Start or wait?

QI’m about to start having a portion of each paycheck automatically invested in an S&P 500 index fund. The stock market might be crashing soon, though — should I wait?

— B.N., Gainesville,

Florida

ANo. It’s true that the stock market (as measured by the S&P 500) has been on a tear, posting positive returns in nine of the past 10 years, and as of this writing, it’s up double digits in 2021. But a crash might have looked likely a year or two ago, and if you’d waited then, you would have missed out on gains. It’s generally not smart to try to time the market, because no one can know what it will do in the short term (though over most long periods, it has risen).

If you’re worried about where the market is headed, you can make regular investments of equal size over time — also known as “dollar-cost averaging.” That’s what you’ll be doing if your automatic investments are within a company 401(k) account. The same sum will go from your paycheck into investments regularly, so you’ll be buying shares both when they’re lowerpriced and when they’re higher-priced.

Q

How can I find out what Social Security benefits to expect in retirement?

— F.S., Adrian, Michigan

AVisit the Social Security Administration website and set up a “my Social Security” account at SSA.gov/myaccount. Then you can pop in anytime to see estimates of your future benefits, based on your earnings record and on when you’ll start collecting your benefits. Delaying the start date will make your checks bigger, but you’ll receive fewer of them — so read up on Social Security strategies to see what makes the most sense for you.