Planning to maximize your Social Security Benefits

Image courtesy of Witthaya Phonsawat at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Like many people, as I age, I think more and more about what my life is going to look like after retirement. One of the main components of retirement, I  think, is social security. I know too many people rely too heavily on this benefit but we should understand it no matter what.


I've listened to senior family members discuss Medicare, Part A and Part B coverage, the "doughnut hole" and prescription prices. But I never heard anyone talk about when to start benefits in general. I have been looking into social security myself. I know the decisions I make will impact me the rest of my retirement. I'm not close to retirement but I feel I may be starting a little late myself.  Here are a couple articles I found recently I thought might be helpful to people finding this blog:


"How Social Security works" - http://bit.ly/1qaoiI0
"How much do you understand your Social Security Benefits"  http://bit.ly/1xGhRw0
"How Social Security raise impacts retirees" - http://bit.ly/14wUE5Q


At some point I will seek advice from a financial professional. I know people hesitate to do this. I hesitate myself even though I know how important professional advice is and want people to come to me for related advice. I think people feel like it is an unnecessary cost, maybe a little embarrassed about how they have handled their money over their life, they can handle it themselves, they don't have enough money to warrant professional planning, etc. I have some of these feelings.


But I can tell you one thing for sure; through my practice, I know failing to plan for retirement is a harder problem to fix after you retire than it is approaching retirement. So if you haven't started thinking about, the articles listed above might be a good place to start. After your research, consider talking to a financial professional. If you don't know one, talk to friends, co-workers or other professionals you do know to refer you to someone you can trust. You can include attorney in this planning because this will lead into your estate planning as well.


NOTE: I apologize for a gap in my postings. I had major computer issues over the last week or so and all my attention has been focused on work-arounds to work and getting my computer fixed. I hope to be back on regular schedule this week. Also, I'm having issues uploading photos to this blog as well.