Transcript
Apple Ad (0:00)
This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Get 3% daily cash back when you buy an iPhone 16 with your Apple card at Apple Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch terms and more at applecard.com does it ever feel.
LinkedIn Ad (0:15)
Like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? Well, with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company seniority skills. Wait, did I say job title yet? Get started today and see how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started@LinkedIn.com results, terms and conditions apply.
Krista Dibiaz (0:49)
Welcome back to Ask An Advisor. I'm Krista Dibiaz and I am here with the West Moss the Christa Diaz. And we're going to talk about investing, saving for the future. And if you end, we're going to get to your questions as well, which you can submit to us@clark.com ask today. Two topics that come up quite a bit on this show and Clark has had his own takes on his show. And you're going to share with us your takes today. Social Security and target retirement date funds.
Wes Moss (1:23)
I love both these. They're opinion based and there's no right answer. So I'll start with that.
Krista Dibiaz (1:29)
But you don't necessarily love the target retirement funds, right?
Wes Moss (1:33)
My opinion is less favorable than Clark's target date funds, I think are the TV dinners of investments. Oh.
Krista Dibiaz (1:40)
Oh, I love it. Another analogy. We're going to get to that. And of course, your questions, as I said.
Wes Moss (1:45)
All right, can we let's start with Social Security.
Krista Dibiaz (1:47)
Let's do it.
Wes Moss (1:48)
Now, there are whole books written on this and there's no perfect answer because Social Security is something that you can, you have to decide when to start taking it and think about you, your longevity, your spouse, spouse's longevity and then what it means for your retirement assets and the withdrawal rate on those assets. And there's a big window. You can take Social starting at age 62 and you can wait all the way to age 70. Now if the question is how do I maximize my Social Security, the answer is that one is not an opinion. That's easy. You just work as long as you can work and then you wait as long as you can wait all the way to age 70 to start taking Social Security. That will maximize how much you get from Social Security at least in a given year. And you've got to live at least 12 years to get all that money back you didn't get. You could have started at age 62. So this is a longevity question and none of us know exactly what our longevity is going to be. We may have an idea. My grandmom lived till she was 105. And your parents lived into their 90s. Maybe you've got to really plan for some real longevity. That all works into the calculation. But we'll start with the simple answer which is how do I get the most amount per year from social? The answer is wait till age 70. That's simple. The next would be my overarching thesis around when to take Social Security and how to approach it is to optimize your social, not maximize your social. And there's a couple main rules that go into this. So number one, the way I look at this is that we're going to optimize normally and I love rules of thumb. This one is, has a few different tentacles. So it's hard to have just a sentence here. But I would say normally is you're, if you're trying to optimize, you're going to, you're going to work and wait to take social at your fra, your full retirement age. Now that's a little different for everybody. For a lot of folks listening it's probably age 67 delay. It even may be longer if it's something that could help your spouse. So the spousal benefit could benefit if something happens to you. It's almost an income insurance for your spouse. And then number three, kind of the third part of the sentence or rule of thumb is that if you have to take too many or too high of a percentage of withdrawals from your investments, if you're not taking social, consider taking it earlier. In general, this is the way I think about it. Most people, but certainly not everyone, I like to see people wait till their fra start, collect social, maybe wait till 7 if you really don't need the money and you'd like to get the highest benefit. So if something happens to you, it's a higher benefit for your spouse. And three, take it early if you're really starting to cut into your retirement accounts or of course if you don't have retirement accounts. Remember a lot of Americans don't have any retirement accounts. So if you don't have anything and you have to rely on Social will probably make sense to take it on the earlier side. When I say early, I mean starting closer to 62 versus waiting to seven. It's a big window. It's an eight year window. So number one, work until remember, even though you can take Social Security 62, there's an income limit before your Social Security starts to get reduced because of your earnings. That number is around $23,400 per year in 2025 and it'll go up per year. So technically you could start taking social at 62. You get a monthly benefit and if you only earn 20 grand that year, then you should be able to keep your full 20 again. These are all this is going to be taxed and you shouldn't have any penalty on your Social Security. So that's a nice way to think about it. If you've got a side hustle or a little bit of income and you start social a little early before your FRA for a lot of folks 67, that's one way to think about it. But if you're fully working and you're making up $100,000 a year at 62, you don't want to start taking social because it'll wipe out your entire Social Security payment because every $2 above 23,400 takes a dollar Social Security away. So it doesn't take long before your whole payment goes away. Now the caveat is that that reduction does eventually get paid back to you in a Social Security payment over time, but it's a really takes decades before you get that lost money back, that penalty money. So that's, that's one is if you're in a full time job, wait to your fra, your full retirement age. Here's another reason you would take it early. Let's say you've got your investment accounts and it's five, you have $500,000 saved and you need, you need $50,000 a year and that means you have to take 50 grand out of 500. You're taking 10% a year from your investment accounts. Well, that's just too high. It's so far above the 4% rule. You get a couple even one year of that high withdrawal really puts your safety, your liquidity, your nest egg at jeopardy. Particularly if you have to do it for a couple of years. So I've seen people say, well I'm going to wait and wait and wait and wait and take social, but I'm taking 7% a year out of my, my retirement account. That puts the whole nest egg and the whole cushion in jeopardy. And I'd rather see people start social earlier so they don't have to take withdrawals much higher than that 4% number three, we touched on this earlier. If your spouse doesn't have a high Social Security, a level per month, let's say they're taking 50% of yours, they're taking a spousal benefit, and you've got. It might make sense that if you think your spouse will live long, even longer than you, it sometimes will pay to wait so that you get the highest payment you can get. If you pass away, your spouse will take over that payment that is now higher because you weighed it. So there's a consideration here about longevity, not just for you, but you and your spouse. The next one would be working past your full retirement age. Remember, once you hit fra67, let's say in a lot of cases, you can earn whatever you want. You can earn as much as you want and not have your Social Security penalized. So you could also say, well, I'm now at 67. If I'm still earning, then why not wait until 70 anyway? That's just a decision that you have to make. The way the math works out on almost. Almost works no matter how long you wait. Whether you wait a month and you forego one month of social, yeah, your payment goes up, but how long does it take to get that back? The answer is about 12 years, 12 and a half years. That's the break. Even if you wait until you're 70 to take social, you're going to get a much higher payment than 62. But you don't even get that money back that you forwent until you are at least 82 and a half. Now I remember, and this is why I love getting questions from our audience. Somebody asked me about a YouTuber that is really adamant about taking Social Security early. So I looked that up. There are tons of videos on YouTube that make really strong cases. There's countless YouTube videos on why you should take Social Security as early as you possibly can.
