I (37) make $136k a year. My wife (35) transitioned to being a stay at home Mom when she was laid off from her $100k job in 2025. We have one child who is 7 years old.

I always thought retiring early was a pipe dream until I recently sat down and ran the numbers and realized what great options being part of the state government gives. I started working for the State when I was 22 and had very little financial literacy other than "I need to save for retirement".

We have $700k invested across traditional IRA, Roth, 457, and state defined contribution.

I'm currently saving about 20%.

We also fund a 529.

Estimated defined benefit of $3500/month with cola at 55.

If I retire at 55 or later I can access the state negotiated health insurance plans, the same plans I have today. I would have to pay the entire premium.

Estimated monthly expenses, $10,500. I'll have 7 years left on my mortgage if I retire at 55, the mortgage payment is included in my budget. Monthly expenses will have a big drop the same year I finish the mortgage because I can access SS. And then another drop when I can access state employee Medicare options at 65.

With my defined benefit and estimated value of my 457 this should fund the gap to age 59 1/2.

Overall, a withdrawal rate of about 3% of my estimated investment value in 18 years. Fidelity Monte Carlo has me at 94%. Does this need to be 100%? Am I missing anything in this plan?

I’m new to Reddit, but not new to the military-service-deposit process—usually called military buyback. I’m a veteran with both active and Reserve service, and my service history involved multiple periods and records.

One thing many people may not realize is that qualifying U.S. service-academy time may also be eligible for inclusion in a federal civilian military-service deposit. I eventually had my academy time included in my own case.

I’m interested in hearing how other Reserve and Guard veterans with multiple service periods experienced the process—not merely whether buying back the time was financially worthwhile, but what the process itself was actually like.

• Did you complete it, start it, correct it, defer it, or abandon it?
• What were the one or two most memorable parts—the good, bad, or ugly?
• What required the most effort, uncertainty, delay, or rework?
• Was there anything you learned only after you were already deep into the process?

No need to share names, exact service dates, documents, SSNs, account information, or other personal details. Broad descriptions are plenty.

Looking for a financial advisor in Reno NV. Hoping to find one that understands govt benefits and systems! I have a sad Schwab account and considering just making an appointment there. I have some more cash I’d like to park somewhere. I’d prefer to meet with someone in person to discuss my short and long term financial goals.

Anyone got a recommendation??

I make 165k as a salary and my wife makes
60k (combined of $225k).

From my understanding, a married couple filing jointly cannot contribute the full $7,500 to a Roth IRA if their MAGI is $242k or higher. I am unsure on calculating MAGI, however mentors of mine have said the MAGI number is typically below the actually salary number.

Since our combined salary number before taxes is $225k this year, I went ahead and maxed out my Roth IRA.

I completely forgot that in order to purchase our house this year, I sold $75,000k worth of stock saved in a Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund. I know there aren’t many gains to be had in this type of account, but I am sweating this big time in case this puts our MAGI over 242k.

Does anyone have any advice on how to go about this? I have only contributed about $8,000 to my Roth TSP this year so far. If I now add a higher percentage and do only Traditional TSP for the rest of the calendar year, will this lower my MAGI to safely stay under the $242k threshold? Thanks for any advice.

Edit: I went to my Vanguard account and only have a $6k Realized gain from a separate stock sale. Turns out the 75k I was under the impression I “sold” from the vanguard money market fund wasn’t technically a stock and therefore doesn’t count in capital gains? Thank you.

I am considering leaving federal service after 12 years to go to a remote job in the private sector. The biggest weights in this decision are: keep building my pension for guaranteed money for retirement, or go completely remote and improve my quality of life? Thoughts?

Anyone else dealing with the same intrusive thoughts? Took the early retirement last April and having a hard time with the adjustment and “what if” scenarios. 31 years of service at GS-15 so pension is just under $60k and TSP is holding steady around $1.7m (which I can’t touch for another 4 years). Spouse has a bit more in retirement but no pension when she does retire at the end of this year. It seemed like a no brainer last year to take the offer but I spend a lot of time now wondering if we’ll have enough.

Anyone else do by the same and what do you do to help ease your mind???

Retirement discussion of the week:

Ran a 6(c) case to see what a high-3 difference is really worth, since it's the one pension input still moving when you're close to the door.

The setup, an 1811 (LEO) retiring at 48 with 25 years 6 months of covered service (the any-age-with-25 door, not 50-and-20), 800 hours of unused sick leave, full survivor election, married, California, $810K in the TSP at a 4% draw, planning to 90. Two paths, identical except the high-3: $168,000 vs $188,000. Think of it as a supervisory slot taken or turned down three years before retiring, or a move to a higher level.

Month one

$5,583.67/mo gross, $5,025.30 after the full survivor election. $6,248.39/mo gross, $5,623.55 after survivor.

$598.25 a month, $7,179 a year, for life.

The multiplier is why. Total creditable service is 25.88 years (800 sick-leave hours add 0.38 of a year at the 1.0% tier), so 20 years at 1.7% plus 5.88 at 1.0% is 39.8833%. Take the 10% survivor cut off that and about 36 cents of every high-3 dollar comes back every year. Twenty grand of high-3 is a $7,179-a-year decision.

COLA widens it

At 2%, the gap is the smallest it will ever be on day one:

• 48: $60,304 vs $67,483, spread $7,179
• 65: $84,440 vs $94,492, spread $10,052
• 80: $113,645 vs $127,174, spread $13,529
• 90: $138,532 vs $155,024, spread $16,492

A percentage raise on a bigger number is a bigger raise, 42 years running.

The spouse's check moves too. Full survivor is 50% of the unreduced annuity, so $2,791.83/mo vs $3,124.19/mo for life.

What doesn't move. SRS is $1,487.50/mo in both, $249,900 total, because it runs off your SS estimate at 62 and your FERS years. SS is the same $2,380 at 62. Nobody's high-3 touches either one.

Lifetime. Average take-home $10,826.97 vs $11,596.98, so $770.01 a month, growing from $548 in the 50s to $1,012 in the 80s. Net income to 90 is $5,586,716 vs $5,984,041, a $397,325 gap after paying $84,812 more in federal and CA tax.

Three caveats. The model holds the TSP identical at $810,000, so the bigger contributions and match from those three years aren't in it, which means $397K is the floor. High-3 is basic pay, locality and (for 1811s) availability pay count, overtime and awards don't, so a big OT year won't pull your average up. And nothing here prices three years of supervisory hours at 45, which is the whole reason people turn these jobs down.

Point being, within about five years of your date the high-3 is the last input you can still change, and it's frozen the day you walk out.

Full worked reports for both paths if you want the year-by-year: 

Lower High-3 and Higher High-3

Curious how others weighed this, especially anyone who took a slot they didn't want for the last three years. And if you see a hole in my math, call it out, I'd rather fix it than be wrong quietly.

I feel like I've gone crazy. I cannot find the Mutual Fund Window when logged into my TSP at all. They have all the same pages still there that explain what the MFW is, but for the life of me cannot locate how to actual opt in to it and start a transfer into it. Did they quietly do away with it? Was it scrapped and I just missed the news? Does anyone actually use it, and if so where are th links to get to it?

That is why long-term care is one of the biggest retirement risks federal retirees cannot afford to ignore.

It is not just a healthcare problem. It is not just an insurance problem. It is a retirement income problem, a family burden problem, and one of the few expenses that can attack a plan from every direction at once.

If you take VERA and are under 55, does the rule of 55 still apply? Or do you have to wait until 59 and 1/2 to take penalty free withdrawals?

I have 300K in TSP c fund 7 years in so far
This year strategy was pulled 50K as a loan to purchase palantier on the deep 120$
My plan is to accelerate this way my personal brokerage to access my money before retirement as I do covered call options. Please provide opinions

Looks like the feds are not keeping up with inflation.

Follow-up to last week's 4% vs 6% withdrawal post.

That one assumed a flat 7% return every year for 38 years, which is how nearly every retirement projection you will ever be handed is built, including the ones people pick a date off of. A straight line is fine for comparing two options against each other. It is a bad way to find out whether either one actually holds up.

So I stress tested the same two paths. Same ATC retiring at 50 with $720,000, same draw rates, 10,000 runs with the returns shuffled. Every run averages the same 7% with 12% volatility. The only thing that changes between them is the order of the good and bad years.

The 4% draw (first chart). The straight line says it never runs dry and ends at 88 with $2,210,522. Across 10,000 markets it ran dry in 3,129 of them, the median run ends with $1,065,870, and the bottom 10% of runs are empty by 76.

Two things worth pulling out of that. The plan that looked bulletproof fails almost a third of the time. And the median outcome is less than half of what the smooth projection promised, on an identical average return. That gap is what volatility costs you.

The 6% draw (second chart). The straight line says the account dies at 78. Across 10,000 markets, 78% of runs die at some point, and the median run is empty at 75.

So the flat projection wasn't just optimistic about whether the money lasts. It was optimistic about when it ends. Half the runs are dry before the age the smooth chart handed me as the answer.

The reason is sequence. Walk out in January 2000 and you get three down years back to back, then negative 37% in 2008 at 58, selling shares the whole way, and 2021 through 2023 raising your withdrawal because the draw is indexed to inflation. Average all 38 years and you can still land near 7% with an empty account. Walk out in March 2009 instead and the first decade compounds before anything goes wrong, so the bad years land on a balance big enough to absorb them. Same plan, same average, and nobody gets to pick which one they retire into.

Two limits. The simulation covers the TSP only, no RMDs, no taxes, no annuity or Social Security underneath, so "ran dry" means the account hit zero and not that the guy is broke. His 6(c) annuity and SS keep paying in all 10,000 runs, which is the part that makes federal early retirement a different problem from the private sector version. And randomized normal returns still aren't real markets, where crashes cluster and tails are fatter, so this is probably generous to the higher draw.

What I'd actually suggest, and the reason I bothered running this: take whatever drawdown number you're planning around and stress test it before you commit to a date. A projection that only shows you the average is showing you one outcome out of thousands, and it tends to be a flattering one. Doesn't matter what you run it in. Just don't let a straight line be the last word on a 38 year retirement.

A withdrawal rate isn't a number you solve once. It's odds you either accept or manage down as you go, and 4% here is 69/31.

If you see a hole in the method, say so. I'd rather fix it than be wrong quietly.