People figure that it is a pretty sharp retirement strategy to seriously question the wisdom of putting it off. What if they don’t make it long enough to enjoy all the promised extra benefits? What if they plan to work five years past the minimum retirement age of 62, but they check out just a year later at 63? That would be a life wasted, with no enjoyment at all, wouldn’t it?

Well, not exactly. If you are weighing risks that finely, it might occur to you that living to 80 would be the bigger risk in all of this. Living to 80, with no money. You could really go and put your claim in for your Social Security check the moment you hit 62, all the way until you reach 70. But the longer you stay away from it, the bigger your reward.

The very least you could do, would be to wait until the minimum retirement age to apply (and that is not the same as the time you make up your mind to really stop working). What kind of retirement strategy would it be to lose a third of your potential Social Security benefits?