<p>Of course you’re not a dirtbag to optimize your benefit, you would be unwise not to. Especially since you have potentially paid out far more to support others benefit than you ever will collect for yourself. You may be getting a small additional benefit in ss, but in the overall scheme of things, it will be a small fraction to what you’ve paid, and what your children will pay.</p>
<p>That’s why so many of these social engineering ideas seem ridiculous to me. Certainly in the college game, people are rewarded for saving less money, having more children, getting lower paying jobs, having a parent stay home, etc. </p>
<p>When it comes to ss, I say make it like welfare. If you really need it, apply for it and prove that you need it. Otherwise, we’ll probably run out of money to pay benefits, while making future beneficiaries unlikely to get it…but that’s another topic.</p>
<p>Nothing scummy about getting back a tiny portion of the money you have put into the system, in its current form.</p>
Let me make it clear, I am not criticizing you at all, I apologize if I came off that way, as I said I would take the benefit if it was available to me without a second thought. No need to justify it all.</p>
<p>I’m criticizing the system.</p>
<p>
Ahhh… if you completely divorce the benefit from the tax, you risk losing all support from the people who do pay the tax. Well, it already is divorced, but there is a perception you are actually funding a pension for yourself.</p>
<p>The SS part of it is most likely going to be fine anyway, it’s the medical and disability parts that are in trouble. Although we have planned as if we will get nothing.</p>
<p>^Is it? Don’t people do that to get children’s and spousal benefits? If your kids is 12 years old when you turn 65, you can file to get kids’ benefits. Your benefit at 70 won’t be affected.</p>
<p>Once upon a time, DH and I both had pensions (with healthcare) in the works. But times have changed. He’s no longer working for that company and only has a tiny pension based on his 18 yrs of service. I do still work for that company, but due to my younger age I’m on the “new plan”/cash accumulation. Darn… it would have been nice to have a pension since there’s less guesswork on interest rates and lifespan.</p>
<p>“Although we have planned as if we will get nothing.”</p>
<p>I’ve found this to be a very effective planning tool, because it forced me to consider retirement approaches I’d have ignored if I’d convinced myself “With solid employers like Enron and Lehman Brothers, plus the half million we have with Mr. Madoff, we’ve got retirement covered!” True, Social Security will most likely be there … and true, the pension will probably be paid for at least a decade … and true, there probably won’t be a catastrophic medical issue in our future. But you never really know … and you can’t plan for every contingency anyway.</p>
<p>I don’t believe so. To get children’s benefits, you must file and receive benefits while they are receiving them (otherwise, I would not be receiving benefits now, as the children’s benefits are the reason I didn’t wait until 70). File and suspend does not work. I believe there is a way to file and suspend with paying back the benefits you’ve received, but that is too complex for me to consider.</p>
You used to be able to do this, but that option was eliminated a few years ago.</p>
<p>You could start collecting at 62, and pay it all back at 70, and then get the age 70 benefit from then on. It was essentially an interest-free loan.</p>
<p>So…can a parent at age 62 “retire” and start collecting SS so,the kids could also collect…but then work full time and have the SS benefit reduced? Or would the kidlet benefit then also go away?</p>
<p>I heard of a family who was going to file and suspend so that their young kids would be able to collect a monthly benefit. Are you saying this is no longer possible at all?</p>
<p>According to at least one semi-authoritative blog, it looks like you can file and suspend if you have reached your own full retirement age, and thereby have your spouse and chlidren receive benefits (subject to an overall annual cap on benefits that relates to your own–150%).</p>
<p>So you don’t have to take the benefit, but you do have to be eligible, and full retirement age, it appears (at least for the file and suspend gambit).</p>
<p>Can someone dumb that down for me? How does that file and suspend work? Too bad my DH’s father didnt know about the young kids thing. He was almost 50 when DH was born</p>
<p>Its a strategy that maximizes benefits to a family unit. There are lots of articles about it, and the ins and outs of doing it. Basically it involves having one member of the family who is eligible to collect social security insurance payments actually filing to begin receiving them, but then “suspending” the payments until a later date. This seems to allow your ultimate monthly benefit to continue to increase (it does that every year until you are 70, for actuarial reasons). Meanwhile, the "filing’ triggers eligibility for other members of your family…children if they are under 18, and also a spousal benefit based on the filer’s earnings ( I think its 1/2 of what the filer’s benefit would be if it were being drawn). </p>
<p>There are permutations on this that become complicated. When both spouses have been working, a decision has to be made on which one of them files and suspends. Also, I’m not certain, but I believe that the file and suspend technique only works at the point where the filer has reached what is termed “full” retirement age. That is different from the age at which you can first draw benefits, and is 66 years for many of us, but creeps up to 67 if you were born after 1960. Google soc security full retirement and you’ll find that part.</p>
<p>The idea behind it seems to be that receiving the spousal benefit doesn’t reduce the spouse’s own benefit from his/her own earnings record. So the spouse defers taking his/her own benefit until it reaches the maximum (age70) , and then stops receiving the spousal benefit and switches to his own benefit (assuming he has one).</p>
<p>With the leading edge of the baby boom approaching full retirement age, there is a lot of focus on these rules and how best to coordinate your benefits.</p>
<p>If you are looking for advice on CC, here is mine. Start preparing in your 20s and never ever retire. I said 20s because it is inevitable that you eventually will be kicked out (involuntary) retirement. I would never leave employment on my own, I consider it the worst thing that one can do to his/her overall well being.</p>
Which is why I spent the $40 on Maximize Your Social Security. Or, you could provide your financial situation on Bogleheads.org’s forum and get their help. They astound me with the extent to which they are willing to give out their expertise for free.</p>
<p>Retirement is too important to put off the planning for tomorrow.</p>
<p>PS to notrichenough: I forgot to reply that I wasn’t feeling that you were being critical of me but were making a comment about the system. No need whatsoever to apologize to me. I have been very lucky in life (yes, I’ve worked hard but luck has played a part in it), and there are times when I grapple with what my responsibilities are, what lessons I’m teaching my kids (who watch what you do more than listen to you), and what I should do for those who have worked every bit as hard as I have but who have not been as lucky.</p>
<p>Will look at the bogleheads site again. HArd to figure this all out, and with both spouses having worked and wife several years older than husband and looking towards retirement, it gets complicated.</p>
<p>I admit, I haven’t spent the $40 yet. Because I am 12 years away from any eligibility. I am saving as much as I can (and have pretty good egg stowed away), and likely will have an inheritance by then that also will be mostly stowed away for retirement. I do start getting a portion of my ex-H’s pension in January when he retires. My divorce decree says he has to pick the spousal benefit (so I will continue to get it if I survive him, which I expect to do given the gender and age difference). My assumption is that I will try to wait to collect SS until later to maximize my benefit, but when I am in my late 50s I will run the calculator to see what the best strategy will be in terms of taking mine, taking my ex-s, waiting, etc. I figure I will have a better idea then of both my health, my lifetime earnings picture (I may switch jobs/careers between now and then, which would affect it), and how long I will want to keep working.</p>
<p>@jym626: if you go to [Bogleheads</a> ? View topic - Asking Portfolio Questions](<a href=“Asking Portfolio Questions - Bogleheads.org”>Asking Portfolio Questions - Bogleheads.org), there is a description of how to describe your financial situation. The format is a helpful standard. I asked for help there a year ago, and I found the process of gathering the data to be instructive (it quickly became obvious that I had too many accounts, too many funds, etc.). Good luck.</p>
<p>For just an SS question, you don’t have to do the full-tilt format; if you describe your ages, earnings history (or just the SSA-supplied expected benefit that they send you every year), marital history if applicable, and general health, they can usually give you an educated guess.</p>