Optimizing Social Security & Retirement Income

When deciding how to structure your retirement income, it’s essential to consider your lifestyle, your family’s unique needs, and the ways your decisions will impact your comprehensive financial plan.

Optimizing Social Security & Retirement Income

Many of our clients have questions about how to optimize their Social Security and pension income in retirement, and there is no one-size fits all strategy. The goal is not simply to maximize your personal capital, but to ensure you’re able to enjoy your retirement and provide for your family in the way you want.

Whenever considering retirement income optimization we first construct a comprehensive financial plan. It’s important to understand the impact your retirement income elections will have on your other personal capital.

Social Security
You can begin taking your social security benefits as early as age 62 (earlier if you are on disability) or delay taking them until as late as 70 years of age. The longer you delay, the larger your payment will be. This is a very personal choice, and it’s important to consider your age, general health, other sources of income, and the needs of spouses and family members.

Pensions
If you are eligible for a pension, you may have the choice of taking a lump sum payment upon retirement or receiving a regular monthly payment. As with Social Security, it’s important to consider that your spouse may be eligible to continue receiving your benefits after your death.

SCENARIOS

Here are three scenarios in which we helped clients optimize their retirement income, and they demonstrate why the “right solution” may be very different depending on your goals and personal situation.

Seth & Laurie
Seth and Laurie decided to retire early. They elected to start retirement income as soon as possible at a reduced level. While their financial plan showed they’d potentially collect less retirement income over their projected lives, the ending value of their investment capital was not significantly reduced. The early income helped minimize withdrawals from their personal capital.

Jerry & Deana
When Jerry retired, he was concerned for Deana’s income beyond his life, as there was over a 10-year difference in age between them. Jerry elected to delay Social Security until age 70, because, after he passed, Deana would collect his Social Security and lose her own, and this would maximize the income she could collect for the remainder of her life.

Bill
When he retired, Bill elected a to take a lump sum rollover of his pension benefit to a personal IRA. His choice was driven by the fact that his wife was deceased, and spousal continuation options didn’t apply to his situation. His expenses were modest, and he preferred investing the lump sum pension to benefit his children who could inherit the IRA beyond his life, whereas the pension benefits would stop upon his death.

We’re here to help.

Your financial advisor can help you make this very personal choice by understanding your personal situation and goals, talking through all the different options, and showing you projections of how each decision will impact your savings and your financial plan.

“There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for how to structure retirement income.”

BRIAN MARS
President & COO, Senior Financial Advisor

KEY CONSIDERATIONS – SOCIAL SECURITY AND RETIREMENT INCOME

Your personal goals around when you want to retire and the lifestyle you want to enjoy
Your overall financial plan, including other potential sources of income beyond Social Security and pension
Your age, health, and the projected lifespan your plan is built around

Your goals for capital accumulation and depletion both during and after your life
Your spouse and family and their financial situation, including your spouse’s own benefits and sources of income and how that might change beyond your life

Your personal goals around when you want to retire and the lifestyle you want to enjoy
Your overall financial plan, including other potential sources of income beyond Social Security and pension
Your age, health, and the projected lifespan your plan is built around
Your goals for capital accumulation and depletion both during and after your life
Your spouse and family and their financial situation, including your spouse’s own benefits and sources of income and how that might change beyond your life

Scott Jewett, CFP^®

CEO, Senior Financial Advisor

Credentials

CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™

DOWNLOAD CERTIFICATION

“We get to go through life with our clients. I feel privileged to meet with them and hear about what is happening in their world and with their families. They share their dreams and fears with us, and we get to help them achieve those dreams and conquer those fears.”

Scott infuses everything in his life with care, dedication and a commitment to helping others. As a financial advisor, he serves his clients with wisdom, integrity and kindness, and he has a knack for making complex things simple. He is proud to lead a team of wonderful people and to have helped shape MarsJewett’s culture of service.

A Bellevue native, Scott graduated with honors from Pacific Christian College with dual degrees in Business Administration and Biblical Studies. After college, he spent the first seven years of his career at Boeing. During that time, he and his wife began helping members of their church who were struggling to manage their finances or facing financial crisis, and this helped spark his passion to become a financial advisor. In 1994, he attended a seminar Glenn (Mars) was teaching for the Boeing Management Association, and a year later, Glenn hired him. The rest, as they say, is history.

Scott feels that he truly found his calling as a financial advisor, as it combines his passion for helping people with his love of untangling the technical complexities of finance and investing. He actually gets excited when Congress changes the tax and finance laws, because it means he gets to dig into the research and figure out new planning strategies that will benefit our clients!

Scott is a devoted husband and father of three. Sports are a lifelong passion for him and his wife Kim, and when they’re not watching their own kids play, you’ll likely find them rooting for the Mariners, Seahawks or Huskies—he even proposed to Kim on the 50-yard line of Husky Stadium. Now that his kids are (mostly) out of the house, he has more time to work on his golf game… and he’s quick to say that it needs some work.

Scott is also very active in his community and his church, where he has served for over 25 years in financial ministry. He previously served on the boards of two non-profit organizations, and currently serves on the trust and investment committee at the school his kids graduated from.