PO,
With your sick leave calculating out to 1 month and 22 days you will only get credit for monthly units. If you do not take any sick days you will lose out on getting paid for those 22 days.
May the force be with us.
They haven't come after me yet If you are retiring mid year you could actually contribute $24,500 if you wanted while still working if you can afford to. You can also just increase your regular TSP to cover the amount you are currently contributing to both (not a good idea if you may change your mind and delay retirement & miss out on any matching)
Great idea! Can I borrow about $12,000 next year? I promise I will pay it back as soon as...well never mind. That scenario crossed my mind about maxing it out with the hopeful leave sell back but..maybe I should just leave it as is since one never knows what may happen.
I got a couple more estimates from my go to HR retirement specialist. I stated before she worked for the mother of the mother agency but was wrong. She works at an agency that is a mercenary for the mother of the mother agency. Whatever, she seems very competent. Just proves you can never be sure who is calculating or in charge of your retirement based on what agency you work for.
Whatever the agency is, they are using a new program to estimate retirement pay. The product you get has a FedHRNavigator logo in the upper right corner.
The two estimates were seven days different but showed a $$ per year difference. There is no difference in the years/months listed, only the days. Then I noticed my high three calculation increased $$. Hmmm.
I asked the HR person some questions and will let you know the answers.
PO
First to answer the last post, the difference in the amount was due to my high three. I took a new job 11/2 years ago at about a 20% pay increase. So, duh, of course high three will go up. I just never thought so much. The other question for HR was why they always recommend FERS employees retire at the end of the month. Answer is your first interim annuity payment arrives on the first day of the second month after retirement. In other words retiring 6/30 starts the annuity 7/1 which is paid 8/1. So retiring 7/8 starts the annuity 8/1 and the first payment is 9/1.
I thought I had it all planned out, retire 6/30, sell back 336 days AL, start SS at 66y2mo on 7/1, SO starts SS at the same time 62y5mo, still get military annuity and VA disability, kick back and not have to touch TSP. Maybe.
Then I attended a webex about something unrelated and they had a presentation from my HR go to person about military, CSRS and other time deposits or buy back. Guess the end of the year is slow for this division.
I started thinking that the last time I addressed this was 2014 and maybe I should check it out again since my pay has increased since then.
Back story-when I hired on as a FED in 19 and 97 I was told that if I paid the deposit I would have to waive my military annuity at that time. The amount of the deposit at that time was $11,199 which was a small fortune I didn’t have so based on the amount and information about the annuity it was a no brainer to say no thank you.
Along about 2012 I ran in to a FED who was also a retired military lifer who claimed he was buying back his military time and still receiving his military annuity. He did not have to waive it until he started drawing his FED annuity at retirement. He also stated he would lose none of the other lifer benefits such as access to exchange, commissary and most importantly TriCare health insurance.
I did some checking on my own and found he was right. I also checked out the money difference in FED annuity after deposit v military annuity + Fed annuity at that time and came up that it was better to remain status quo. The only real difference was I would have been retirement eligible under MRA+10.
I revisited this in 2014 and found it would take almost 10 years to reach the break even point after paying the deposit and the FED annuity still wasn’t enough even with collecting SS at 62yo. So I put that idea away.
Now I find that the break even point from 6/30/18 is 21/2 years and the additional income is over $8k per year. I have yet to have gotten an official annuity estimate if I pay the deposit and haven’t really verified that it will not reduce or eliminate the VA disability pay and health insurance under TriCare for Life.
Lot’s to check out keeping in mind that males from both sides of my ancestry usually expire in their early 80s. I would be 69y8mo old at the break even point under the buy back scenario. Would it be worth it?
Is there anyone out there in a similar situation who could tell me their experience? Similar being, receiving military annuity, VA disability pay, paid military deposit to get FERS credit for the years, waived military annuity at FERS retirement and did it effect the VA disability or TriCare insurance?
PO
I did some rechecking about that payback time for the military deposit. I had not included some allotments for insurance from the military annuity and recalculated the actual before tax income. Pay back is four years. Plus I will have to come up with about $22k from some IRA or TSP. Still thinking about that one.
Getting pressure at home about staying employed until the end of the year. Bosses say we would welcome you staying a little longer. Not with a lot of enthusiasm. Big decision and time to decide.
Humurous to some about what I will do after retirement. I do have a lot of deferred home maintenance and cleanup/getting rid of detritus from 60+ years accumulation. A few years ago while discussing retirement with my brother mentioned Jethro Tull's Aqualung as inspiration. It's a brother thing, and his sense of humor. Since thinking about retirement while stuck in traffic this afternoon, I have an ear bug of that song. Maybe I should stay employed for the betterment of society?
If any real news comes up about this subject, I will keep you all posted.
PO
Hey, if they like you at work maybe you should stay for a while.
Best wishes!
PessOptimist,
What do you really want to do once you retire? I'm sure you will be well off no matter what you decide. I would think of the military pay off like you would any investment...it sounds like the payoff would be advantageous for both you and your wife with a 2.5 year pay off...8K/22K is 36% payoff annually. You could take out a short term loan for 2-3 years and pay it off once your retire with the increased pay and still come out ahead. It is really great to have such high class "problems," but it is advisable to have something in mind about what you want to do once finish your initial "to do" list. Good Luck
"Getting pressure at home about staying employed until the end of the year. Bosses say we would welcome you staying a little longer. Not with a lot of enthusiasm. Big decision and time to decide."
PO, reminds me of an old man story- Early in my career we had an old fed who had overstayed his welcome and finally decided to retire. Upper management was so excited they threw him a huge party, gave him a big award in recognition of his years of service. Each one of his managers and their managers stood up at his retirement party and went on and on about his contributions to the agency and how sad they were that he was leaving. When it was time for the old fed to speak he got up with big tears in his eyes and told them that he didn't know they liked him so much he just couldn't let them down by retiring. He pulled his papers and stayed! Four more years!
PO, Tough decision. To retire or not. Couple of question to ask yourself; 1) Am I ready to retire (mentally), 2) If I stay will it add to my retirement package, and 3) Do I dread the drive into work every day?
I retired at 60 with 42 years government service and that included my military time. I knew that staying past 42 years wasn't going to add anything to my pension so I started to make arrangements 5 years out. Didn't want to be one of those guys that retired with 50+ years of service and then move to the great beyond one year into retirement. Told my boss that I wasn't going to stay past 2012 and if a nice buyout came around I might leave sooner.
Retirement was good. Then the phone call. A friend of mine back at NASA called and asked if I was interested in coming back to work as a contractor out of the construction office. Long story short I failed retirement and now have 46 years working for the government. However, I'm looking at a second retirement in the near future and spending more time with the grandkids. I haven't said anything to my bosses yet.
PO, Good luck and you never know what the future will bring. Enjoy
May the force be with us.
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