The Importance of Creating Your ‘my Social Security Account’ Today

Published by Kate Moss

No matter how old you are today, you should create your ‘my Social Security Account’, which is the online service provided by Social Security Administration (SSA). ‘What? Why would I want to do that?’ you ask.

We understand that you may only be 25 years old and think that you might not even have a Social Security benefit when you retire. Or you’re 42 years old and retirement is still 25+ years away. As it only takes a few minutes, you shouldn’t procrastinate since it will save you potential frustrations years from now.

Here are some reasons of why you should create your login to my Social Security:

  • You need to protect your information that the bad guys are out to get.

  • This is an important piece of your future financial puzzle that you should be knowledgeable about.

  • Creating your account when you’re older is harder to do. What? Trust us, it certainly is harder. SSA uses data from your credit report to verify your identity. When you’re 62 years old, will you remember every credit card or beginning loan balance at which financial institution you have had throughout your life? We have lots of clients who can’t get past this stage in the process of creating their account when they NEED it to be created. And believe me, it’s frustrating. And if you can’t create it, likely you will then need to visit the SSA local office.

  • When you work with us to get an understanding of your cash flow during retirement, we will ask you for your expected future retirement benefits at age 62, Full Retirement Age and at age 70. These are all listed in your account.

You can access lots of information on the SSA website:

  • Likely the number one reason is to get your expected future retirement benefit figures.

  • If you change your address or phone number, you can update it on your account. You want them to know where you live, though they probably won’t call you. They do use your cell phone for two factor authentication to log in, which increases protection of your data.

  • Since annual statements aren’t mailed anymore, you can check to see that your income has been recorded correctly annually. If it isn’t correct, you can take the steps to get it corrected. It could have been an input error or your record could have been hacked. Getting this fixed is important because SSA uses 35 years of your earnings data to calculate your future benefit. If a couple years are incorrect, your benefit could be calculated incorrectly.

  • You can request a ‘Verification Letter’ that validates your income. Sometimes people need an official letter to apply for benefits, a mortgage or loan.

  • You can request a replacement Social Security Card. I did that a few years ago. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it. Through my Social Security’s website, I filled out the form to request the card and quickly received the replacement card. It’s now in an appropriate safe place under lock and key.

  • If you’re claiming benefits, you can look up current and historical payment information and change how monies are sent to you or your bank.

As you can see, access to my Social Security’s website gives you knowledge and tracking abilities to help keep your data safe. In this day and age of technology, it isn’t IF your data will be hacked or stolen, it is WHEN will it be hacked or stolen.

Your next step is to go to https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/, and create your account. Click on ‘Create an Account’, fill in the information and answer some basic questions. We recommend making your password difficult for someone to guess. A suggestion for a strong password is making an acronym out of the first letter of each word of phrase mixed with capital and lower case letters, symbols and numbers.  Then, please, keep your user id and password in a safe and discreet place.

If you have additional questions and would like to discuss this further with one of our advisors, please contact us.

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