I’m retired.  Retirement means a lot of things, but for many of us in the United States it means Social Security benefits. (payments)  Under normal circumstances you can’t collect social security benefits until you reach the age of at least 62 years old.  I’m 62.

The moment I started planning for retirement (about 3 years ago) I started looking into the Social Security Administration (SSA) and what it means to me.  Here is a list of things I have learned as of this posting.

1. The SSA web site is a pretty good site for checking and planning for your future benefits.  It can provide data based on various ages of retirement and show in graph form the difference between getting money at 62 versus 63, 65, 67, etc.  It’s a really good tool.  I checked on my numbers every July.
2. The SSA web site has EVERY job that you have ever had (assuming you used your Social Security Number SSN) and lists the salary for that job.  It even had my FIRST job from 1978 when I worked as a bus boy at Luther’s BBQ restaurant in Killeen Texas.
3. SSA benefits are ALWAYS paid on a Wednesday.  That payday is dependent on your birthday.  What day of the month were you born?  For me, I was born on the 10th and so I fall into the 2nd Wednesday of the month.  Click on this link to see when your payout would be.  Knowing my payout date helped me with my budget.  It’s a big change from getting paid every other Friday when I was employed.
4. When you decide when to start your SSA benefits you should start the application process at least 2 months before you want your desired first payment date.  It’s a 3 step process that involves a review by a SSA employee and providing proof of who you are and citizenship.
5. When you submit your application for benefits you can no longer check your payment amount or job salaries.  All that information is shut down.  Like a curtain is closed.  You can’t see any of that information.  It’s like your account is frozen.
6. For your proof of who you are and citizenship, you can mail your ORIGINAL birth certificate to the SSA office (not recommended) or take it in person to a local office and get them to copy it.  I took my documents, including my passport into the local office.  I didn’t trust the mail to get my original (only original I have) to the SSA and then have them return it to me.
7. My local SSA office was really nice.  A lot like the DMV but better.  It was pretty organized working on a ticket method with many windows populated with nice SSA people.  I was in and out within 49 minutes.

That is my knowledge thus far.  I am on Step 2, “application under review”.  So I am waiting and hoping my first payment gets set up for February 14 (2nd Wednesday of the month).  Otherwise I will have to wait until the 2nd Wednesday in March.  Fingers crossed.