His Planner Said Never to Spend Principal. Protecting the 401(k) Prompted Him to Claim Social Security at 62.
The rule felt responsible: protect the 401(k), claim Social Security early, and never touch principal. But for millions of retirees, that instinct quietly sets a trap that follows them for life.
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The Instinct That Feels Responsible
Picture a 62-year-old with a healthy 401(k), a paid-off house, and an old financial-planning rule ringing in his ears: never spend principal. He needs income. Social Security is available, while the 401(k) feels untouchable. He files early and lets the smaller monthly check cover the gap. That instinct is extraordinarily common.
A June 2026 Decumulation Planning Gap Study from Corebridge Financial (NYSE:CRBG | CRBG Price Prediction), conducted by Greenwald Research across 2,210 adults aged 45 to 79 with at least $100,000 in investable assets, found that only 28% of respondents felt comfortable watching their retirement savings decline to cover living expenses. A striking 70% considered preserving the nest egg very important, and fewer than one in three pre-retirees aged 55 and older had any plan at all for drawing down savings. Separately, 61% said they viewed retirement as a time to enjoy themselves, yet 50% expressed uncertainty about spending their savings to do so. On retirement forums, people in their early 60s describe the same tension: they have enough saved but cannot bring themselves to watch the balance fall.
The reflex feels disciplined. It can also lock in a permanently smaller inflation-adjusted benefit and reduce what a surviving spouse receives for the rest of their life.
What Claiming at 62 Actually Costs
Social Security uses two main ingredients to set the monthly check: a worker’s earnings history and claiming age. For someone with a full retirement age (FRA) of 67, which applies to anyone born in 1960 or later, claiming at 62 reduces the benefit by approximately 30%. Waiting beyond 67 adds delayed retirement credits of 8% a year until 70.
Consider a worker whose full benefit at 67 would be $2,400 a month. Filing at 62 shrinks it to approximately $1,680. Waiting until age 70 raises it to about $2,976. The difference between those two checks is nearly $1,300 a month. That does not make waiting cost-free: the worker must replace eight years of benefits between 62 and 70 using savings, work, a spouse’s income, or some combination. The central question is whether spending part of the 401(k) during those years buys enough additional lifetime Social Security income to justify the withdrawal. In dollar terms, the December 2025 average monthly benefit for a 62-year-old new beneficiary was $1,335, compared with $2,521 for a 67-year-old new beneficiary, a gap of roughly $1,186 that becomes permanent on the day someone files early.
Cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) widen the dollar gap over time. The 2026 COLA, set by the Social Security Administration at 2.8%, illustrates the compounding effect clearly. Applied to a $1,680 check, that adjustment adds about $47 a month. Applied to a $2,976 check, it adds approximately $83. The same percentage keeps landing on two very different bases, so the income gap widens every single year. The survivor calculation raises the stakes further for couples. If the higher earner dies first, the surviving spouse can generally receive the higher of the two household benefits, not both. An early claim limits that survivor payment. Delayed retirement credits increase it. The survivor’s own claiming age also affects the final amount received.
Why the 401(k) Bridge Is Worth Considering
For someone with sufficient savings, the logic can be reversed. Drawing from the 401(k) between 62 and 67 or 70 may purchase a permanently larger, inflation-adjusted Social Security benefit. The account balance falls during the bridge years, but the money is not disappearing without purpose. It is financing retirement, which is exactly what the account exists to do. In exchange, the household receives a larger lifetime income stream that does not rise and fall with the stock market. Research from the Bipartisan Policy Center confirms that for people who reach average life expectancy or beyond, using retirement assets to delay claiming results in more wealth preservation than claiming early. The typical break-even point for delaying from 62 to 70 falls somewhere between age 78 and 80.
That trade still carries real risk. Traditional 401(k) withdrawals are taxable, and liquidating investments during a market downturn can permanently damage a portfolio. Someone in poor health, or without enough savings to withstand a prolonged decline, may be better served by claiming earlier. The bridge strategy is worth modeling carefully rather than treating as yet another universal rule.
What to Work Through Before Filing
Three questions matter most:
- Run the survivor calculation. If one spouse is likely to depend on the higher earner’s benefit for many years, that person’s claiming age may matter more than any individual break-even calculation.
- Price the bridge after taxes. Estimate the 401(k) withdrawals required, the income tax they generate, and the balance remaining under weak-market scenarios. Compare the results against the monthly Social Security benefit available at 62, 67, and 70.
- Separate discomfort from danger. Watching a retirement account decline can feel like something has gone wrong. A planned drawdown that purchases a larger lifetime benefit is fundamentally different from uncontrolled spending.
Never spend principal can be a useful guardrail, but it is not a hard-and-fast rule. Retirement savings are not a museum exhibit meant to remain untouched forever. For the right household, spending some of the 401(k) first may be precisely what protects the income that must last the longest.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include findings from the Corebridge Financial Decumulation Planning Gap Study (June 2026), which surveyed 2,210 adults and found fewer than one in three pre-retirees 55 and older have a decumulation plan. The piece also adds context from Bipartisan Policy Center research on the Social Security bridge strategy, real average Social Security benefit figures from December 2025, and the confirmed 2026 COLA of 2.8% from the Social Security Administration.
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Gerelyn Terzo is the author of dividend investing handbook "Dividend Investing Strategies: How to Have Your Cake & Eat It Too." A veteran financial journalist, she covers agri-finance for outlets like Global AgInvesting and the broader stock market and personal finance for 24/7 Wall Street. She began at CNBC and later helped launch Fox Business in New York. Gerelyn currently resides in Woodland Park, Colorado and dabbles in nature photography as a hobby.
