there are a few other things to consider:It suggests the lower earner begin benefits at 62 while the higher earner waits until 70 to maximize overall payouts. That said, our goal isn’t just to maximize benefits — we’d rather have a larger cushion in our early retirement years so we can feel more comfortable spending without worry.
Has anyone else taken a similar approach?
1. the reason the higher earner should delay til 70 is so in the event that person dies the survivor will be left with a higher benefit for life. If both take at 62 the survivor will be left with a permanently reduced benefit (maybe they still get a bump from the higher earner if they deceased first) but still far less than if the higher earner had delayed til 70. So if you want to be kindest to your spouse (if they were the lower earner) you'd want to leave them more (rather than less) guaranteed safe SS income for the rest of their life.
2. It depends which types of accounts you may be drawing from. If you're able to draw on taxable while delaying SS til 70 (just the higher earner not both) that strategy could leave you with more lifetime money overall. Similarly, if you take SS early to not draw on retirement accounts, you could just find yourself with a much larger retirement account and RMDs could be a problem depending on the size of account. If instead you draw down from retirement accounts while delaying SS you wind up with lower RMDs later AND if one of you dies, that would also help the survivor who will be filing single rather than MFJ.
Statistics: Posted by arcticpineapplecorp. — Sat Nov 08, 2025 10:21 pm — Replies 25 — Views 1322