At our local grocery store, the receipt shows your coupon savings as a percent of the list prices. The savings are often more than 50% of list prices. Clearly they mark prices up to make the savings look great. Almost like my medical insurance explanation of benefits.
You are correct that the spousal benefit does not increase. My wife claimed her benefit based on her work history at her Full Retirement Age. Her total benefit increased when I claimed when I reached 70 since her spousal benefit was more than her earned benefit.
I did not think in terms of money left on the table. I thought of it as paying to maximize my inflation-adjusted income (plus I'd read a lot of articles saying the best strategy for someone who could afford to do it was to wait).
I claimed at 70. SS is my only income that is inflation adjusted so I wanted to maximize it and maximize the amount my wife receives in the event I die first. I also admit that my financial situation (manageable living expenses, a pension and the opportunity to work part time at a job I loved) made it easy to wait.
This (a possibly lucky guess) reminded me of a scam I once read about. The scammer sends out letters to a lot of people predicting that some stock will rise or fall. A week later another letter goes out only to the people where the first prediction was correct. And so on. After 10 week the scammer offers an investment "opportunity" to the small subset where all 10 predictions were correct. even the blind pig occasionally finds an apple.
I tried the same thing (modifying your input text slightly). I'd be very careful with this. The spreadsheet Claude gave me had at least one error. It used the pension income cell (B5 in the spreadsheet Claude gave me) when it was calculating how much of the social security income (actually in cell B6) was taxable (calculation in cell B20). I didn't look for any further problems.
Be aware that at least one congress person is proposing to change HSAs in a way that limits their usefulness. https://doggett.house.gov/media/press-releases/republicans-plot-latest-health-rollback-rep-doggett-introduces-hsa-consumer One "feature" of the proposed legislation: Limit the window for reimbursement to two years from when a qualified medical expense was paid. Currently, accountholders can reimburse themselves for expenses incurred decades before—so long as they had an HSA at the time of the expense.
He probably doesn't need a budget. He just needs to write down expenditures (or download them into a spreadsheet :) ). If there is a problem you need to track spending. I remember back when "quality" was the big initiative. W Edwards Demming was the god of quality initiatives and was famous for saying "how do you know" when people presented problems. You need to know your spending.
off topic (as usual for me) but your civil engineering mention made me think of one of my favorite old computer science quips: "Weinberg's Law:If Builders Built Buildings the Way Programmers Wrote Programs, Then the First Woodpecker That Came Along Would Destroy Civilization"
I know you asked about Schwab vs Vanguard but one thing I like about Fidelity is they have a security feature where you can restrict money transfers from your accounts to any other Fidelity account or external institution. If you need to do a transfer you go to their online security center and unlock.
Comments
At our local grocery store, the receipt shows your coupon savings as a percent of the list prices. The savings are often more than 50% of list prices. Clearly they mark prices up to make the savings look great. Almost like my medical insurance explanation of benefits.
Post: Shopping around – you versus the grocery store
Link to comment from April 30, 2026
You are correct that the spousal benefit does not increase. My wife claimed her benefit based on her work history at her Full Retirement Age. Her total benefit increased when I claimed when I reached 70 since her spousal benefit was more than her earned benefit.
Post: Rethinking the “Right” Time for Social Security
Link to comment from April 25, 2026
Post: Rethinking the “Right” Time for Social Security
Link to comment from April 25, 2026
I claimed at 70. SS is my only income that is inflation adjusted so I wanted to maximize it and maximize the amount my wife receives in the event I die first. I also admit that my financial situation (manageable living expenses, a pension and the opportunity to work part time at a job I loved) made it easy to wait.
Post: Rethinking the “Right” Time for Social Security
Link to comment from April 23, 2026
This (a possibly lucky guess) reminded me of a scam I once read about. The scammer sends out letters to a lot of people predicting that some stock will rise or fall. A week later another letter goes out only to the people where the first prediction was correct. And so on. After 10 week the scammer offers an investment "opportunity" to the small subset where all 10 predictions were correct. even the blind pig occasionally finds an apple.
Post: One Good Call?
Link to comment from April 14, 2026
I tried the same thing (modifying your input text slightly). I'd be very careful with this. The spreadsheet Claude gave me had at least one error. It used the pension income cell (B5 in the spreadsheet Claude gave me) when it was calculating how much of the social security income (actually in cell B6) was taxable (calculation in cell B20). I didn't look for any further problems.
Post: Tools/calculators for monthly retirement cash flow and tax estimation
Link to comment from April 9, 2026
Be aware that at least one congress person is proposing to change HSAs in a way that limits their usefulness. https://doggett.house.gov/media/press-releases/republicans-plot-latest-health-rollback-rep-doggett-introduces-hsa-consumer One "feature" of the proposed legislation: Limit the window for reimbursement to two years from when a qualified medical expense was paid. Currently, accountholders can reimburse themselves for expenses incurred decades before—so long as they had an HSA at the time of the expense.
Post: HSA Tips
Link to comment from March 1, 2026
He probably doesn't need a budget. He just needs to write down expenditures (or download them into a spreadsheet :) ). If there is a problem you need to track spending. I remember back when "quality" was the big initiative. W Edwards Demming was the god of quality initiatives and was famous for saying "how do you know" when people presented problems. You need to know your spending.
Post: The Monthly Mystery of the Vanishing Paycheck
Link to comment from February 10, 2026
off topic (as usual for me) but your civil engineering mention made me think of one of my favorite old computer science quips: "Weinberg's Law:If Builders Built Buildings the Way Programmers Wrote Programs, Then the First Woodpecker That Came Along Would Destroy Civilization"
Post: Are you an investor?
Link to comment from January 19, 2026
I know you asked about Schwab vs Vanguard but one thing I like about Fidelity is they have a security feature where you can restrict money transfers from your accounts to any other Fidelity account or external institution. If you need to do a transfer you go to their online security center and unlock.
Post: Schwab or Vanguard?
Link to comment from January 12, 2026