SSA gets a lot of flack for being slow, bureaucratic and difficult. I have a happy story (so far) to tell so I decided to share details here.
Backstory: 67 planning to defer to 70 but found out wife (66) who does not have enough qualifying credits can only use spousal benefit. Therefore I decided to apply now and she would apply after I am approved.
Steps (as best I can recall)
- Applied about 3 weeks ago for myself at age 67
- Checked progress bar on MySS site and exactly 2.5 weeks after submitting I received a phone call on Saturday (3/2/24) letting me know that my application was in process, reviewing the numbers and telling me she would be approving right after our call ended.
- I informed her that my wife would be applying for spousal benefit after I was approved (due to good advice received here, thank you very much).
- MySS site was updated when I check on Monday and status was approved.
- Today, Tuesday I received a message that a one time payment ($25K or so) of previous months from effective date will be paid to my bank
- The big bonus is she already processing my wife's spousal benefit and mentioned 50% of my benefit and that would be approved right after my approval
- Today my wife checked her MySS site and it showed 3 bars (approved) status
The big surprise is she(SSA) proactively took care of my wife's spousal benefit application before my wife lifted a finger to apply. I believe in a comment somewhere on the application I had mentioned that I was applying and waiting for approval and then my wife would apply once my approval was done.
The first thing I noticed is that her(SSA) attitude was very business-like as if she was waiting for me to be hostile or something. I was more than cordial bordering on giddy of how quick and easy this was, BTW. She still maintained a very business-like attitude as I suspect a lot of people are probably desperate and in need of this money. She explained everything very thoroughly, detailed all of the payments and the expected payment dates, etc. Here I am in a joyful mood that this process went so smoothly and she probably is not used to "customers" like me or something. LOL.
I thanked her for her work and attention to detail. She only said, "Good bye, sir."
Our plans at this point are to "lock-up" all of the funds that come in and work with the CPA to make sure estimated taxes are paid, etc. and then most likely build a ladder of secondary market zero coupon bonds and then move the funds to DCA into SPY when short term rates dip below 4%.
Backstory: 67 planning to defer to 70 but found out wife (66) who does not have enough qualifying credits can only use spousal benefit. Therefore I decided to apply now and she would apply after I am approved.
Steps (as best I can recall)
- Applied about 3 weeks ago for myself at age 67
- Checked progress bar on MySS site and exactly 2.5 weeks after submitting I received a phone call on Saturday (3/2/24) letting me know that my application was in process, reviewing the numbers and telling me she would be approving right after our call ended.
- I informed her that my wife would be applying for spousal benefit after I was approved (due to good advice received here, thank you very much).
- MySS site was updated when I check on Monday and status was approved.
- Today, Tuesday I received a message that a one time payment ($25K or so) of previous months from effective date will be paid to my bank
- The big bonus is she already processing my wife's spousal benefit and mentioned 50% of my benefit and that would be approved right after my approval
- Today my wife checked her MySS site and it showed 3 bars (approved) status
The big surprise is she(SSA) proactively took care of my wife's spousal benefit application before my wife lifted a finger to apply. I believe in a comment somewhere on the application I had mentioned that I was applying and waiting for approval and then my wife would apply once my approval was done.
The first thing I noticed is that her(SSA) attitude was very business-like as if she was waiting for me to be hostile or something. I was more than cordial bordering on giddy of how quick and easy this was, BTW. She still maintained a very business-like attitude as I suspect a lot of people are probably desperate and in need of this money. She explained everything very thoroughly, detailed all of the payments and the expected payment dates, etc. Here I am in a joyful mood that this process went so smoothly and she probably is not used to "customers" like me or something. LOL.
I thanked her for her work and attention to detail. She only said, "Good bye, sir."
Our plans at this point are to "lock-up" all of the funds that come in and work with the CPA to make sure estimated taxes are paid, etc. and then most likely build a ladder of secondary market zero coupon bonds and then move the funds to DCA into SPY when short term rates dip below 4%.
Thanks for sharing your story.
