Have you run the retirement income calculator? Right now, based on what you have said $1.3M, you 62, wife 52. If you assume a very conservative 4% rate of return, if you withdrew $4K/month it would last until you & your wife were 110 & 100, respectively. Base on your TSP balance and your financial situation, I think you will probably have more money than you know what to do with when you retire & stop contributing to TSP [look at your end of year paycheck and subtract out MEDICARE, OASID, FERS RETIRE, TSP & TSP CUC from your Gross Income to get a better idea of what level of income you will need on an annual basis. You will still have to include FEHB & Income Tax in you're expenses] If you went with life expectancy payments, payments would range between $3600 and $6,300/per month until you are over 100. At age 85, under the conservative 4% return, you would still have $1M.
https://www.tsp.gov/PlanningTools/Ca...ependentAge=52 Try different RoRs in the calculator based on your actual experience. When you die your wife can assume your TSP as a beneficiary TSP or roll it over to her own IRA or into an inherited IRA (different withdrawal rules to consider depending on her age at the time) see
https://www.fedweek.com/issue-briefs...ry-policies-2/. Any non-spouse beneficiary should be instructed use the inherited IRA option to avoid a large tax bill and to receive it over their life expectancy.
A lot depends on you and your wife's life expectancy but the rate of return between Full Retirement Age and age 70 for SS really cannot be beat with automatic COLA adjustments if you expect for either of you to live until your 90s & if you can afford to wait (see
https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10147.pdf) It can also help offset the decrease in your pension for her. IRS life expectancy table end at 115, so that is what I use
Note: I don't really understand how Medicare Part B limitation/correlation with SS factors in based on link FAAM posted but I know your income the year or two prior to age 65 when you will have to begin Medicare does factor into the rate you will pay (you have some control here based on your withdrawals from TSP). Higher income earners have higher rate. It's too far off for me to worry about it now.
One thing you may want to consider before receiving payments from TSP, is doing a partial rollover into an IRA. You will still have to take RMDs at 70.5, but as you stated, the rules are slightly different; plus you can look at converting some of the traditional IRA to a Roth IRA over time. Although you have to pay the taxes, the benefit is that Roth accounts grows tax free, are not subject to RMDs and the tax brackets for surviving spouse are much lower than Married Filing Jointly.
I recommend retiring as soon as possible
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