Sharing Knowledge in Smallcaps

[BullNBear52]

LOL. You keep forgetting I'm old. I waited till I was 69 1/2. I finally got fed up with work and the daily BS. SSA has a little trick when you sign up during the year. Your benefits start the following month OR you can backdate collecting till January 1st of that year. SSA will advise you how much your monthly benefit will be reduced and the lump sum you will receive by backdating. However they can't advise you what to do. You simply do the math yourself. Which in my case was a no brainer. I took the lump sum in excess of $20K and my go forward benefit was reduced by $14.00. I also avoided signing up for Mcare part B since my wife continued to carry me on her work group health plan.

I already received my January payment which included the COLA increase. I have birthdate at the end of the month but my CU will post the amount due several days in advance since SSA releases the file to banks several days in advance but not the cash until payment date.

My wife just turned 65 and is still working. She reaches full retirement at 66 1/2 but wants to hang it up this year. We'll start her collecting when she reaches full retirement since there is no reason to wait. Her company was based in Sweden and until 2 years ago they were still funding her pension. Now it just accrues interest. We'll roll her 401K and all the pension into her IRA at Fidelity. And I'll start bleeding off my IRA from my previous 401K.

Finally her company once she retires has their own health benefit plan which includes spouses and they pay for the first 3K each of out of pocket expenses which means zero costs for us.

She has been working for them since 1981 and no US company can even begin to touch the benefits they give their employees.

There is a difference between a full service broker and an financial advisor. An FA has a fiduciary responsibility to his client. I simply don't want the headache of managing the accounts any more.