Once upon a time, I promised a blog post on when you should take Social Security. Procrastination pays off because The Motley Fool just ran a post that did it for me. The short version: take your benefit as soon as you can (i.e., age 62). The trade-off is to wait and increase your monthly benefit at the expense of lower overall payout from Social Security.

Your “full” retirement age is between 65 and 67, depending on your year of birth. For younger generations, that age will probably increase...