Social Security & Retirement Planning

Social Security income can constitute a significant part of a retiree’s income. Optimizing benefits can make a crucial difference in maintaining a comfortable lifestyle in retirement. Since social security decisions can impact your taxes and other retirement resources, they should not be made in isolation, but coordinated with your entire retirement income strategy. Decisions made about Social Security can have long lasting impact on your future financial circumstances.

The timing of drawing benefits can affect the values of other accumulated portfolio assets throughout your remaining retirement years. Individuals and couples should understand and evaluate alternative strategies and their implications before turning on the spigot to Social Security benefits. Particularly spouses with financial assets that enable flexibility in retirement planning should take into account options that can optimize lifetime income. Coordinating benefits can affect how well you are able to preserve other assets for a surviving spouse or increase the percentage of guaranteed income that can be counted on during your life span.

Whether your retirement income will be coming from pensions, investments, or a choice to, in some way, remain engaged in the work force, evaluating your planning options with a trusted advisor may help you arrive at the best decision that fits your goals.