If you've done any amount of digging into the matter, then you've almost certainly been advised to wait as long as possible before initiating your Social Security retirement benefits. After all, while the full retirement age that would secure you 100% of your intended payments is between 66 and 67 -- depending on when you were born -- waiting until you're 70 years old to start collecting these benefits would translate into measurably higher monthly checks.

There's another option on the other side of this spectrum, however. Although it ultimately means much smaller payments, there's a case to be made for claiming at the earliest possible age of 62. Just don't take such a decision lightly, since it's a permanent choice.

As was noted, anyone eligible for Social Security's retirement benefits will see 100% of their intended payments only if they start collecting once they reach their full retirement age, or FRA. This year's FRA is 66 years and 10 months, applicable to people born in 1959. Next year's full retirement age will be a full 67 years, where it will remain unless changed again by legislation.

But what if you wait to claim these benefits? Doing so will raise your eventual payments by about 0.66% per month, or 8% per year. For anyone reaching their full retirement age this year or next year, in fact, delaying these benefits until you're 70 years of age would mean about a 25% increase in the size of your monthly checks.

Just don't wait much beyond the point at which you turn 70 to initiate your payments. Not only does the Social Security Administration stop raising your future monthly benefits once you turn 70, it will only retroactively pay you for a maximum of six months.

Or maybe you were thinking of going in the other direction, and starting these payments well before reaching your FRA? That's an option, too. Doing so dramatically reduces the size of your payment, though, gradually decreasing it by as much as 30% if you choose to claim at the earliest possible age of 62. Ouch!

So why would anyone want to seemingly undermine their own fiscal future by locking in these lowered payments?

There are actually a handful of understandable reasons for doing so. Chief among them is the possibility that you simply need this money to avoid being hungry and homeless right now, and all other options such as working or monetizing any real estate you may own are off the table.

There's a close-second strategic reason to start collecting Social Security well before you've reached your FRA even if you don't need the money right now. That's the possibility that you've got something more productive you can do with this cash flow in the meantime, like investing it in something similarly safe.