For a United States citizen, retirement is a very important time. Applying for a monthly Social Security check involves many things on a personal level. When a citizen becomes a retiree, he no longer works, so he has time to rest.
In these golden years the economy changes a lot in the life of the United States citizen. The salary as a worker is usually higher than the retirement pension. Therefore, it is important to control the economy in those moments of rest.
And there is no better way to control the economy during retirement than to plan well in advance. A good plan for the retirement years is easy to make if done ahead of time. In this regard, getting a big Social Security check is one of the key points to having the best retirement possible.
Although reaching the maximum Social Security check figure requires waiting until age 70 for retirement, it is not mandatory to wait that long. Without the need to wait until age 70, we can get a good amount and live our retirement years to the fullest.
How to get a good retirement check without waiting until age 70?
When thinking about the Social Security retirement check, we must consider three elements. These three elements directly shape the monthly amount a United States beneficiary will receive during his or her golden years. Maximizing these three elements should be our priority while we are active.
These are the three elements:
- Retirement age.
- Years worked.
- Salary during the working years.
Retirement age is key to reaching the $4,555 Social Security maximum. So much so that if we do not wait until we are 70 years old, it is impossible to reach that amount. Even so, retiring earlier can also give us a good monthly benefit.
But we have to maximize the other two key elements. Therefore, as long as we can work we must have a good salary. In addition to that, it is also mandatory to work a minimum of 35 years. If we work even one year less than 35 our benefit will drop considerably.
Passive income helps the golden years
If we want to take age 70 out of the retirement check equation we need to come up with a different plan. Having passive income while collecting Social Security can be critical to this goal.
In this regard, we have several options:
- Start a business.
- Invest in a business.
- Have a 401(k) or Roth IRA retirement plan.
- Saving money while working.
Whenever we start a business, we should do so with the idea that we will not need to work in the future. Likewise, saving a good amount of money during your working days is the best option. This is because it will depend on nothing but us in the future.
Inflation and Social Security Retirement
Everything we have said above is ideal for having a large amount of money during retirement, but there is something else to keep in mind. If we do not include retirement in the plan, we could have very serious problems.
When we save money during our working life to be used in retirement, we must take inflation into account. The price of everything increases over time and the $1,000 of 10 years ago is not the $1,000 of today.
That is also why it is so important to not only save but to have some source of passive income. Usually passive income comes from some kind of activity and sales. And those sales can adjust for inflation and give us money accordingly.
In short, we must not only take into account the money we earn through our Social Security retirement check. We also have to keep in mind all kinds of expenses, potential income and, of course, inflation.
Increasing our Social Security check is important, but so is looking at everything around us and thinking carefully about how we can afford what we face. Although reaching $4,555 a month from Social Security is good news, so if we are close to that figure we should take advantage of the situation.