You’ve probably heard it a thousand times. Wait until seventy to claim your Social Security benefits. That’s the magic number, right? The age where your check maxes out, where patience supposedly pays off big time. Financial experts hammer this advice home like a broken record.
Here’s the thing though. Sometimes conventional wisdom doesn’t account for real life. Living in Los Angeles as a retiree who followed that advice to the letter, I’m here to tell you that waiting until seventy wasn’t the slam dunk I thought it would be. There are hidden costs nobody talks about, trade-offs that only become clear when you’re living them. Let’s dive into what actually went wrong.
The Years I’ll Never Get Back
Think about your early sixties. For most people, that’s when you’re still healthy enough to actually enjoy retirement. Travel plans and bucket-list dreams often get postponed during those years when people delay benefits, thinking they’ll have more money and time later. I did exactly that. My wife and I put off the trips we’d been dreaming about for decades.
We figured the bigger monthly check would be worth the wait. What I didn’t factor in was that by the time I hit seventy, my knees weren’t what they used to be. Income in your sixties can be a lot more useful than in your eighties when your health and mobility might be restricted, and the average healthy life expectancy in the U.S. is just over sixty-three years. The hiking trips through Patagonia we’d planned? Those became gentle strolls around Griffith Park instead.
Sure, I’m getting roughly thirty-two percent more per month than I would have at full retirement age. You get an extra two-thirds of one percent for each month you delay after your birthday month, adding up to eight percent for each full year you wait until age seventy. That sounds great on paper, honestly. The reality is different when you’re watching friends who claimed earlier actually living their retirement dreams while you’re still in accumulation mode.
The Cost of Living Reality in Los Angeles
Let me be real with you about living in L.A. on a fixed income. The cost of living in Los Angeles is fifty percent higher than the national average. Even with my maximized benefit, the monthly check doesn’t stretch nearly as far as I anticipated. Housing alone eats up a massive chunk.
I’m talking about everyday expenses that keep climbing. Los Angeles’s cost of living for singles is roughly thirty-five hundred dollars per month, reflecting a three percent increase from 2024. My Social Security check, even at the maximum rate, barely covers basic needs when you factor in utilities, food, and healthcare. The annual cost-of-living adjustments help a little bit. The Social Security COLA dropped to two and a half percent in 2025.
Meanwhile, I had to drain my savings to cover expenses while waiting those extra years to claim. That’s money I could have invested differently or used for experiences. The opportunity cost was real. My retirement accounts took a hit because I was pulling from them instead of supplementing with Social Security income earlier.
The Break-Even Math Nobody Explains Clearly
Financial advisors love talking about maximizing lifetime benefits. They’ll show you charts and projections. What they don’t always emphasize is how long you actually need to live to come out ahead by waiting. Delaying benefits can provide larger lifetime benefits if you live past the break-even point, often twelve to fourteen years after your full retirement age.
Do the math on that. If your full retirement age is sixty-seven, you’d need to live into your eighties just to break even. Life expectancy is seventy-eight point four years according to the CDC. That’s cutting it pretty close, wouldn’t you say? Nobody knows their actual lifespan, which makes this whole calculation feel like gambling.
There’s another piece most analyses ignore completely. Portfolios historically earn closer to five percent above inflation, and assuming you’ll earn about five percent rather than less than two percent on Social Security income can completely change the math, making delaying benefits much less attractive. If I’d claimed earlier and invested the difference, my overall financial picture might actually look better today. Research backs this up but it’s rarely part of the mainstream advice.
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
The conventional wisdom isn’t necessarily wrong for everyone. It’s just not right for everyone either. Only a low single-digit percentage of retired-worker beneficiaries wait until age seventy to initially collect their payout, yet based on analysis, fifty-seven percent of claims would have been optimal at seventy. That gap tells you something important about the difference between theory and practice.
Looking back, I should have considered my personal situation more carefully instead of just following blanket advice. My health history, my actual retirement goals, and the specific financial landscape of living in one of America’s most expensive cities. These factors mattered more than I gave them credit for. Most individuals choose lower benefits at an earlier starting age, and analysis suggests that delaying benefits may often not be the best choice.
If you’re approaching this decision yourself, think hard about what you actually want to do in retirement. Not in some theoretical future, but in the next few years when you’ll likely be healthiest and most active. Consider where you live and what that costs. Run the numbers based on realistic life expectancy, not optimistic projections. Sometimes getting less money sooner is worth more than getting more money later. I learned that lesson the expensive way, and I’m sharing it so maybe you won’t have to. What would you have chosen in my shoes?
