The survivor benefit is the one 6(c) decision people rush at the retirement counter and second-guess for years after, so I put together an example to show what it actually does in dollars. Dana here is made up, but the numbers run on current (2026) rules.

So say Dana is an ATC retiring at 52, married, high-3 around $165K, 23 years of good time. Her gross pension before the survivor election lands at about $61,762 a year, or $5,147 a month.

Here's the fork. FERS full survivor knocks 10% off her own pension for life. In her case that's $6,176 a year, so her check drops from $5,147 to $4,632 a month. Call it $515 a month, every month, for as long as she lives.

What does that $515 buy? If Dana dies first, her spouse keeps 50% of her unreduced pension for the rest of their life, with COLAs. That's $30,881 a year, about $2,573 a month, that keeps coming after she's gone. Take "no survivor" instead and the spouse gets $0 from the pension the day she dies. (And the survivor annuity is also what keeps a spouse eligible for FEHB. Drop it and they can lose the health plan too.)

Now the part that fools people. If you only look at the household's take-home while Dana is alive, "no survivor" wins every single year. Bigger check. Out to age 90 the no-survivor path averages about $683 a month more take-home and roughly $319,825 more in total. So on a spreadsheet that stops at her death, skipping survivor looks like free money.

It isn't. That $319,825 is the price of the protection, and the protection pays out after the spreadsheet ends. Every one of those bigger no-survivor checks is a bet that Dana outlives her spouse. If she goes first at, say, 72 and her spouse lives into their late 80s, that $2,573 a month (growing with COLA) is income the no-survivor path zeroed out. Fifteen-ish years of it, gone.

So it isn't "which path has the bigger number." It's "am I comfortable self-insuring my spouse's income for the rest of their life to keep an extra $515 a month now." For a household with a big TSP and a spouse who has their own pension, maybe that's fine. For a single-pension household, that's a heavy bet to make at a counter in twenty minutes.

See comprehensive reports of the full scenario broken down WITH FULL or WITHOUT the survivor benefit.

That's how the math shakes out. If you see a hole in it, call it out, I'd rather fix it than be wrong quietly. And I'm curious how others weighed this one, especially anyone who took the reduced survivor and later felt good or bad about it.

What scenario should I run next week?

Currently 22 yo in the military, with 3 years left.

Currently im:

Paying 400 dollars for rent ( I live on a sailboat)

Maxing out TSP

Trying to pay off debts 9k creditcard debt and 17k boat debt with 2.2k monthly check. Granted the boat is like a 60 month term, so its doable.

I also have a terrible habit of taking out of my savings.

If i get out rn I could make 100k due to mos/rate.

What could I do to achieve fire as early as possible. ​

A calculator posted here recently sent me down a rabbit hole. It was good — genuinely — but was a wall of text, didnt work in mobile and when I ran my own numbers I kept hitting the same wall every fed tool has: if you have military service, you get a text box. Type your pension in, good luck. The military-federal overlap is where the six-figure decisions live — the buyback, CRDP, tax-free VA stacked against a FERS annuity, SBP versus the survivor election — and nothing modeled it. So I built it: i6dev.com/retire

What makes it different is that it prices decisions, not just projections. After the projection, there's a "What if?" section that answers the arguments people actually have:

- Buy back your military time? Net monthly effect with the waiver math, the estimated deposit, and the break-even age.

- When to go? Set a goal income and it walks every retirement age 40–70, finds the first one that covers the goal in every year of your plan (gap years before SS included), and tells you where one more year of work stops paying.

- One of you dies first? Both directions — what the survivor keeps with SBP/DIC and your FERS election, and the widow's tax trap when the survivor refiles single on nearly the same income.

- Leave federal service? The private salary that breaks even on everything walking away forfeits.

- Spend it down, claim SS later, convert to Roth in the gap, retire in another state or abroad (ranked by what your money actually spends like, cost of living included).

Everything else it models: full FERS (MRA, MRA+10, the supplement, sick leave, special provisions, disability, deferred), exact SSA claim factors, TSP with real match rules and RMDs, 2026 taxes with your state's military-pay exemption, Medicare and IRMAA, spouse/dual-fed households, and a planning horizon built from an actual life table instead of a hardcoded 90.

Inputs are only numbers you can read off documents you already have — DFAS statement, SF-50, ssa.gov, VA letter. Eight short sections, works properly on a phone.

The honest part: it's estimates, not advice, and every simplification is labeled right where it applies with the direction of its error. The math sits on 146 automated tests including checks against published OPM and SSA examples.

Privacy: no server, no signup, no ads, no tracking, nothing for sale. It runs entirely in your browser, works offline, and share links pack your numbers into the link itself — nothing ever gets uploaded. Source is public: github.com/gideonidoru/retire

If you find a case it gets wrong, tell me — here or the feedback link on the page. Real reports get fixed.

EDIT: Thanks for all the feedback! You've genuinely improved the product! I hope you guys get some good use out of it.

If you notice your numbers, or recommended retirement age, changed in the last 12 hours it's because I did a deep scrub of net vs gross. The calculator was mixing net vs gross and comparing your retirement income to your current gross when net is more reflective of your actual lifestyle and taxes change in retirement.

Happy to make any other changes.

EDIT 2: THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THE GREAT FEEDBACK! But a special THANK YOU to the kind soul who bought me a (few) beers! I truly appreciate your kindness!!

Hi -

I am 52 and wife is 55. I will retire in 7 yrs at 30 yrs or service. I carry FEHB for us both.

I can and do use the VA for all/most health related items except eyes and teeth but the VA has been covering them lately.

I will be eligible for TRICARE at age 60 which can also cover my wife.

It sounds like my best course of action is:

1. She will retire at 59 1/2 and stay on my FEHB

2. I will retire at 58 3/4 and have FEHB/VA

3. At age 60, I will be eligible for TRICARE which we can both go on, and suspend (not terminate) my FEHB

4. At age 65s we will go on Medicare. Tricare will become secondary.

Does this sound right?

Quick note up front: the mods gave me the OK to share this (thanks!! And let me know if I need to tweak anything).

Generic retirement calculators don't know what a FERS annuity is, and the good fed tools are behind paywalls or want your email so an advisor can call you. So I built my own: fedretirecalc.com

What it models: your High-3 and multiplier (including the 1.1% at 62 with 20 years), the FERS supplement window, MRA+10 reductions, sick-leave service credit, survivor benefit elections, TSP growth with your contributions and match, and Social Security. It all rolls into one year-by-year projection so you can compare "out at MRA" vs "hold to 62" side by side.

It's free with no signup, and it runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type gets transmitted anywhere (you can save the page and run it offline to prove it). No ads, no affiliate links, nothing for sale. I'm a fed myself and built it because I wanted it to figure out my own situation. And now I'm hoping it can help out others as well.

Fine print: it's a planning estimate, not OPM. Numbers are current for 2026. If you find a case it gets wrong, tell me. There's a feedback link on the page and I actually fix things.

Recently my agency just opened a 401k with a mega backdoor Roth option (previously we just got the 457). Currently 44 with $1m in 457, $450k in Roth (including mega backdoored funds), and $750k net in taxable plus a paid off home. Partner lives frugally enough so that they can carry their load and retire with me but is not relevant to this calculation since we aren’t and probably won’t marry, and no (human) kids either.

At this point I consider myself FI but am basically shoving as much as possible into both the 401k and 457 for $96,500 of which $49k is pre tax and the remainder mega backdoor Roth. This includes occasionally taking profits in taxable to fund my daily expenses since for the first half of the year I put in 75% of my pay into tax advantaged accounts, with the rest going into defined benefit pension contributions and taxes. I just dialed it down to 40% until I can max out, so I don’t have to dip into savings to buy lunch.

I am considering staying to 50, I get free healthcare for life, will max out on the amount of vacation I get a year, and can start on the pension at the end of 2031 which would be $70k in 2026 money. Plus retiring at age 50 would mean I could put $112,500 in 2026 dollars into both 401k and 457 and reduce the amount I have in taxable, as well as all the years of 2027-2030 where I will have shoved another $400k+ in tax advantaged accounts.

If I leave now I would have to pay 16% of health care premiums, which are inflated due to the older population of the retirees so I might consider a bronze plan with HSA instead and decline the subsidy at least until I get older; would only get $60k in 2031 but that amount would not be inflated for COLA for the five and a half years between now and retirement, but obviously I will have four years to convert as much of my $1m in pre tax funds to Roth as would make sense, funded by the taxable account. (My target taxable income would probably be the end of the 22% tax bracket although it would not kill me to get to 24% provided I stay clear of the NIIT at $200k AGI.)

I think I am going to stay until 50 at this point, but just pull the plug if I get transferred to a bad assignment or my bosses suddenly become evil (I have been fortunate to not have actively malicious bosses in my career). Other than the usual considerations of still having to show up to work, schedule vacations around work needs, etc is there any reason why I shouldn’t stay and continue placing as much as possible into tax advantaged accounts?

Discussion for the week:

We spend a lot of energy on this sub arguing about retirement dates and supplement rules (guilty). But I ran a comparison this week that convinced me the biggest-dollar decision most 6(c) folks ever make happens in their first week on the job, not their last year.

Take a brand new federal firefighter, I'll call him Marcus. Hired at 26, $68,000 salary, $22,000 already sitting in the TSP, eligible to walk out of the firehouse at 51 with 25 years of covered service (high-3 of $128,000 by then). I ran him two ways, identical in every single input except one payroll election:

• Path A: 5% contribution ($3,400 a year to start)
• Path B: 15% contribution ($10,200 a year to start)

Both get the exact same 5% agency match (A already captures the full match, so none of the gap below is match money). Same pension either way: $4,170 a month. Same supplement: $1,181 a month until 62. Same Social Security: $2,700 at 67. Assumptions: 7% average return, and I gave him just 1% raises a year (deliberately stingy, real raises would only widen this), 2026 tax law.

TSP balance on his last day at 51:

• Path A: $589,170
• Path B: $1,058,937

That's a $469,767 gap from one line on a form. The part that actually got me: he only put in about $192,054 more out of his own paychecks over those 25 years. The other $277,713 of the gap is compounding doing the work. When you start at 26, growth ends up being the senior partner, not your contributions.

What it means once he's retired, at the same 4% withdrawal rate: $1,964 a month from the TSP vs $3,530. Average take-home across all of retirement (51 to 88, net of taxes and health premiums): $10,512 a month vs $13,232. That's $2,720 more a month, every month, for life. Total retirement take-home: $4,793,664 vs $6,033,797, a difference of $1,240,133. And neither version ever runs the TSP dry; at a 4% draw both balances keep growing (by 88 it's $1,361,915 vs $2,447,819).

The honest catch, because nothing is free: Path B costs him about $6,800 a year of spendable pay to start (growing with his raises), on a $68,000 salary. That's a real sacrifice in your 20s and 30s, and no spreadsheet gets to tell you it's easy. Also, this run is all traditional TSP, so the bigger balance comes with a bigger tax bill on the way out: $513,051 in total retirement taxes vs $343,942. That extra $169,109 to the IRS is already subtracted from every take-home number above, but you should know it's in there.

The takeaway I keep coming back to: we obsess over the retirement-date math, and it matters, but the box a 26 year old checks on a TSP form moved this guy's whole retirement by $2,720 a month. If you've got a new hire in your station or your facility (or your house), maybe show them this.

These are estimates under current law and one set of assumptions, not gospel. If you see a hole in my math, call it out, I'd rather fix it than be wrong quietly. And what should I run next Tuesday?

A recent post about a fednews article concerning feds creating a tax problem in retirement raised a lot of ire and/or derision.

Since this is a fire sub with the goal of financial independence and retiring early, I wanted to share my situation since tax optimization is a large part of what allowed me to retire at 46.

One mistake I made was assuming I wouldn't retire until MRA at 57 and focused almost entirely on pre-tax TSP. While I had a Roth IRA and a brokerage account, I really didn't pay too much attention to them. This delayed my early retirement by over 2 years as I didn't have enough money in the right places.

I moved from Maryland (high income tax state) to Florida (no income tax state). I downsized our home since our two children would be moving out which meant that property taxes and sales tax evened out. Most states without an income tax make up for it in other ways so I ensured I remained cost neutral. The end result was no income tax means no income tax - salary I earned living in Maryland was truly state tax free and my dollars stretch roughly 6% further as a result.

Because I was heavily invested in pre-tax TSP, my plan was to do Roth ladder conversions and not just 1 years living expenses but the maximum of the MFJ 12% bracket. The goal being to really pay nominal federal income tax while also moving money from an account subject to RMDs to one that isn't.

This failed for two reasons. First, the growth of the account is outpacing the conversions. It sounds like a good problem to have but what it means to me is that I left time on the table (I could have retired earlier). The second issue is ACA subsidies. When I first retired (deferred), the 400% poverty limit was suspended due to Covid legislation but it expired. This means if I make a penny over the limit, I lose about 10K in subsidies.

The next plan was to switch from a ROTH ladder to a 72(t). This allowed us to take out more from the tIRA (rolled the TSP over as soon as I retired). The reason we could take more is because we can spend the money right away rather than needing to wait 5 years which means we don't have to use other sources of income that would also be taxable. That's the rub of a Roth ladder, you have to pay taxes on money you can't spend for 5 years.

Next year we are planning on taking the 10K hit with ACA subsidies in order to pull money from my wife's 457(b) and tIRA - ripping the bandaid off all at once. We will then go back to staying under the limit.

Since retiring, I have paid less than 10% in federal taxes and 0% in state taxes by optimization. There really is value in figuring out a strategy.

I am 22, starting my new role with my branch I have been interning at for the past two years at a GS-12 equivalent position making $90k a year (monthly take home $5737/month). Right now, if I wasn't saving for retirement, I could live off of $40k a year, so my fire number for right now should be around $1M. Obviously, things in my life may change and this number could go up, but I cannot predict the future.

I've got some solid estimates for my expenses and leftover income per month as follows:

• Rent: 1433
• Utilities: 200
• Groceries: 150
• Dining: 30
• Fun: 100
• Transportation/Gas: 75
• Car Insurance: 48.5
• Health insurance (GEHA HDHP): 170
• Online subscription: 10

After these bills, I should be left with around $3437 a month for savings. I plan to max my Roth IRA at $625 a month, and then 5% for TSP match at $375.5 a month, this leaves me still with $2436 for further saving.

After my emergency fund is established, how should I be splitting my remaining contributions? Should I be maxing my TSP with my remaining money? Should I be splitting some into a taxable brokerage? Likewise, should I be Roth converting any percentage or all of my TSP (for this one I think I probably shouldn't since I expect to be withdrawing less money when I retire than what I am making now, right)? How much is reasonable to also add to my HSA?

I've done all the math for calculating the expenses, and FIRE calculators show me being able to retire by 45, but I am just wanting guidance on the best way to structure my funds to be accessible to me with an earlier retirement age. Additionally, should I be expecting to forego FERS altogether witch such an early retirement age?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you all for any comments or advice you can provide!

I am starting to regret putting anything more than 5% in tsp...I am trying to FIRE much younger than 59 and that money is essentially locked up until then. If it was not for the match it wouldn't even be worth it.

Do these folks ever get audited and how could someone read those audits? My first of five court order mailings was 1/6/23. The second 8/1/24. My senator’s office got involved and in 11/25 Ann OPM paralegal contacted me and said they don’t have any records. Sent off another certified copy 11//18/25, but as of 12/21, the paralegal still hasn’t received it. Two mailings later on 2/4/26 the paralegal has received the court order and started to process it starting 8/1/26 because he found a copy of the court order logged into their system in 6/30/23. I did point out that it should have been received 6 months prior. And I have no idea why nobody processed the 2023 or 2024 court orders.
So maybe I am the exception horror story, but if I’m not the exception, this Court Orders group needs an overhaul.
Ok, I see my mistake now. The paralegal started processing it effective 8/1/23, not 8/1/26, because it was logged in as received in June 23, six months after it was mailed.

I am leaving federal service with less than 5 years of service. I have no current or former spouses and want a refund of my FERS contributions/interest paid directly to my savings via direct deposit.

I am confused by Item 13 on the SF3106. I want the refund deposited into my savings, but the first two options (“Pay the Interest Portion…” and “Pay the Contribution Portion”) only mention payment by check. The “Payment Instructions” and “Direct Deposit” sections are also confusing, as they reference direct deposits of survivor annuity payments and annuity payments. I am not eligible for annuity payments—I simply want my refund to be paid via direct deposit.

Has anyone here received an FERS refund via direct deposit? If so, please let me know how you filled out Item 13.

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for a sanity check on my exit strategy from federal service. I am 31 years old and currently separating from the government with 8 years and 10 months of FERS service under my belt.

My current plan is to jump to the private sector for at least the next 20 years to maximize my earning potential. I already have a pretty hefty foundation in my private retirement accounts, so honestly, I don't really "care" all that much about securing a small FERS deferred annuity down the road.

Instead, I'm leaning toward taking a FERS lump-sum refund (roughly $35k) and rolling it directly into a Traditional IRA or my TSP to let it compound in equity index funds for the next two decades.

However, my ultimate long-term goal is to still lock down lifetime FEHB in retirement.

Ideally, I’d enter service at 52, work for 5 years (to become eligible for FEHB), and then retire at MRA +10.

My understanding is that even if I don't buy back that initial time, those 8 years and 10 months still count toward my retirement eligibility (giving me 13+ total years of service to hit the MRA+10 requirement)??

Because I'll have met the 5-year consecutive enrollment rule right before retiring, I should be able to carry my FEHB into retirement for life.

Understand my actual FERS pension check will be tiny.

Am I missing anything?

Is this a TERRIBLE idea? Looking for some advice from the community. I know my actual FERS pension check will be tiny because it will only be calculated using the final 5 years of service.

UPDATE 1:

Woah - lots of really informative replies. I’ll reply to everyone when I get off work today, lol. For further context I have ~330k in my TSP right now between pre and post tax contributions. Idea would be to roll the FERS into my (post tax?) TSP. Understand it’s hard to plan for healthcare 20+ years in advance, just trying to make the best of the money now…

Scenario discussion for the week:
Made-up scenario, real math. I wanted to see how the SRS earnings test actually treats a second career, so I built a realistic 1811, call him Carl: retiring this year at 49 with 25 years of covered service, high-3 of $148K, $520K in traditional TSP, married, partial survivor election, retiring in North Carolina. Pension nets out to about $4,610 a month, plus the Special Retirement Supplement at $1,337.50 a month until 62.

Now hand him a $60K a year consulting offer, and the warning we've all heard kicks in: the earnings test will eat your supplement. The formula backs the fear up. The test withholds $1 for every $2 you earn over the exempt amount ($24,480 in 2026). On $60K of wages that's a $17,760 annual reduction, which is more than his entire $16,050 supplement. So on paper the gig kills the SRS dead from day one, right?

Wrong, and this is the part almost nobody knows: special provision retirees (LEO, firefighter, ATC) are exempt from the SRS earnings test until they reach their MRA. It's in 5 U.S.C. 8421a(c). Carl was born in 1977, so his MRA is 57. I ran his numbers year by year:

• Ages 49 through 56 (8 years): supplement untouched. $16,050 a year, every year, identical to the path where he never works a day. The $60K gig costs him exactly nothing here.
• Age 57 (his MRA): the test switches on. The $17,760 reduction is bigger than the supplement, so it doesn't shrink it, it erases it. SRS goes to $0 for ages 57 through 61.
• Age 62: moot. The supplement ends for everyone at 62 anyway and Social Security picks up.

Totals: skip the gig and he collects $208,650 in supplement by 62. Take the gig and he collects $128,400. The second career costs him $80,250 of SRS, all of it packed into the last 5 years. At 57 his federal benefit checks run about $6,228 a month against $7,348 a month if he'd stayed fully retired. (Both of those are his benefit checks only. The consulting paycheck rides on top, minus its own taxes, and giving up $16,050 a year to bring in $60,000 a year still wins by a mile. The point isn't "don't work." The point is the timing.)

Caveats that matter: only wages and self-employment earnings count toward the test. Pension, TSP withdrawals, rental and investment income never touch it. The supplement itself doesn't get COLAs, which is why it's flat $16,050 the whole way. And if Carl kept the gig past 62 and claimed Social Security at 62 like the scenario assumes, SS has its own separate earnings test until FRA, which is a whole different post.

If you're 6(c) and pricing out a second career, run this year by year, because the shape of it (free years up front, a cliff right at MRA) changes how you'd negotiate hours or when you'd wind the job down. Curious how others here handled the MRA cliff. Did you throttle back at 57, eat the clawback, or restructure the work? And if you see a hole in my math, call it out. I'd rather fix it than be wrong quietly.

As posted above, I wish this group was around when I was applying and working for the State of Minnesota. It would have helped me understand things a bit more.

My story is I performed city/county work until my first retirement at the end of 2010. I retired at age 50 when the county offered a buy out. I took advantage of that and started annuity payments under MN PERA.

I worked a couple of private sector jobs until snagging a job with a second defined pension plan in about September 2011. I worked there for over 6 years and took a second retirement in 2018.

I left when I took a job at the State of Minnesota. I worked for a few different organizations that contribute to MSRS. I retired about a year and a half ago.

Many of the posts that I read here I can relate to.

While you certainly won't get rich performing most of the jobs at the State of Minnesota, there really aren't that many places that still have Defined Benefit pension plans. I thank my stars everyday that I get a monthly annuity from PERA, the Fed and MSRS. I haven't started drawing from Social Security, yet, but in about 4 years I will start drawing that. I haven't started drawing from my IRA, yet, but I am watching it grow.

I recently learned that it's possible to go to part time as a fed without extenuating circumstances. This is very appealing as I'm at the point where my investments growth outpaces my contributions but still 5-8 years out from pulling the trigger. I would be either taking a big hit on the FERS supplement by retiring before 50 and pension doing that (unless I re entered service for a few years before MRA).

Alternatively, I could work 48 hours a pay period at GS-13 and have 20 equivalent/prorated years by age 60 if I choose to. Working 3 days a week would be lovely and cover just about all my living expenses. Plus I could do Roth conversions at a much lower tax bracket.

I couldn't find any discussions on this so it makes me think I'm missing something?

Here's my discussion scenario for the week. I'll call him Dave. ATC, 50 years old, 25 years of 6(c) service, married, Virginia. He can retire today. He keeps asking himself: is two more years worth it?

So I ran it. Both paths, same starting point. The only thing that changes: does he walk out at 50 or 52?

A few things move when retirement age shifts, and they're all linked to the same decision (not separate choices):

• Two more years of pension service: goes from 25 to 27 years under the 6(c) formula
• Two more years of SRS credit: same service-year count drives the supplement
• Two more years of TSP contributions at his current rate ($8,100/year) plus the agency match
• Two more years of growth on the existing $720,000 balance

Here's what that package adds up to:

Pension:

• Retire at 50: $4,592/month (net, after survivor benefit)
• Retire at 52: $4,824/month

That's $232/month more, for life. From 2 more years of service.

TSP at retirement:

• Retire at 50: $720,000
• Retire at 52: $857,862

The extra $137,000 comes from two years of 7% growth on $720K plus two years of contributions and match.

SRS (the supplement that bridges to Social Security):

• Retire at 50: $1,425/month for 12 years (to age 62)
• Retire at 52: $1,539/month for 10 years (to age 62)

This one's a tradeoff inside the SRS: higher monthly rate from more service years, but two fewer years to collect it. Net: Dave gets $20,520 less total SRS by waiting. Worth noting.

Average monthly take-home in retirement:

• Path A (retire at 50): $10,727/month
• Path B (retire at 52): $11,836/month

That's $1,109/month more for the rest of his life.

Total lifetime income to age 88:

• Path A: $5,020,015
• Path B: $5,255,078

Waiting adds $235,000 in total income across his retirement.

Now the honest catch.

Dave doesn't break even in cumulative income until age 75. He gives up two full years of retirement at 50 and 51 -- that's income he'll never get back. On a raw dollars-collected basis, he's behind until 75, then ahead for every year after.

So the real question isn't "does B win?" -- it does, if he reaches 75. The question is how he values 50 and 51 specifically. Being 50 and out of the tower isn't the same as being 52 and out of the tower. No calculation touches that.

One thing the break-even doesn't capture: Dave in path B isn't sitting idle at 50 and 51 -- he's still working, still earning his $162K salary. After federal and Virginia taxes, that's about $136K/year in take-home. Path A over the same two years is collecting about $84K/year in net retirement income. Count working income on both sides and path B is already ahead at the start of retirement -- the break-even at 75 is a retirement-income-only number, and a conservative one.

If Dave is healthy and reasonably expects to reach his mid-70s or beyond, the math makes a pretty clear case. An extra $232/month pension, a bigger TSP, and $235,000 more over a lifetime is hard to walk away from. But if there's a reason to go now, the numbers don't favor him until 75, and two retirement years at 50 have real value that doesn't show up in any spreadsheet.

Did others in 6(c) positions run this same calculation? Did the math change your decision, or did something else win? And if I've got a flaw in the setup, call it out. What should I run next Tuesday?

Hi, I work at a federal agency and have about 15 years of federal experience. Trying to retire at 50. Is it possible with the State Department? My question is whether the 20 years creditable service has to be with State Department? Or else could I just apply to work there at 49 and then retire in like a year at 50 from State Department with 20 years total government experience? Trying to see if I could game the system or if the 20 years must be in the Foreign Service? TIA!