The Top 3 Social Security Mistakes to Avoid Leading into Retirement

(don’t forget to checkout the video of this blog too)

Social Security is a great resource for retirement planning.

Not only is it one of the best sources of inflation protection …

It’s also the primary source of guaranteed, lifetime income for most folks leading into retirement.

That’s why you want to be sure not to make any mistakes in planning your Social Security Income.

Here are 3 big mistakes to avoid leading into retirement:

✅ Collecting Social Security Too Early

Life expectancy is a lot longer than most people think in retirement.

Most people think life expectancy is 76…

But, that’s your life expectancy at birth (and that’s not how life expectancy is calculated.)

Life expectancy increases over time.

So at a retirement age of 65 life expectancy has increased to 82/83 for men and 85/86 for women…

50% of retirees will outlive these life expectancy figures above, and there’s an even better chance that at least one of you (you or your spouse) will outlive the life expectancy estimates.‼️

That’s why it’s important to have retirement income that lasts as long as you do…

And why it’s often smart to plan on living a long life and doing the best you can to maximize all of your sources of retirement income.

Including Social Security.

Now sometimes it does make sense to collect your benefit early (but in most cases, waiting so that you can maximize your benefit is a financial smart decision to make in retirement).

✅ Not Maximizing or Taking Advantage of the Spousal Benefit

A lot of people aren’t even aware of the Social Security Spousal Benefit.

It’s actually a benefit that goes uncollected in many cases.

The Spousal Benefit exists to ensure the lower earning spouse can collect up to 50% of the higher earner’s benefit (if their own benefit it less).

Make sure you aren’t sacrificing retirement income (especially income guaranteed for life) simply because you don’t know the rules.

✅ Relying Solely on the Market for Inflation Protection

Delaying your Social Security is one of the absolute best ways to protect your assets from inflation.

It’s also not subject to ANY market risk‼️

Each year that you delay Social Security you are increases your fixed, guaranteed income by 7–8%.

This is a great way to protect your retirement income plan from the devastating effects of inflation.

It’s still important to have retirement assets in the market in retirement…

But most retirees have a much lower tolerance for market risk once they actually retire.

So don’t overestimate how comfortable you will be with fluctuations in the market in retirement (and be sure to protect your portfolio from being eaten away slowly by inflation).

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