You can apply for Social Security retirement benefits when you turn 62 years old. This is the legal age of retirement at its lowest rung. I say lowest rung because you actually have the option to retire any year you want once you turn 62. The longer you wait to start receiving these benefits, the higher your payments will be.
Let’s provide an example of what the payments may look like if you wait. Below is a real payment schedule from an actual person:
Retire at age 62 (Early retirement): $858 per month
Retire at age 65 (Full retirement): $1247 per month
Retire at age 70 (Delayed retirement): $1558 per month
As you can see, the Administration incentivizes you to wait as long as you can. The longer they don’t have to pay you out, the better for them. It’s pretty simple.
Start Retirement As Soon As Possible
Recently, famed financial advisor and radio personality Dave Ramsey said that he believes everyone should start taking payments ASAP. This is because Ramsey is skeptical of the entire program. He even called it a “mathematical disaster”.
Ramsey says that you should only follow this advice if you have a decent savings. If Social Security is your only source of income and you have no or low savings you may need to continue working. However, his distrust of the SSA coupled with the fact that nobody knows how much time they have left on Earth has led him to dispense this advice.
Retirement and Social Security
“Oftentimes people don’t understand the Social Security system until they need to use it. Learning the system and how much your payments will be is something that is in your best interest,” says Maria Riddle, a Social Security Disability attorney in Melbourne, FL. “You can register and log-in to check these things at any time by going to their website SSA.gov.”
The SSA handles both retirement payments as well as disability payments. These programs were created to compensate for people who didn’t or were not able to put away a nest egg to finance their own retirement or in case of emergency.
After citizens pay into these programs for many years, they become entitled to the benefits which they have earned. This is where the term “entitlements” comes from.
The Health of the Program
From time to time you will hear politicians speaking about Social Security saying that the program needs to be overhauled or it will go flat bust. This happened for several reasons. The fact of the matter is that the program acts as more of a mutual or slush fund and not as an individual savings and benefits program. The government has borrowed funds from it and has mishandled payouts. There is no doubt the system will need to be restructured very soon. In fact, there isn’t a financial expert out there who doesn’t agree with this premise.
Savings on Your Own
It is imperative that you create your own savings to avoid having to depend solely on these programs. These savings should include financial vehicles like IRA’s, CD’s, traditional savings & mutual funds. Diversification is your friend when it comes to investing for the future.
Having your home and vehicle paid off by the time you retire is also another great idea. In a worst case scenario, you could always put another mortgage on a house that you own outright.
