Key Insights from 24/7 Wall St.

• Your monthly Social Security check doesn’t have to be a mystery.
• The Social Security Administration makes it easy to find out what benefit you’re eligible for.
• There are steps you can take to score an even higher monthly paycheck.

Whether you’re in your 20s, 40s, or 60s, retirement should be on your radar to some degree. And a big part of planning for retirement is making sure you have enough income to cover your expenses and live the sort of lifestyle you’re hoping for.

Ideally, you’ll bring savings with you into retirement, whether in an IRA, 401(k), or combination of accounts. And you should aim to hold investments that generate ongoing income. These could include dividend stocks, real estate investment trusts, and bonds.

But Social Security will probably also play a big role in your retirement finances. So it helps to know how much money to expect out of it well before you’re getting set to wrap up your career. Here’s how to find out what you’ll get in Social Security benefits.

How Do I Find My Social Security benefit?

Finding out what monthly Social Security benefit you’re in line for is easier than you might think. One option is to use the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) quick calculator tool. It has you put in your date of birth and current salary, and from there, you can choose to get an estimate of your monthly benefit in today’s dollar or in future (inflated) dollars.

But for an even more accurate estimate, create an account on the SSA’s website and access your most recent earnings statement. The SSA updates this statement for you annually based on wage data it receives. This means that your estimated benefit can change from year to year.

You should also know that the closer you are to retirement, the most accurate your estimate is likely to be. The SSA takes your 35 highest-paid years of income into account when calculating your monthly retirement benefit. If you’re in your 40s with another 20 years of earnings ahead of you, it’s conceivable that your pay could rise substantially in line with job changes and promotions. So the number the SSA gives you on screen may be not the actual benefit you end up with.

On the other hand, if you’re in your late 50s and have already worked for almost 35 years, then the number you see may be pretty spot-on. This doesn’t mean it won’t wiggle slightly as you work a few more years. But barring a major fluctuation in income, it’s likely a pretty reliable number.

How Do I Get Extra Money Added to My Social Security Check?

While it’s not a great thing to be overly reliant on Social Security in retirement, a lot of people turn to those benefits as a major source of income. If you’re worried your estimated benefit will fall short or force you to make spending cuts you’d rather not make, there are ways to lock in a higher monthly payday from Social Security.

First, make sure all of the information the SSA has on record for you is accurate. That means paying attention to your earnings statements every year — don’t just do it once to get an initial estimate of your monthly benefit.

Also, consider extending your career if you end up with a late-in-life promotion that raises your pay considerably. Even if you have 35 years of income under your belt already, replacing a year of lower earnings with higher earnings boosts your monthly benefit.

Finally, plan to delay your Social Security claim beyond your full retirement age. Your full retirement age is the age when you can collect your complete monthly benefit based on your personal wage history. That age is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later.

For every month you hold off on taking Social Security past full retirement age, your monthly benefit grows by 2/3 of 1%. That may seem like a tiny lift, but you get credit for delaying Social Security up until the age of 70. With a full retirement age of 67, you could get the aforementioned boost 36 times over, thereby raising your monthly benefit by 24% all in.

You don’t want to delay your Social Security claim beyond the age of 70, since there’s no financial upside. But waiting until that point puts more money in your pocket for life.

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