Security? 35 years of work history plus a salary for each working year at or above the threshold for SS taxes would be needed. I suspect some here would qualify (including those who appear to have won the game many times over), but how many who were truly early retirees?

For me, it depends on how you define "early" <grin>. I started working at Megacorp at age 21, worked for 39 years, maxed out SS for 35 of those years, and retired at 60. I evaluate whether or not to take SS on a yearly basis. I am 62 now, my current earliest target is 64. At that age my pension plus my SS and spousal SS benefit will result in a 0% SWR for our generous expense plan.

I am not sure about waiting to 70. my older brothers and sister (5, 8 and 9 years older than me) are my "canaries in a coal mine" to see how their health goes (and all are in good health now now). Two took at their FRA, one will take later this year when he turns 70.

 

[CyclingInvestor]

No, I am still planning to collect starting at age 62 in a few months. I don't need it but the family history math says take it.

Just applied online last week. Took less than 5 minutes. Not quite maximum - 27 years maxed, plus a few partial years, retired at 48.

 

[PandaBear]

Dh is eligible to start SS this October at 62. That’s been the plan. I do not get SS and won’t get a survivor benefit. Since dh is 4 years older than me, it seemed to make sense to take it early.

However, I’m still working and we’ve discovered my salary and his pension is enough to make things work out just fine, especially since all our travels have been cancelled. I’m socking away money for future trips. So we may delay him taking it for a year or two.

I work in education and planned on working 2-3 more years. But with Covid, that may change. And if that changes, our plans for SS may change yet again.

 

[chilkoot]

The plan, such as it was, was to wait at least until FRA (still about 3 years away). My inclination was to wait until 70. Now the inclination has moved the other way.
Just have to wait and gauge feelings in a few years.

 

[Out of Steam]

However, I’m still working and we’ve discovered my salary and his pension is enough to make things work out just fine, especially since all our travels have been cancelled. I’m socking away money for future trips. So we may delay him taking it for a year or two.

So much of our budget was for travel and restaurants, that our spending has been well below budget. We've made two unplanned transfers to savings since March, and have set up automated transfers through October.

On the original question: My spouse will take at 62, I'm postponing until 65 and will reconsider then.

 

[street]

Sure is interesting the change of thinking from just a year ago. Waiting till 70 isn't all what it is cracked up to be is the picture I'm seeing.

 

[braumeister]

Most of our SS was paying for our fun travel budget, which is extremely low this year for obvious reasons.

So most of the surplus has been diverted to charitable giving. The local food bank is a big one, and so many other places. We would have spent it all anyway, so it's only right that it go to others who need it. Plus it makes me feel good.

 

[Sunset]

Sure is interesting the change of thinking from just a year ago. Waiting till 70 isn't all what it is cracked up to be is the picture I'm seeing.

I don't see much change in thinking, before some folks were living off the increasing dividends, and rising stock prices, year after year.

Now that those are reduced, they are considering other ways to get money.

If I was renting grazing land and suddenly nobody was renting it since they had killed off their herds, would I want to sell the land cheap (since grazing is no longer viable) or look to other sources of income until things return to normal ?

I'll bet folks did get used to the 10 year bull market, so the plan B, seemed pretty remote and faded from thought. It's my plan B, but I'll hold off until things get REALLY bad.

 

[jfn111]

My plan has been to take SS at FRA. (I turn 64 this week, so 28 months from now). My main reason to wait for FRA was to keep selling real estate and not get penalized for to much income. If the RE business goes to crap then I might revise my plan.

 

[Born2Fish]

I plan to start SS at 65. (Born Aug, 1958)

DW (5 years younger than me) will start hers at 62 and will change over to spousal at 67.

I am flexible and can start SS earlier if needed.

 

[tmm99]

I guess you can start getting SS early if the market takes a huge downturn, but if the market gets better, you can stop the SS and restart it much later? Is that even possible? I'm not planning to take my SS until my full retirement age, but I was just wondering...

 

[MissMolly]

I guess you can start getting SS early if the market takes a huge downturn, but if the market gets better, you can stop the SS and restart it much later? Is that even possible? I'm not planning to take my SS until my full retirement age, but I was just wondering...

Yes, but you can suspend only after you reach full retirement age.

 

[Oakster]

I have not run the numbers yet because I am only 50 and my wife is 45. My thoughts are to take it as early as I can and invest it etc. I do not have great odds of longevity, although most in my family live lengthy lives. I need to lose a substantial amount of weight to make that happen. My wife is in great health but both of her parents passed of cancer prior to 70. Until I run the math to see different, I imagine we will try to collect early and often, as opposed to waiting.

 

[HI Bill]

I have not run the numbers yet because I am only 50 and my wife is 45. My thoughts are to take it as early as I can and invest it etc. I do not have great odds of longevity, although most in my family live lengthy lives. I need to lose a substantial amount of weight to make that happen. My wife is in great health but both of her parents passed of cancer prior to 70. Until I run the math to see different, I imagine we will try to collect early and often, as opposed to waiting.

If you have enough assets to defer SS, the tax benefit of doing so, coupled with incresed earnings, may outweigh your desire to take it early.

One reason to defer to 70 if you have enough other assets is that you can spend distributions from tax-deferred accounts between 59.5 and RMD age, without paying taxes on SS. Filing MFJ, 85% of SS is taxable if your Provisional Income is >$44K.

My plan is to spend taxable gains through 59.5, then maximize tax-deferred distributions prior to 70. That way, when SS kicks in, I will have minimized my tax bill throughout my retirement, if no major changes to the tax code don't force changes to the strategy. I'll enjoy 8 years of lower taxes (nearly no Federal taxes), while minimizing future tax liabilities.

 

[joedil]

Holding steady

I’m 67, and currently taking a spousal benefit as my wife started soc sec age 66, two years ago. I retired at 58, and have managed just fine. I started collecting a state pension at 60, and we have several ret accounts that we are not even tapping yet. Our current income - state pension, a deferred comp account and some TIAA-CREF accounts — brings in about 10-11k per month with fixed costs ranging about 4K per month. I was traveling about two months per year but I suspect that this will be reduced significantly, thanks to the virus.. hence lower overall costs. But I will wait to 70 to collect my full soc sec — last time I checked, my benefit would increase from about $2300 per month to about $3200. Yes something may happen to soc sec around 2035, but I will take my chances....