Spreadsheets

Voluntary
    MRA + 30
    60 + 20
    62 + 5

Early
    50 + 20
    Any + 25

MRA + 10
    MRA + 10
    60+10
       (not ready yet)

Deferred
(not available yet)

Discontinued
(not available yet)

The FERS-o-Meter will help you determine when you can retire and gives you an estimate of what your annual annuity will be. Use this tool to see when you can retire, if you can afford to retire, or to compare different scenarios. The FERS-o-Meter is based on a spreadsheet I created to determine what my early retirement penalty would be if I retired at my MRA.

There are several different scenarios for retirment.  While I haven't calculated them all yet, in the ones I have worked, retirement eligibiliy is defined by the age at which you can retire plus (+) the number of years you must work under the FERS program.  All of the links are defined as Age + Years Service.  If you don't know your Minimum Retirement Age (MRA), the calculators with an MRA component will determine it for you.

Definitions:

Voluntary:  Voluntary because once you reach the age & years of service requirements, you can retire at any time.  You receive your full annuity (no reduction penalty) immediately (the month after your last paycheck, for the most part).

Early retirement:  This is available only when offered by your agency, ususally because of an agency restructuring or downsizing.  You receive your full annuity immediately.

MRA+10:  Once you reach your MRA, you can retire with only 10 years of service, but your annuity check will be decreased (based on the number of months you are under 62 at the time you retire).  The calculator estimates what this "penalty" will be.

Deferred:  You defer receiving your annuity for a few years, perhaps because you left Federal service before retirement age and want to collect it once you reach your MRA, or because you want to lessen the "under 62 penalty" for retiring under the "MRA+10" scenario.  (I haven't completed spreadsheets for this scenario yet.)

Discontinued:  This is when you're let go from civil service due to downsizing.  (I haven't done much reasearch on this one yet.)

Caveats & assumptions:

Please read these carefully.

• The tool works only for FERS employees, and the years worked under the FERS progran. It does not address CSRS retirment, nor the CSRS component for an employee covered under both systems.
• You will continue at your current paygrade. The calculators don't take promotions (or demotions) or step increases into account. Likewise, it was created before NSPS implementation, so neither pay-banding nor performance-based pay increases are addressed.
• The figures generated by the FERS-o-Meter are estimates only. You cannot hold me legally accountable if your actual retirement numbers differ significantly from what's provided here.
• The tool currently addresses only the retirement annuity portion of your retirement.  The other two componets, Social Security and your TSP are not included at this time.  I may include them, or at least links to them, in the future.
• I'm not a personnel expert & I don't work for OPM. Nor am I a programmer or mathematician. Since the FERS-o-Meter was created for me, it's possible that I did not take your specific scenario into account. If that's the case, please e-mail me telling me what your situation is & I'll try to incorporate your circumstances into the formulas.