Mar 10, 2025
If you're 66 with $600,000 in a 401(k) plan, you have $400,000 more saved for retirement than most of your peers, according to the Federal Reserve.
It’s great that you have $210,000 in additional savings on top of that. Those at or near retirement should have enough cash to cover up to two years’ worth of living expenses in case the market crashes and their investments need to be left untouched for a while.
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Given a year’s worth of expenses is about $77,280 according to the latest Bureau of Labour Statistics’ figures, you have enough to cover almost three years of bills with $210,000 in the bank.
While you may have a decent chunk of savings, you want your nest egg to last. Receiving Social Security benefits can help, but it's important to file for them at the right time. Here are some options.
Filing at full retirement age
If you’re 66 and born in 1959, your full retirement age for Social Security purposes is 66 and 10 months, at which point you qualify for full benefits — $2,800 a month, significantly more than the average $1,978.77 benefit most retired workers receive.
Claiming Social Security benefits now gives you immediate access to money you can use to make life easier and enjoy it. Your 60s are a prime time to do things like travel that are dependent on health and mobility.
Collecting benefits now also means you can leave your 401(k) and cash savings alone to keep growing in a tax-advantaged manner. At the same time, you can keep earning interest when savings account rates are still generous.
The downside of filing for benefits now is that you won’t grow your monthly benefits. If you sit tight and file for Social Security in a few years, you could end up with a sizable boost for life.
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Waiting till you’re 70
Delaying Social Security till you’re 70 means having to wait longer to get your benefits, put off big goals and tap your savings sooner.
So why would you wait?
Because for every month you do up until 70, your monthly Social Security benefit will rise by ⅔ of 1%.
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In your case, waiting till 70 would mean waiting 38 months, during which your ultimate monthly benefit will be increasing ⅔ of 1% (a total increase of about 25.3%), resulting in a monthly Social Security benefit of about $3,500 instead of $2,800. That’s an extra $700 per month, producing a total $42,000 a year in Social Security benefits.
That larger benefit could come in very handy if you live a long life. So if your health is great or you have parents who are still alive in their 90s, you may want to wait to collect Social Security at 70 to lock in that larger monthly check. That way, even if your savings start to dwindle, you’ll have more guaranteed income to fall back on.
Of course, if you’re already retired, you might worry about straining your nest egg in the next few years if you’re waiting on Social Security. But a part-time job could resolve that concern.
Pew Research says that 19% of Americans aged 65 and over are still employed. And thanks to the gig economy, you may have options for working flexibly, allowing you to still enjoy the freedom of retirement for the most part.
A middle-ground option
If you like the idea of boosting your monthly benefit but you don’t want to wait until you’re 70 to get your benefits, you could consider a middle-ground solution and delay your claim by a year to 18 months.
If you wait 12 months to file past full retirement age, you’ll boost your $2,800 benefit by 8%, producing a $3,024 monthly Social Security benefit. Wait 18 months, and you’re looking at $3,136 a month.
Delaying Social Security for a bit of time but not all the way until 70 may give you the best of both worlds. It’s an option to consider if you don’t desperately need the benefits right away but don’t want to wait more than three years to collect them.
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Maurie Backman has been writing professionally for well over a decade. Since becoming a full-time writer, she's produced thousands of articles on topics ranging from Social Security to investing to real estate.
