If you are dead set on collecting Social Security at a certain age, I'm going to beg you to consider

looking at it differently, not because I want to make your life more complicated, more than it needs

to be. Trust me, I get life is busy enough, but because it could make a gigantic difference.

Now, let me first start today's episode by saying, no one knows exactly when you should collect

Social Security. And if someone did tell you exactly when you should collect Social Security. And if someone

did tell you exactly when you should collect, I'd be very skeptical of that person. It would be as

if someone was guaranteeing that you would have surgery and be okay. There might be a 99.99% chance

you'll be okay in recover, but no one can guarantee it. So what I'm going to go through today

is how to actually think about Social Security and you hopefully in the next 10 minutes will have

complete clarity and not worry about it ever again. You will have to do different analyses in the

future on it, but you will not have to worry about how do I calculate it. Now for fun, and I don't think any of you guys would do this in your free time, but I looked up what all these big fancy firms say about collecting Social Security. In certain firms say you should collect it at 62, and certain firms say you've got to make sure 70, and others say full retirement age is the sweet spot. Certain people even say, well, it just depends on your health.

And the truth is, yes, it does depend. But I am the first person to say, isn't it frustrating when you go to the doctor and they say, hey, what's your problem? And you tell them. And then they go, yeah, okay, so it depends on these few things. You're like, you know, I know it depends, but I need more than that. Can you please help me with the specific recommendation?

So although I don't know any of you all individually in the sense of I'm doing a one-on-one financial plan, I know many of you because many of you are either clients of our firm here at Root, or you just tune in to the different types of content we do consistently, what I'm trying to say is this social security decision is a big one,

and I want to make sure you are taking it seriously without overstressing about it. So,

here's the framework to think about. The way to think about it is very simple. I want you to think of yourself as a boxer,

literally a boxer, and I don't want you to get hit in the face and I'm not going to make different boxing

references other than creed because Michael Jordan is just so good in that movie but here I go

again on my rants my point here social security is something that you have to be willing to change

your mind on if you've ever been to a dinner party and someone has an idea but hey maybe we should

have this for dinner but you can tell that people are kind of hesitant because, oh, maybe that person recommended a bad one last time. We're not going to use that head trash, is my term. We're going to go, is this the best idea? If it is, let's consider it, regardless of if it was good or bad last time that person recommended that one restaurant. So I know these analogies are a little dopey and silly, but now I'm going to go away from them and just give you the straight math. Because Social Security, yes, it's a math decision, but it's mainly a life decision. If you knew exactly when you would pass away, this would be extremely easy to calculate, but you don't. And so here's what most of you are thinking. Tell me if I'm wrong here. You can put it in the comments below or send me an email. If you're thinking right now, I don't want to turn on Social Security too early because if I live a very long time, I want to make sure I'm getting the most of what I paid my last 30, 40 years of my hard earnings into, then that's very rational. And you're probably also thinking if I were to pass away, I want my spouse to get the larger amount for the rest of their life. Another rational thought. So I'm with you. But at the same time, a party you might be thinking, well, I don't know how long Social Security is going to last. I see that it's being depleted. It's not an opinion. Less people are putting in compared to what is being taken out.

And I want to make sure that there's less pressure on my portfolio, especially during the years where maybe I'm traveling more or I have health care costs.

So I don't blame you if you're that person as well. But the way that you're going to have success is one,

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