Social Security.

Retirement came this month.  I've only been waiting for the event for 70 years, and now here it is. From the photo, you can probably guess where I worked; but only for the past 13 of 48 years.  All my time has been in the retail business of one type or another, and that's a rough 48 years on your feet almost all day, 10 to 12 hours a day, 5 days a week.

The way we buy and sell merchandise has changed as much over the past 48 years as I have.  If you looked at either of us then and now, you'd say there's no way we could be the same people.  I saw a photo of my high school class at the 50th reunion (which I did not have an opportunity to attend) and thought "Who are all those old people?"  I didn't recognize a one of them.  If I had been able to show up, I'm guessing none of them would have recognized me.  In fact, I'm sure of it because I haven't seen but one or two of them since the spring of 1966!

I worked till 70 because after raising 6 children, our financial situation was not the stuff retirement dreams are made of.  After 70, your social security payments stop increasing so there's no reason not to start drawing social security on your 70th birthday.

Our main source of income is social security, combined with two small pensions (remember when companies gave you a pension?), and a 401K investment that will probably see us through 15 years if we manage it wisely.

My wife decided she would retire at 62, thinking that she would get half my social security earnings when I retired at 70.  When we talked with social security, they didn't give us much information on how that system worked.  You will quickly find out that anything you need to know about social security and/or medicare you have to figure out on your own.  The people at those offices are as helpful as the ones who work at the license plate office, but the lines are longer at the SS administration.

So I turned 70 and maxed my social security monthly payment.  My wife thought her's would now jump up to half my amount, that is until her check came.  Since she retired at 62, she did not earn the benefits she would have earned had she also waited until she turned 70 to start drawing.  The way they figured her benefit was to take what I would have earned "had I retired at my full retirement age of 65.5" and then divided that amount in half.  Furthermore, they reduced that half by the penalty for early retirement so she came up short about $725/month of what we thought she would receive.

When you think about it, that makes sense.  But that was not explained to us when she inquired about retiring at age 62.  If she had waited until 65.5, she would have got 1/2 of what I would have drawn if I had retired at that same age.  If she waited until she was 70, she would get 1/2 of what I receive now.  So in case you're wondering, that's how that works.