Insights
The answers, written out.
Most of what people need to know is not proprietary. These are the questions we get asked most, answered as we would answer them in a meeting, including the parts that argue against acting.
Federal retirement
FERS, the TSP, survivor elections, and the decisions that stop being reversible on your retirement date.
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TSP withdrawal rules for federal employees
Which TSP withdrawal rules apply depends on employment status. While still working, TSP generally allows only age-59½ or financial-hardship in-service withdrawals. After separating from federal service, participants may take a partial or total distribution, installments, an annuity purchase, or a combination. Taxes and possible penalties depend on age and account type. See [TSP.gov](https://www.tsp.gov/withdrawals-in-retirement/).
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What to do with your TSP when you retire
There is no universal answer. The TSP offers among the lowest expense ratios available and strong creditor protection, while an IRA offers far more investment choice and withdrawal flexibility. Some federal retirees split the difference: keep a portion in the TSP for its cost advantage and move a portion to an IRA for flexibility.
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FERS survivor benefit: cost, reduction, and how to elect it
Under FERS, a full survivor annuity reduces the retiree's annuity by 10% and pays the surviving spouse 50% of the unreduced annuity. A partial survivor annuity reduces it by 5% and pays 25%. Electing no survivor annuity means no reduction, no spouse annuity, and FEHB coverage generally ends. Source: [OPM survivor benefits](https://www.opm.gov/retirement-center/survivor-benefits/), as of October 19, 2026.
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Roth conversions for federal retirees
Often yes, and often earlier than expected. A FERS annuity is fully taxable income that arrives whether or not you want it, and it stacks with Social Security and eventual required distributions. The gap between retiring and starting Social Security is frequently the lowest-bracket window a federal retiree will ever have.
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FERS Supplement: How It Is Calculated, Who Gets It and When It Ends
The FERS supplement, also called the special retirement supplement, is a temporary payment on top of the basic annuity. It is generally available to FERS retirees on an immediate, unreduced annuity before age 62, and it ends at 62. It approximates the Social Security benefit attributable to FERS service, per [OPM](https://www.opm.gov/retirement-center/fers-information/types-of-retirement/).
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How to calculate your FERS pension
The FERS basic annuity is calculated as High-3 average salary times years of creditable service times a pension multiplier: 1% per year, or 1.1% per year at 62 or older with 20 or more years of service. This guide explains the formula, but an individual benefit calculation depends on your service record and retirement elections. [Book a 30-minute federal benefits review](/contact?path=federal) for a personalized review of your pension, TSP, and Social Security.
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Financial order of operations for federal employees nearing retirement
A financial order of operations is a sequence for organizing retirement decisions before and after federal separation. Start by confirming FERS eligibility and timing, then review survivor and insurance elections, map income, coordinate TSP and other accounts, assess tax decisions, and update estate documents. For help working through your own numbers and decision trade-offs, [book time for a personalized federal benefits report](/contact?path=federal).
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FERS Minimum Retirement Age: MRA by Birth Year and Annuity Impact
The FERS minimum retirement age (MRA) is between 55 and 57 depending on birth year: 56 for people born from 1953 to 1964 and 57 for 1970 and later. MRA is the earliest age you may qualify for an immediate annuity. It is not the age an unreduced annuity starts for everyone, per [OPM](https://www.opm.gov/retirement-center/fers-information/eligibility/).
Retirement income
Turning a balance into a paycheck: withdrawal order, Social Security timing, and the risks specific to drawing down.
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Sequence-of-returns risk, and why it only matters once
It is the risk that poor investment returns arrive early in retirement, while you are withdrawing. Selling into a decline permanently removes shares that cannot participate in the recovery. Two retirees with identical average returns over thirty years can end up in very different places depending on which years were the bad ones.
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Which account should you draw from first?
The conventional sequence is taxable accounts first, then tax-deferred, then Roth. It is a reasonable default, but it frequently leaves money on the table. Often, a better approach fills lower tax brackets deliberately each year, often drawing from several account types at once, rather than emptying one before touching the next.
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When to claim Social Security
For most people in reasonable health, delaying increases lifetime benefits. Each year of delay past full retirement age raises the benefit by roughly eight percent until 70. But the right answer depends on marital status, health, and what else funds the gap. For married couples, the higher earner's timing matters most because it sets the survivor benefit.
Investing approach
Risk management, allocation, and what the words firms use to describe their process actually mean.
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What 'active risk management' actually means
It means adjusting a portfolio's market exposure in response to defined conditions, rather than holding a fixed allocation through every environment. Done systematically, exposure reduces as conditions deteriorate and increases as they improve, following rules set in advance. It is distinct from both market timing and periodic rebalancing.
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Diversifying a concentrated stock position
Most approaches spread sales across multiple tax years to manage the capital gains rate, paired with techniques that reduce the bill: donating appreciated shares, harvesting losses elsewhere, and timing sales into lower-income years. The harder problem is usually psychological, because the position is often the reason for the wealth.
Physicians
Pension elections, compressed savings runways, and high marginal rates.
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Pension lump sum or annuity: how to decide
The annuity provides guaranteed lifetime income and removes investment and longevity risk. The lump sum offers control, flexibility, and something to leave heirs. The decision turns on the interest rates used to calculate the lump sum, your health and your spouse's, and how much guaranteed income you already have.
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Retirement planning when you started saving at 32
Two constraints shape it: a shorter accumulation window because training delays earning, and a high marginal tax rate that makes every inefficiency expensive. That combination puts unusual weight on account sequencing, on using the low-income years after clinical work stops, and on protecting earning capacity while it lasts.
The readiness assessment · free · 3 minutes
Reading is useful. Scoring yourself is faster.
This is the same calibration we walk through with prospective clients. Nine questions, one to ten, across every part of a retirement plan. Nobody scores green on all nine — the useful part is finding out which of the reds you did not know about.
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Your score, free
All 9 accelerators scored and color-coded the moment you finish. No email needed to see it.
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The written breakdown
What each score actually implies and the order to work through them, in exchange for a name and an email.
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Then a conversation, if you want one
Bring the scorecard. An advisor will have seen it before you sit down.
None of this replaces someone looking at your situation.
General guidance gets you to the right question. The answer depends on numbers only you have.