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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would keep track of your actual expenses-- use YNAB or mint for a while to do that.  Figure out what you need every month to pay your bills.  That times 12 is what you need annually.

I would not plan on taking out more than 2-3% of your TSP per year or you could run out, depending on how long you and your spouse live.

I have a pretty similar scenario as you, pension is 33% of income, which should give me about $48,000 pretax per year, plus the SS benefit (not sure what that would be but I assume something like $1200 per month).  Post-tax for the pension would be about $36,000 per year or $3000 per month (taxed as regular income @25% or so).  So that's  an estimated $4200 per month, pension with the supplemental SS.

My living expenses right now are $7000/month.  So my shortfall would be about $3200 per month, or more like $40,000 per year (due to paying capital gains taxes).  So my TSP account, to sustain 30 years of about that amount, would need to be, rounded up, about $1,300,000.  But that's not including inflation-- the pension will be tied to a COLA but $3000 won't be enough per month in the future so there would have to be some growth to account for inflation.

To make up that shortfall, if I retire at 55 I could work at another job.  Or maybe lower expenses more... If I don't have $1.3M in my TSP which I'm thinking I won't...

You can do similar math to figure out your situation.  [/quote]
OP again.  Thanks this is very useful not least because we seem to be in a similar situation but also because you seem to have a better handle on how to estimate how much you'll need per year as well as in your TSP.  If you don't mind may I ask:
1.  Your expected SS benefit seems on the low side
2.  Is the pension and SS benefit taxed as ordinary income and the TSP annuity at capital gains tax rates?
3.. You are assuming you can only take out 3% of your TSP every year.  That seems low.  Is it because you plan to pick the 100% survivor benefit?[/quote]

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