So to Ready for Retirement, we're going to be discussing social security strategies and how that

strategy should potentially change if there's an age gap between you and a spouse.

This is another episode of Ready for Retirement. I'm your host, James Cannell, and I'm here to

teach you how to get the most of the life with your money. And now, on to the episode.

Today's episode is based on a listener question. This question comes from Sasha, and Sasha says the following. She says,

Hello, James, I love your show. You help me look at a variety of ways to view different

retirement and investing strategies. Here's my question. My husband is 74 years old, and he's in

great shape. His social security benefits are $2,455 each month. I am 59 years old and also very healthy. We both will stop working at the end of this year. I am considering taking Social Security at age 62, but I would love to understand the best ways to view this. If I collect Social Security at

age 62, then my payment will be $1,153 per month. At age 67, my payment will be $1,639 per month.

And at age 70, my payment will be $2,032 per month. We don't need my social security income to live on. We can live

comfortably without it. And since our income comes directly from a Roth IRA, we won't be responsible

for taxes on it. I'm not really concerned about the tax implications. Let's assume for the sake of

argument that my husband lives to 90 years old and I live to 95 years old.

How do I calculate when it's best to start collecting Social Security? Sorry to be so

wordy, but I thought it would be easier if you had as many details as I could think of to help

us solve this problem. Thank you, Sasha. Well, thank you, Sasha for that and thank you for being

wordy. It's actually helpful to have all that information because Social Security at the outset maybe seems like a simple decision. How long are you going to live?

And then you make a decision that, at least based on that assumption, is going to optimize a number of

dollars that you put into your pocket over the course of your lifetime. What people fail to take

into account, though, is exactly what you're talking about of what if there's a spousal decision as well or a spousal component as well because you're married

and not just that, but what if there's a potential age gap between you and your spouse? So that's what

we're going to be looking at today. So keep in mind that as you're doing this analysis for yourself

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