When Do I Take Social Security and How Do I Optimize It

Hi! My name is Jason Bergquist. I’m a Certified Financial Fiduciary. I’m looking to help people optimize their retirement.

I’ve been in the financial services industry for over 20 years now. During this time, I have really done just about anything you can think of in this industry.

But over the past couple of years, I’ve realized that I want to focus more on the distribution side, rather than working with a company like Merrill Lynch or Edward Jones …

… or these financial companies that are looking to help you grow your funds. At this point in life, you’re looking at how to retire and not run out of money.

And a big part of accomplishing this, for a lot of people, is Social Security. And it’s a very confusing part.

When we look at Social Security, try to figure out what to do and how to do it, we find there’s so much information out there.

In fact, there’s over 567 different ways that you can take a Social Security Distribution so I want to empower you to create the Retirement of Your Dreams.

And the number one way we can do this is by understanding our options and what we can do with Social Security.

As you’re looking at Social Security, there are a couple of things you need to know!

One, most of the time you’re able to apply for and take Social Security between the ages of 62 and 70.

There are of couple of exceptions to this.

But the most common is taking Social Security between 62 and 70. But how do we decide?

Typicially we decide by talking with friends and family. And it seems most everyone just says, just take it as soon as you can. The thinking is to get as much money as you can.

Well, how do you know which way is best?

How do you know what is going to give you the most amount of money?

How do you know if you’re taking it for yourself or your spouse, or both of you, or how to structure that?

Well, do you call the Social Security Office?

Good luck.

You can try that, but they are not licensed. They’re not there to give advice. They’re order takers. That’s their job. You have to know what it is you want and call them.

Tell them how you want to structure it. So, as you’re looking at your Social Security, there are a couple of things that you need to pay attention to.

One, you can take it at 62, but do you want to?
Most of my clients, when we look at this, we try and figure out what’s going to be the most optimal, right?
When should I take Social Security? That is the Question!

To figure that out, we can run a report. A “Social Security Optimizer” report.

This will help us maximize our Social Security.

When you look at the report, you will see the break-even point is usually around the age of 80.

If you take Social Security at 62 verses 70, you would get more money per month at 70 than at 62. So a lot of people do the math and think there is no way that waiting utill 70 would pay you more.

… So where is the breakeven point?

…Around the age of 80 is what we need to focus on.

…Why 80?

If you took your Social Security at 62 and you lived to 80, or you took Social Security payments at 70 and you lived to 80, you would have received about the same amount of money.

Now again this general, I’m just talking in generalities, and giving a little bit of education behind Social Security options.

And where does this come from?

Well, here’s where it comes from.

If I told you that you could get a guaranteed 8% increase on your retirement monies every single year, no matter what the market does, would you say yes?

Am I right? I mean, I know I would, if you could give me a guarantee of an 8% increase on my money every single year, man, I’m in! Sign me up!

Well, that’s what social security does for you. You can choose to take it at 62, but every year that you wait, it’s going to go up by 8%. You’re going get an 8% increase in monthly payments.

So, obviously if you look at the dollar amount that you can get at 62 versus the dollar amount you can get at 70, it’s gone up by 8%, every single year.

That’s way more than inflation.

That’s way more than cost of living increases.

But a couple of questions come to mind. Do you need it? That’s the simple one, right?

If you need the money coming in to replace what you’re getting rid of in retirement, or replacing an income source, then you just need to take it.

There’s no real questions to figure out at that point, but if you don’t need to take it and you’re trying to figure out,

How do I optimize it?
Do I take mine?
Do I take my spouses?
Do I take both?

Now we should look at those numbers, figure out what your goals are and what you’re trying to accomplish?

Another element to this is, the longevity of your family.

Do my parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles live well into their 80’s?
Do we live past the average age of Americans?
Whether it’s 65 – 67 years old, if you live past these ages you can afford to wait until you’re 70.
It’s going to be better for you in the long run.
Then you have to look at it and say, okay, well, do I need it for health issues?
Do I need to take the money?
Do I need to take mine?
Plus, my spouse?

Here’s another good question, ‘Is Social Security going to go away?’

And I can’t answer that question for you. We can look at it. We can research it. We can watch what’s going on in our government.

And we can make a decision.

Most of the time, we’re going to get a heads up. For example, at the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic hit, the government was considering a 21% reduction in Social Security benefits.

This would impact those applying for social security.

I know there’s a lot of information. I know that it’s very confusing.

I know that you can look at news report, talk to friends, Google this and look that up. You’re going to get different answers and they will be all over the place.

I want to be that resource for you. I want to sit down with you. I want to look at those options, discuss with you how we can get the right information. Put together a report for you.

You can be empowered to figure out what you think is going to be best for you.

I just want to be a resource and help you figure out what’s going to be best for you, for your spouse, for your family, for your longevity, whatever the case may be.

Now I’ve just given you a couple of tidbits. I have other videos and I have a Free webinar where I go into this in a lot more depth …

… and I show some numbers and statistics so you can see the difference between taking Social Security at 62 vs. 70.

**One thing you can do is go to ssa.gov, create an account.**

And then we can look at those numbers and make our best guess.

Look at what we think is going to be good for us, but know that at any point, when it comes to social security, we can change our mind and apply for it.

But once we do apply for it, and once we do start taking it, we can’t change our minds anymore.

So, it’s very important that when we make the decision it’s the right decision. So again, my name is Jason.

I’m here to help you with your Social Security. You can click on the links below. Register for the Free Webinar or you can just click on the link that says, Schedule A Call.

If you just want to discuss your Social Security and you want to go through that piece of it again, my job, my expertise, what I’m looking to do …

… Is to Empower you with this information!

So you can create the retirement of your dreams and know the best way to utilize social security …

… and making sure that you don’t outlive your money. I look forward to helping you. I look forward to answering your questions when we get together.