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Anonymous wrote:Currently 45, a fed, making $160K a year and saving about 10% of my salary in the Federal retiree system.

My goal is to retire at at 60. At that point, I expect to have college paid for and done for two kids, and have about $1 million in home equity. That will allow us plenty of options to stay in place, sell and move to smaller condo and buy vacation home, or sell and just put the equity into savings.

I will have earned a federal pension - which I will be able to collect at 60 - of about $75,000 per year.

Based on current retirement savings - about $400,000 - plus saving 10% more per year - I expect to have about $1.7 million saved. Figure using about 4% of that annually gives me an annual income from savings of about $70,000

Add in Social Security for me and DW and that gets us right to about $170,000 a year.

It's not the $10-25 million that other posters are talking about, but I think we can retire well and be happy with what I describe above.

PP, can you please explain how federal pensions work? Are they still being offered for new employees? How long does it take to earn one? How is it determined how much it will pay out and for how long? Thanks.

Quick summary:

You must work at least five years in federal service to qualify.

The value of the pension = 1.1% of your average highest three-year salary X your years of service

You can begin collecting at age 62, and there is a cost of living adjustment

Details here: https://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/fers-information/

So if your average high salary is 150k and you work for 20 years for the govt your pension is only 33000? 150k x 1.1% x 20?

Correct. The pension is set so if you work for the government for 30 years you would collect about a third of your salary at age 62, and then it would adjust upward with inflation.

Confused about this. My spouse is a federal employee and contributes to the TSP program. Our understanding is that is the only pension he will be eligible, what we have saved ourselves. From the link you provided , it mentions a Basic Benefit or Service plan. What the heck is that? Spouse works for Department of Veteran's affairs, if it matters.

When was he hired? Doesn't he have funds taken out of his paycheck for this? Check his leave and earnings statement. Look for "Retire, FERS with a code "k" on his leave slip under Deductions. That would be the 1.1% times years. -- it works out to about 1/3 of whatever you make now. It's taxed as income, remember. Your TSP adds to that.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:If people here have and anticipate this much, what about the rest of the country. I am linking this thread to the regional papers.

This thread is comical. I still do t understand what these people are going to be spending all that money on.

I'm the OP. I said $6mm. Here's how I get there:

3x kids under 4. Assume 14-18 years from now, 4-year college will cost close to $200k/year = $800k per kid = $2.4mm.
I want (don't need, but this is an aspirational post) a nice vacation home = $1mm.
I want to retire by 55 ... assuming $80k min per year living expenses and 30+ years of coverage = $2.4mm.

That's $5.8mm and there's plenty left I'd like to do, let alone leave some for my kids or hopefully grandkids. Now, that doesn't assume any investment return on that money, but then again, with inflation that $80k/year could easily be more like $200k in 20 years.

I don't think any of that is comical at all ... and certainly not likely to raise some firestorm of controversy as implied by the PP that wants to "link this thread to regional papers."[/quote]

Yes, right, because most people around the country are sitting around during a work day debating on a public forum whether or not they are on track to save between $6-25 million. They don't call The Beltway "living inside the bubble" for nothing!

Who is "they?" I've not heard that expression. But I did grow up in TN, in a very modest area, and $5mm+ does not strike me as outrageous at all. Fortunate, yes, of course. But there are fortunate people everywhere and a few million in savings is not that rare.