Tag: spousal benefits

Message to Homemakers: Building Up Your Own Social Security Might Not Be Worth It

February 1, 2023
Brightpersonal financeretirementSocial Securityspousal benefits
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I will occasionally get questions, almost always from women who spent much of their adult life as homemakers and are now approaching their senior years, who tell me that they plan to get a job to start building up their own Social Security. My usual message to them is that it’s probably not worth it….

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Reduced Benefits Explained

November 30, 2022
Brightpersonal financeretirementretirement benefitsSocial Securityspousal benefits
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Before I start today’s column — a word of warning. It’s going to involve a lot of messy math, and I don’t like math. To be more precise, I don’t like including too much math in my column because I’ve learned over the years that putting lots of numbers in a column just confuses the…

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The Savings Game: Spousal and Survivor Benefits, and Other Reader Questions

September 7, 2022
BrightFixed Incomefull retirement agepersonal financeretirementSocial Securityspousal benefits
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By Elliot Raphaelson Q: In a recent column, you indicated that if you remarried after age 60, and had been receiving a spousal benefit on the basis of your ex’s Social Security earnings, that benefit ends immediately, and you had to wait a year before you could receive a benefit from your new spouse. I believe…

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Social Security Benefits Are Not Prorated

June 21, 2022
Benefits for WidowsBrightEstatepersonal financeretirementRetirement AccountsSocial Securitysocial security benefitssocial security checksspousal benefitsWealth Management
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Q: It has always puzzled me why Social Security takes back a person’s Social Security check for the month he or she dies. My aunt died in April, and as her executor, I was counting on using her last Social Security check to pay off some of her bills. But the government took that money…

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The ‘Spousal Bump’

January 20, 2021
AdviceBusinessmarriageretirement benefitsSocial Securityspousal benefits
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Recently, I’ve received emails from several readers who asked questions about something they call the “spousal bump.” It’s a term I never heard before, and it made me chuckle. It sounds to me like some kind of “dirty dancing” move done by an old married couple in a shady nightclub! I can just see a…

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