Because divorce is its own course in financial planning, we try to stay abreast of smart ways to approach retirement. As everyone should know, social security comes in three flavors; 

Early retirement at age 62 for which the maximum  benefit is $2,710 a month 

Normal retirement which is about age 67 depending on your birthdate. That’s $3,822 a month 

Deferred retirement where you don’t apply to collect until you reach 70: that’s $4,873 a month 

Until I approached retirement age, I just assumed I would defer as long as possible. After all, even a lawyer can figure out that the benefit at 70 is almost twice what it is if you apply at 62 and I really did not need the lesser amounts to get by. And I had no “conditions” which might suggest an early “check out” from life’s motel. 

But as I got to age 66.5 (the normal retirement age for people born in 1955) I recalled the college lecture of my econ professor, Robert Dunn concerning the “opportunity cost” of not doing something you are otherwise eligible to do. Yes, if I put off claiming SSI until age 70 I would get an additional $1,051 a month in payments “for life.” But to get that I had to live to 70 (a reasonable expectation) and forego 42 months of $3,822. That’s $160,524. It would take me almost 13 years of the higher payments to recoup the money I left on the table by not claiming until age 70. And, while part of my $160,524 would be subject to income tax I would also have that money to invest in what was, in 2021 a strong stock market. In March 2021 the S&P500 was about 4,000. Today it is 5,500. That’s  a 35% return or about 1% a month. Now, no one knows that will transpire between now and September 2025 when I will (hopefully) attain 70 but so far I am liking the first $150,000 I have collected (39 months of $3,822). Had I not collected it, I would have had to draw assets from my retirement plans during a period when they were yielding substantial returns.  

The point of this is no more than to suggest that this is a decision that merits consideration where the simple answer (defer for higher payments) may not be the “best” answer. I hasten to add that this is also a decision where a financial planner familiar with the intricacies of when and how to claim social security can be an investment which reaps handsome returns.