Surely if there are best times to claim Social Security, there must also be worst times and that’s exactly what William Meyer, the author of “Social Security Strategies” claims. He calls those periods of time that you absolutely should avoid applying for benefits rat holes. Surprisingly, Meyer considers 66 years of age to be the worst time to take your benefits even though a full retirement benefit for Social Security’s purposes is 66.
What can you take from this? The decision to take or not take Social Security at any particular time in your life is a decision that can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. Meyer claims that there are 20,000 pages of rules in Social Security. If you were taking a trip to somewhere you’d never been before wouldn’t you consider hiring a guide, especially if the trip was fraught with danger? Considering that for most Americans, Social Security represents most if not all of their retirement, it’s imperative that you seek an adviser to help you make the best of this very important decision because once you’ve selected a strategy you can’t change it. Here’s an article that talks about “rat holes” in Social Security.
A lot of articles exist about maximizing your Social Security but nearly everyone is talking about married or divorced people. However, about one third of all baby boomers are divorced, widowed or never been married and so don’t have many of the options available to their married counterparts. Many financial advisers presume therefore that claiming strategies for singles is straightforward. Not so says Meyers. Based on Meyer’s research, singles should never claim benefits between age 62 and one month and age 63 and 11 months or between age 65 and five months through age 66 and seven months. Here’s an article that focuses (a bit) on single people.
Talk to a financial adviser about maximizing your social security payments. You can call Aging Options 1-877-762-4464 to get referrals to financial advisers that can help you create a strategy to get the most out of Social Security.
