QUOTE from Amethyst:
Marty, it shouldn't make any difference what grade you retire at - if you retire under CSRS at the qualifying age with the qualifying number of years, the Govt will pay 72% of your health insurance premiums (at least until Congress messes with this or you become eligible for Medicare, which is a whole other kettle of worms). Meanwhile, a GS-2 and a GS-15 have the same options for selecting survivor annuity benefits - full survivor annuity, partial annuity, etc. etc.
Also check with your HR department at work - if you're a year away from retiring, they probably have a checklist of things to do.
Amethyst
Yeah, I know about the health ins. and survivor's and all that, what I'm kind of curious about is how folks are doing after retiring on a CSRS pension, whether they felt that was enough income or if they felt like they needed to work part-time afterwards etc. I guess what I'm getting at is I'm wondering if most of the CSRS retirees here retired at higher grades or lower grades, and whether they are feeling like their pensions are adequate. Basically, the approximately 70% of my hi-three that I'll be getting will work out, after taxes, health & life insurance, and survivor's benefit reduction to be approximately what I currently take home as gross pay. However, my current gross pay is after maxing my TSP at $22,000. I guess I'll worry about it until after it's all said & done. Since there are so many CSRS'rs on here, it would be interesting to know final GS or WG grades & how many years. I'm just trying to see kind of where I fall in that group. I'm a GS-11 and will have 36 yrs when I go, if I go on time. However, I'm not "stepped out", which might be the source of my uneasiness/chicken-ness.