Digital Advisor can help you make the most of your Social Security benefit

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You may not know exactly what your life will look like in the coming years, but one thing you can count on is the guaranteed income that Social Security can provide. So it’s important to include this valuable benefit in your retirement income strategy—and know how to make the most of it.

Vanguard Digital Advisor® has a tool that can help you with this process, and you can access it once you complete your investor profile. Since it’s never too early to start thinking about Social Security, why not complete your profile today?

You have a decision to make—and it really matters

One way to gain confidence about your retirement income strategy is to understand your Social Security benefit. Social Security is a federal government program that provides a guaranteed monthly income, adjusted for inflation, for as long as you live. And it doesn't depend on the financial markets because it's backed by the U.S. government.

Social Security isn’t intended to be your only source of retirement income, though. Making the decision now about the best time to start collecting it after you become eligible can give you a better idea of your full retirement income picture.
The longer you wait, the more you get
How much you receive each month in your Social Security check depends on when you start collecting the benefit. In fact, you'll get an 8-percentage-point increase for every year you wait past your full retirement age to start collecting.1 An increase like that is hard to match in today's economic environment.

There’s more than just the dollar amount to think about, however. It’s important to consider other factors—such as your health and your retirement lifestyle—when you’re making decisions about claiming your Social Security benefits. Digital Advisor can help you make these decisions.

Start with our specialized tool in Digital Advisor

When you complete your Digital Advisor profile, you not only get a personalized saving and investing plan, you also get access to a Social Security Estimator tool that can:
Help you understand your Social Security options.
Run projections to show you which options could work best for you.
Give you the confidence to make an informed decision.
How it works
Our tool can give you a basic estimate of the dollar amount you would receive each month based on your age. Or you can use the tool’s enhanced feature, which considers additional factors like your wages and health status.

With an enhanced estimate, you’ll get options like these:
A screenshot from the Social Security estimator tool that shows hypothetical results. It includes three choices, including the optimal choice, for when to start claiming the benefit.
For illustrative purposes only.
The big picture
No matter how you use the tool in Digital Advisor, you’ll get valuable info to help shape your long-term financial plan. And Digital Advisor can consider your Social Security estimate as part of your overall saving and investing strategy, which can help you get a more complete picture of your retirement outlook.

We won’t stop there

Getting help with including your Social Security benefit in your financial plan is just a small part of what Digital Advisor offers. Once you complete your profile, we’ll create a personalized plan to help you reach your retirement goal. And you’ll have ongoing access to other financial planning tools that can help you pay off debt and save for a financial emergency.

Remember—it’s never too early to map out how you’ll reach your financial goals now and in retirement. Let us help. Complete your Digital Advisor profile today.
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Whenever you invest, there’s a chance you could lose the money.

1Source: Retirement Benefits. Social Security Administration, 2024. For those born in 1960 and after, full retirement age is age 67. The 8-percentage-point yearly increase applies through age 70.

2To be eligible for Personal Advisor, you must have one of the following:

  • $250,000 or more in your employer-sponsored retirement plan at Vanguard.
  • $50,000 or more in IRAs and taxable accounts—owned individually or as joint tenants with rights of survivorship—at Vanguard.
  • $250,000 total among your employer-sponsored retirement plan, IRAs, and taxable accounts—owned individually or as joint tenants with rights of survivorship—at Vanguard.


3Based on the Personal Advisor fee of 0.30% vs. an average 1.00% fee when receiving advice through a traditional human advisor.



Source: Amy C. Arnott, et al. 2023 Robo-Advisor Landscape. © Morningstar, Inc., 2023. All rights reserved. Average fee listed in Morningstar’s annual Robo-Advisor Landscape report when receiving advice through a traditional human financial advisor. Note that full-service advisors may provide a different fee structure, like a flat fee or tiered-fee structure based on the level of assets being managed, and may require a minimum asset level to manage the accounts. The average fees do not consider other costs, including underlying product costs, transaction costs, or other account costs.



Actual costs vary. Personal Advisor will reduce your gross advisory fee by the amount of revenue (such as expense ratio rebates) that Vanguard (or a Vanguard affiliate) collects on your portfolio in order to calculate the net advisory fee. Personal Advisor’s annual net advisory fee is approximately 0.30% across your enrolled accounts for a typical investment portfolio, although your actual net fee will vary depending on the specific holdings in each enrolled account. Your net advisory fee can also vary by enrolled account type. Plan participants’ actual advisory fees will vary depending on your plan’s lineup and the revenue that Vanguard receives from those investments. Please see your plan fee disclosure notices for the applicable annual gross advisory fees that apply to your plan assets.

Vanguard Digital Advisor's and Vanguard Personal Advisor’s services are provided solely by Vanguard Advisers, Inc. (VAI), a registered investment advisor. Please review the Vanguard Digital Advisor and Personal Advisor brochure  for important details about these services. Vanguard Digital Advisor’s and Personal Advisor's financial planning tools provide projections and goal forecasts, which are hypothetical in nature, do not reflect actual investment results, and are not guarantees of future results. 

© 2024 The Vanguard Group, Inc. All rights reserved.