One question I hear a lot is “when should I start taking my social security payments?” In case you didn’t know, you can start taking the payments as early as age 62, but you can lose 25% or more of the monthly payment you would get if you waited to your normal retirement age to start taking benefits. There are many factors to consider – obviously it makes no sense to take benefits at 62 if you are still working since you earned income will reduce benefits by a percentage until your regular retirement age. Since you will get an even bigger check if you wait to age 70 to claim benefits, you have to weigh several options.
It seems that if your family has historically lived to a ripe old age and you are in general good health and don’t the money to survive right away, it will make sense to wait until your normal retirement age at least to start collecting. I think I remember seeing that if you start collecting at 62, you would come out ahead if you lived to around 80 or less (not scientific, I just think I remember reading about the dilema and in the article they mentioned around 80 as the magic number.) Above that age it would have paid you more to take the bigger amount at your retirement age instead of the early, smaller monthly payment. So there you go; now you have enough info to make a sound well-thought out choice. Good luck with that.