5. Your benefits will be reduced if you claim them early

Claiming benefits before your FRA can severely cut your income so you should try not to. But sometimes you might not have a choice. Well, you should at least know what penalties to expect so that you can move funds around to help you out.

Say you only want to claim benefits within 36 months before you reach your FRA. In that case, five-ninths of 1% per month will be cut off.

If you’re going to claim even sooner, your benefits will be reduced by an additional five-twelfths of 1% per month.