Clear Table Press publishes plain-language workbooks for decisions people usually take on someone else's word. Every rule cited, every figure dated, every worksheet free to print.
Line 1.Claim at 62 and you collect $1,400 a month for 60 checks before the person who waited gets one: $84,000. Now find the birthday it stops paying.
First title: The Social Security & Medicare Workbook, Paperback and Kindle, October 2026.
Every page states one rule, shows the arithmetic done once for a made-up person, and cites the government page the rule comes from. You can check us.
Dollar amounts change every autumn. Ours are labeled, and the free worksheet set is updated the week new figures publish, so the copy you buy in the fall is right in January.
Every workbook's blanks are a free letter-size PDF at a short printed address. Print them as many times as you like, for a second try or for a parent.
Run Your Own Numbers on When to Claim, How to Enroll, What Is Taxable, and What Each Decision Costs (Updated for 2027)
Would you sign a $12,960-a-year contract without reading it? That is the size of the gap between claiming Social Security at 62 and at 70 on a $2,000 benefit. Medicare has gaps of its own: one dollar of income over a line, one night in the wrong hospital bed, one contribution to a health savings account after the wrong date. Each one is a rule you can look up. Almost nobody does.
Claim at 62 and you collect 60 checks before the person who waited sees a dime. The question is not whether the bigger check is bigger. It is when it catches up.
Read the articleSign up for Medicare Part A after 65 and your enrollment is backdated up to six months. The IRS applies its zero-contribution rule to those months too. The fix is one phone call, made in time.
Read the articleMedigap letters fix the coverage by law, so the two most popular plans differ in exactly three places. Price those three against your own doctor visits and the choice is arithmetic.
Read the article