If you are approaching retirement age, you should know your rights and have thought through your options before you sign up to collect your hard earned social security benefit.
A great way to learn about social security benefits is to access the federal government’s social security website.
The first page is titled “Learn.” On it you can find information about:
- How retirement benefits work
- How to plan for retirement
- Determining your eligibility for social security
- Verifying your earnings history
- Estimating your expected benefit
- Determining at what age to start collecting your benefit
The second section of the website describes how to apply for benefits. Topics include:
- Information you need to gather before you apply
- How to apply
- How far in advance you may apply
- Applying online
- Applying at a local office
- Applying by phone
- How to check you application status after you have applied
- How to appeal a decision
- How to withdraw your application
The final section of the website is on managing your benefits and includes information on:
- Understanding benefits
- How to report changes in status
- Information on other tasks that you may need to do during retirement
Overall, this page has the information you need in order to file for your social security benefits.
In order to actually file for your benefits online you may start here.
Finally, there are many other sources for advice on social security, but be aware, there are lots of people who want to take advantage of retirees and get a piece of their benefit. While there are a great many for-profit and non-profit organizations that can be of genuine help to retirees, there are others that are hard sell insurance operators and borderline scammers. You can feel secure in filing for your benefit online at the social security website, but be cautious about responding to ads that pop up when you are searching for information. You may want to consult a professional financial planner before making a decision and filing for benefits.
I had thought to find links on You Tube for some videos walking you through the application process, but my search turned up a few that seemed helpful but were over ten years old. The rest seemed to be videos created by insurance companies and investor services, many of which may be legitimate and not at all scammy, but we don’t feel like we should be putting links out there that might seem like an endorsement of any of those services.
When we applied for our social security benefit we used the government site and found all the information we needed. If any readers have links to helpful sources please leave them in the comments. We’ll check them out and maybe highlight them in a later article.
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