Why a 64-year-old retiree is draining her $1.1 million 401(k) early to maximize a $5,181 Social Security check at 70

Why a 64-year-old retiree is draining her $1.1 million 401(k) early to maximize a $5,181 Social Security check at 70

A monthly withdrawal of $5,181 x 12 = $62,160 annually – a 4% withdrawal from a $1.55 MM account.

That’s the power of a larger inflation-adjusted monthly benefit.

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So drain your own money in exchange for a government check? Something under somebody else’s control? Leave yourself with less of your own solid “money in the bank” as it were, wealth. Money that’s already yours. Stocks uber alles! SPY uber alles! Stocks for long run! Unless you can trade them for a government check. Shows you how people think.

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My thinking as well. Especially when that someone else is an administration and political party just itching to not hold up their end of the bargain.

In theory I have always liked the idea of a pension and understand the appeal. Get a life-long income stream, run by professional money managers. By people who should be much better skilled at that job than most people in the population. The entire problem is, of course, the money isn’t legally yours.

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Absolutely! People have been telling me that Social Security would be eliminated since Reagan was elected in 1980. Hasn’t happened yet, has it?

If you’re willing to put your money in US Treasury securities, you should be willing to follow the arithmetic on Social Security, rather than taking at at age 62 and leaving $100,000 to $200,000 on the table.

But like LTB&H, everyone has their own version of the arithmetic.

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Professional managers would never offer you the deal of delaying from age 62 to 70, because it attracts “adverse selection” (i.e., the only people that delay are those have a likely longer life expectancy.)

The Social Security Administration says that the amount of extra money you get by delaying is “actuarially neutral” for the average SS beneficiary, and I’m sure it is.

But wealthier people statistically live 5 or 6 years longer than the average SS beneficiary. And wealthier people are those with the funds and flexibility to delay. That’s “adverse selection”.

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