Your retirement trifecta

For many career feds and postal workers the best date to retire is simple! You haul assets ASAP.

You leave a soon as you are eligible to receive an immediate annuity.

Period.

Maybe you hate your job. Or your colleagues. Or the boss. Or all of them. Maybe you are ill. Or want to travel. Or not have to fight rush hour traffic anymore.

Simple, right? Well, not necessarily. Retiring as soon as you can may seem like a good idea now. But what about then, which always follows now? How will it impact you financially 10, 20 or 30 years into retirement when inflation has nibbled away at (or gobbled up) your FERS annuity? When your TSP balance shrinks either due to inflation or to a recession? That might not be the right way to approach it. In fact, benefits expert Tammy Flanagan says there are two other factors:

The future forecast: How you can (and should) set and control the actual NET value (after taxes and deductions) of your annuity. And mandatory or voluntary TSP withdrawals.

Also, the impact of retiring early, or waiting several years on both your FERS annuity and, just as important, your Social Security benefit.The difference between taking Social Security as soon as you can (age 62?) and waiting until age 70 is huge. Check out what that delayed financial gratification would be for you.

So how do you figure your retirement trifecta? Easy, listen to our Your Turn radio show today at 10 a.m. Benefits and retirement expert Tammy Flanagan will be my guest. She’ll talk about how you can figure your best retirement date, and why those factors can add tens of thousands of dollars, both in FERS benefit and Social Security, to your lifetime retirement nest egg.