surprised today

[Winemaker]

All words are invented.

Meh.

 

[goingtotravel]

My wife is a Fed but has little interest in studying the details so I try to keep up. I think one of the big issues is the time required to verify pension amounts which doesn’t happen until the paperwork is submitted.

Question for you.....are the annual estimates reasonable estimates of the pension amount? I guess no one bothers to read them.

I wish I could answer that question. We do not get annual estimates from my agency. I'm currently filling out paperwork to get an estimate and to do that I have to tell HR what my survivor selection will be, the FEGLI I will carry - if any, how much sick leave I will carry out that can be added to length of service, etc.. From that number I plan to subtract my estimated taxes and FEHB costs. I think any estimate without all those variables figured in wouldn't be that accurate.

 

[Calico]

Fed here, DH is also a fed. Have never and will never attend a retirement seminar but have been studying our benefits for years and seem to know more than every person I've talked to in my office. Sadly not surprised about the level of knowledge of people attending those seminars. Have a few co-workers that retired in the last couple of years and none of them even knew the total amount that they would be getting in pension payments. Kind of blew my mind that someone would turn in retirement paperwork without knowing if they could survive financially.

I have a coworker who is retiring in two months, after having worked at the company for 38 years, and she has absolutely no clue how much her pension will be, either as an annuity or as a lump sum. Consider my mind blown too. I cannot wrap my head around this.

I am retiring in a year, and I know to the dollar exactly what my monthly pension payment will be. It's a mathematical formula, and it takes less than 1 minute to calculate the amount.

 

[jimbee]

Meh.

Eh?

 

[foxfirev5]

Fortunately I was field employee who never had the opportunity to attend a corporate retirement seminar. However I have seen the results of the herd mentality of many who sold out in March of '09. Now they are forced into denial that they can work into their late 60's and even 70's. Good luck with that plan. Why do otherwise intelligent people neglect this most important aspect of their working career?

 

[Taxman59]

I had a coworker and friend who had a pension payout about 3 times mine (she had an extra 10 service under a prior plan that gave her a big boost) and a 401K that was a bit smaller than mine (i was more aggressive in savings and investment). She had a much lower COL than I did (1 son and paid for house vs 3 sons and a mortgage). We worked in financial planning and had access to several planners. I offered to set her plan up, and she could plug in the #s as she saw fit. Its been over 10 years, and she has never put the #s in. She figures that she loves her job and will stay there forever. Her son will inherit a bunch of $$$

 

[jazz4cash]

I wish I could answer that question. We do not get annual estimates from my agency.

Wow that is a shock. I assumed all feds received some form of annual statement. DW’s is form number PBC10 and it comes from OPM ( I think), not her agency. I see now it is for FERS but I assumed there would be some version for CSRS as well. If all employees are not getting this automatically (in addition to TSP statements) it explains to some extent why many folks are uninformed.

Here is a sample I found on the web. It is a very comprehensive document but they make several assumptions to provide ballpark estimates.
https://www.nfc.usda.gov/EPPS_Demo/forms/eppb_sample.pdf