The Divorced Spouse Strategy That Adds $14,400 a Year for a 66-Year-Old Whose Ex Is Still Alive

Quick Read

• Divorced spouses joined 10+ years tin assertion up to 50% of their ex's afloat status property payment astatine 62, adjacent if the ex hasn't filed yet.

• Filing astatine precisely property 67 is optimal. Claiming earlier permanently reduces the divorced spouse benefit, portion waiting past 67 adds nothing.

• The other $1,200/month cuts yearly IRA withdrawals from $20,000 to $5,600 and tin person to a afloat subsister payment if the ex dies first.

• Are you ahead, oregon down connected retirement? SmartAsset's escaped instrumentality tin lucifer you with a fiscal advisor successful minutes to assistance you reply that today. Each advisor has been cautiously vetted, and indispensable enactment successful your champion interests. Don't discarded different minute; larn much here.

A 66-year-old pistillate was joined for 14 years, divorced astir 2 decades ago, and ne'er remarried. Her vocation aft the kids were grown was a patchwork of part-time and lower-wage work, portion her ex-husband precocious steadily and is inactive moving contiguous astatine property 68. Her ain Social Security cheque astatine her afloat status property (FRA) of 67 volition beryllium astir $900 a month. His is much than 4 times that.

She assumes she is stuck with the tiny check. A question that often surfaces successful status forums sounds astir precisely similar hers: my ex makes overmuch much than I ever did, we were joined much than 10 years, tin I get thing from his grounds adjacent though helium has not filed yet? The reply is yes, and astir radical successful her presumption ne'er adjacent ask.

The Rule Most Divorced Retirees Miss

The divorced spouse payment changes her outcome. If she was joined astatine slightest 10 years, is presently unmarried, and is astatine slightest 62, she tin assertion a payment based connected her ex-husband's record. At her FRA, that payment is worthy up to 50% of his afloat status property amount. His cheque is not affected. He does not request to o.k. it, motion anything, oregon adjacent know.

The surprise: the ex does not request to person filed for his ain payment yet. As agelong arsenic helium is astatine slightest 62 and they person been divorced 2 years, she tin record connected his record. That is the carve-out unsocial to divorced spouses, and it is wherefore her ex inactive moving astatine property 68 is not a occupation for her plan.

Run the numbers. Her ex's afloat status property payment is astir $4,200 a month. Half of that is $2,100. Her ain work-record payment astatine 67 is astir $900. The quality is $1,200 a month, oregon $14,400 a twelvemonth for the remainder of her life. She files astatine her FRA, brings her certified matrimony certificate and divorcement decree, and the higher magnitude lands successful her slope account.

One caution: claiming earlier her afloat status property permanently reduces the divorced spouse benefit, and delayed status credits bash not use to it. Waiting past 67 buys her thing other connected his record. So 67 is the saccharine spot.