Hey everyone, welcome back. It's episode 972 of Money Girl. I appreciate you being here and downloading the show. I'm Laura Adams, an award-winning author, on-camera spokesperson, money speaker, and founder of The Money Stack. That's my substack newsletter. Free subscribers automatically

receive my money success toolkit, which includes the exact templates I use to manage my finances.

You can learn more, ask questions, and sign up for the money stack for free at laura d adams.com.

Or you can leave a voice message with your question or comment by calling

302-364-0308. I'd love to feature your question on finance Friday. That's our weekly

Q&A bonus edition of the show. One of the most important financial decisions for most older Americans who qualify for

Social Security retirement benefits is when to collect them.

Your benefit can begin as early as 62, but delaying it to age 70 gives you a larger payment.

This podcast will review what a retirement bridge strategy is and how it helps

maximize your social security benefits.

First, let's do just a brief review of what the social security system is.

It's a United States federal program that was created in 1935 to provide financial assistance to qualifying citizens who are

retired, disabled, or survive a relative who received benefits. It was amended to include disability insurance,

supplemental income, and Medicare benefits. But in this show, I'm only going to talk about the

retirement portion of the program. So to be eligible for Social Security retirement,

you have to work and pay into the system for at least 40 quarters

or 10 years. That's because the program is funded from payroll and self-employment taxes.

If you're an employee, you've probably seen the deduction listed on your pay stub as OASA-S-D-I.

That stands for old age, survivors, and disability insurance.

But if you work for yourself, you must pay self-employment taxes, which are similar to Social

Security and Medicare taxes that get withheld from most workers' paychecks.

So workers and business owners pay into Social Security based on their incomes and then receive benefits based on their earnings history.

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