Earlyretirement at 62?

[RiteWing]

Hello,

I am currently a 53 year old Postal employee who is planning on retiring in 2020.

I have over 200k in my TSP, and have a household income of about $140k per year.

What should I do in regards to my TSP vs the Roth IRA? Should I stay TSP, otr go Roth? Should I replace my TSP contributions in the Roth account or split them.

What becomes more advantageous?

I anticipate my wife and my social security to be about $30k per year.

Our pensions should be about $35k.

My wife has about 200k in her 401k as well.

Anyhelp is greatly appreciated.


RiteWing

[Midpack]

Welcome aboard RiteWing, I hope you find this site as helpful as I have over the years.

Without knowing what your anticipated expenses will be, none of us can provide a meaningful answer. If you've been tracking your expenses over the past few years, you can easily figure out your budget going forward. I'd imagine the pension is COLA'd and you have some sort of retiree health care benefit, but we'd have to know that too to answer - both make a big difference.

From there, the best place to start it enter your all your numbers in FIRECALC. There's always a link on the right hand side of the page here, but here it is FIRECalc: A different kind of retirement calculator

Best of luck, and let us know how we can help further.

[martyb]

Are your pensions going to be $35k each, or $35k combined? You should be maxing out your TSP at $22k due to being over age 50, and also maxing out Roth IRA's for both you and your wife. Your income should be plenty to do that. I am a federal employee, and my wife & I combined only make $85k a year, but we are maxing my TSP at $22k, putting 25% of her pay into her 401k, and while not able to completely max our Roths, we are doing pretty good with them. I m 53, and she is 50. I plan to retire in 20 months at 55. If we had your amount of income, I have no doubt I'd cut back on some wasteful spending, or otherwise reduce enough of my debts so I could max out the TSP, 401k, and fund both Roths to the max.

Once I retire in January 2013, we will then max out my wife's 401k, plus completely max both Roth IRAs until she retires, 3 years later at age 55. The only reason we can't do it now is that we live separately, 125 miles apart while I finish up my working time. Funding 2 separate places to live, utilities etc. prevent saving more than we do. I am home every weekend, then back to work for my 4 day work week. Money's definitely tight for us, but it will pay off in the long run.