Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Social Security in the context of American retirees coming out here to Thailand. Let me first preface this by saying who is this video for? Primarily this is going to be for folks who have yet to retire, who are looking at Thailand but they haven't made the move yet. 

Big Tip here. If you are able to sort out your Social Security issues before you leave the United States, do it. I see a number of folks, now bear in mind, the Retirement Visa here in Thailand, the age threshold is 50. Now in most cases it is 65 or 62 or up or wherever, somewhere thereabouts depending on when you were born and a lot of other factual determinations or the choices you make regarding your Social Security. A lot of people, there are a fair number of people, I understand, they take early retirement or whatever, this isn't a video for you. If you are in your 50s and you are coming out here and getting a Retirement Visa, yeah you haven't locked into Social Security yet so this really isn't video for you. But if you are retiring and you are looking at dealing with Social Security, having your Social Security, getting all of that set up, I have noticed a number of people that will leave a couple of years before their Social Security will kick in for whatever reason - they may want the high rate - if they wait longer they get more in terms of how much pay out they get each month.

That said, I am not trying to tell people what to do here and again it is all case specific and you need to do what is best in your specific circumstances. But if you can at all avoid having to deal with Social Security matters from out here, you are doing yourself a favour. We have discussed it in many other videos, there is a Benefit Unit out of Manila, out of the Philippines, but I don't know how many times I have talked to people or overheard people sitting around on a bar stool or sitting around at a restaurant or just folks talking to me here in the office about their rather harrowing experiences dealing with the Social Security apparatus. 

You are doing yourself a big favour as a retiree, to get your Social Security issues sorted before retiring out here in the Kingdom of Thailand.