Your number 6 is good advice for people who don't expect to live as long as the average person. But the SS annuity strategy is a superb one for generating a steady stream of income, it just needs some planning - what you need to live on now and when you expect to die.

I retired at 66. I f I claimed immediately, my SS would have been almost exactly $25K. So if I delayed until 70 I would be investing $100K over the course of 4 years. For that I would receive about $670 per month extra, for the rest of my life. This procedure is nothing more than an annuity plan, and I challenge anybody to find an annuity anywhere in the world with that kind of return. So if you are contemplating an annuity in your portfolio, this is the best you can find anywhere.

As it turned out, I started claiming at 68 instead of 70. I was drawing out of my IRA to live on, and the extra income tax began to outweigh the investment return. Then when Covid hit, I started to rethink my life expectancy. But I don't regret waiting those first 2 years.