If you’ve decided now is the time to quit your job and enjoy the rest of your life, you’ll need to officially retire.
Sadly it’s not as easy as just packing up your office and never coming back to work – while you can do that, you’re not going to start receiving that coveted monthly check until you actually go through the process of applying for retirement benefits from the Social Security Administration.
Here’s how to apply for Social Security if you’re ready to pull the plug on your working career and get on with enjoying your life.
Not as Hard as You Might Think
The actual process behind submitting your application for Social Security benefits is not nearly as hard as you might think.
While you can go down to your local Social Security office to fill out a form by hand or call Social Security toll free at 1 (800) 772-1213 to speak to an SSA representative, the easiest way to apply for Social Security is to submit your application online at the SSA’s website.
There are many benefits of completing your application online, one of which is the ability to stop and go back to your application at any time – something you wouldn’t be able to do in an office visit or over the phone.
You can also skip questions and leave them for later, as the online application process will prompt you to answer any unanswered questions before it will let you submit your application; additionally, it’s easy to go back and change an answer if you make a mistake.
Once you do finish your application online, you’ll even receive a receipt in your email that you can print out for your records, and you can come back at any time and check the status of your application as it moves through the red tape of the Social Security Administration.
There’s little not to like about the online application process, except in the case of your inability or unwillingness to use a computer and the Internet to both fill out and file the application.
Important Things to Know about Applying
Whether you apply over the Internet or the old-fashioned way there are some things you will need to be made aware of in order to have an easier time during the process.
First, you must decide beforehand what age you want to retire as this could affect your monthly benefits. Retiring either before or after your “full retirement” age – usually 66 or 67 – can grow or shrink your payments accordingly; you can retire as early as the age of 62 or as late as 70, but retiring early makes your monthly checks smaller while retiring later makes them larger.
The SSA has designed these reductions and increases to ensure that you receive the same amount of money over the course of your retirement as long as you live to your full life expectancy, so it’s not about punishing you for choosing to retire early or rewarding you for retiring later.
Also, if you need to apply to other federal retirement benefit programs such as Medicare, you can do so at the same time that you apply for Social Security benefits – especially if you’re retiring within three months of turning 65.
If you’re waiting to retire until after that age – or if you’ve already retired – you can apply for Medicare separately using the Social Security Administration’s online application process on its own regardless of your retirement status.
To start your application for Social Security retirement benefits go to https://www.ssa.gov/retire/apply.html
Bill H says
Great instructions Kristine. However I do not trust our government along with about 90% of fellow Americans, ESPECIALLY with regard to the social security people. I doubt whether they go to the lengths of compounding money. A person needs to compare the lost compounding of money on both ends of taking payments. I crunched the numbers for my wife who is 63. I assumed her lifespan to age 80, 85, and 90. In every case she is way ahead by delaying to age 66. For every dollar she gets from SS, that’s one less dollar we need to pull out of my IRA which is yielding around 6%. Delaying 4 years til age 66 results in the losing for a short term, as money for 4 years AND the compounding of $700/per month for those 4 years
But waiting til age 66 results in $400 more per month. So not only will she make up the lost 4 years of as payments but also gain the compounding of that difference in money that we can then keep in my IRA over the next 20 years and it yields way more $$$$ than if she started receiving as at age 62. Several things need to happen to realize the gain, such as we continue a 6% yield on my IRA and my wife needs to live til age 85. Her mom died at age 90 and her dad at age 93. Her dad was in terrible shape….alcoholic for many years, smoked for most of his life, ate nothing but meat and potatoes, and was hugely overweight and sendentary for his last 30 years. My wife’s grandparents died in their 90s as well so I think it’s a reasonable expectation give her family genes, she’ll without much doubt make it to at least 85…..unless she gets hit by a bus.