Retirement advise

I have read the same advise in two different articles about how to maximize your retirement money.  According to some experts, it is best to live from your 401(k) or other retirement money and exhaust it before filing for social security thereby increasing your monthly take when you do file.  While that is true I think there are some problems with that advise, at least for married people.

Really, the ideal is for the younger spouse (usually the wife who earned less than the husband)  to delay taking Social Security until after her husband passes away so that she will have adequate benefits to live on.  This plan could possible be the best way for the couple to maximize their income during retirement.  It would take some calculating to determine that. 

According to the Social Security office, it does not matter if you take payments at 62 or 72, if you just live to the normal age of people born in your birth year, you would receive the exact same total benefit amount, so the benefit of delaying the taking of social security will only be advantageous to one if they live longer than expected.  If one takes the money earlier and really doesn't need it then there is no reason one cannot invest the money.

The way I see things, If the husband has x number of dollars in a retirement account and is drawing social security, then it is probable best if the wife, upon retirement, drawn social security and leave her retirement savings alone, contrary to the experts advise.  If her and her husband are about the same age and had similar incomes, and they live to their life expectancy or die before that age, and she took her social security, then her retirement savings would have been intact for her heirs but if she had taken the "experts advise" then all of the retirement money would have been spent and the only beneficiary would have been the government. 

I do believe she would have been fine with the lower social security amount as the retirement savings would have grown significantly (in all likelihood) in a good retirement investment account  or at least held its own in a more conservative account.   I know the experts claim she doesn't need her retirement account as her husbands should take care of that but what if he got sick and they spent his on trying to save his life  or the family was faced with another catastrophe that claimed a large portion of his retirement account?   

Maybe it's just me but I believe it is best to keep ones retirement account and live from a slightly lower social security benefit.