Waiting Until We Turn 70

For the past year or so I find myself repeating this phrase over and over.

Here’s the scoop. As I have written we have been retired for just over five years now both retiring at 62. From copious reading about retirement guidance we are “waiting until we turn 70” to claim Social Security to maximize our monthly payments.(waiting to see your comments Dick, but I can guess 😂). In the meantime we have been financing our lifestyle via inherited IRAs in order for our own IRAs to increase in value.

We are also “waiting until we turn 70” so we can hopefully convert all of my wife’s traditional IRA to a Roth. This is so we can convert while staying in the 12% maximum tax bracket. If we were to claim SS now this would limit our yearly conversion amount. Because of market returns over the past few years the conversion is harder to complete than expected due to the yearly increase in value of the traditional account. This plan requires a bit of financial juggling of priorities as for every dollar we spend it is another dollar that can’t be converted that year.

We built our retirement house in 2017 and it is paid off. One modification we wish to make is to make is to convert our deck into a three season porch, especially for our older years when we are not traveling. However I/we are “waiting until we turn 70” as I plan on obtaining a home equity line of credit to pay half the cost so we maintain half of our taxable account. We will have to have an income source in order to qualify for the HELOC. This loan also will limit our withdrawal amount from our retirement accounts thus avoiding a higher tax bracket and potential IRMAA costs. I anticipate paying the balance off within five years or less to minimize the interest costs.

I recently researched the mechanics of CCRCs and we are “waiting until we turn 70” to get on a waiting list as around here it is generally a 7-10 wait and we are both very healthy.

We are also “waiting until we turn 70” to start flying first class as once we have claimed Social Security at 70 all of our living expenses excluding extensive travel will be covered by our SS income.

Considering we had two deaths in my wife’s family this year (a sister died unexpectedly at 81, her mother at 103) and an older sibling was diagnosed with a degenerative disease we know this is a bit of a gamble, but we are both very healthy.

We are still traveling several times a year so I do not believe this plan is significantly changing our current lifestyle.

What do you think of our plan?