Your retirement-readiness checklist
Being retirement-ready is more than reaching an eligible age. It means your income covers your expenses with room to spare. Your savings and debt are in shape, your health coverage carries over, and your date and paperwork are set. This lesson is the final pass across all of it.
9 min read · By RetireCiv Editorial · Updated June 24, 2026
What does “retirement ready” mean?
Eligibility is the floor, not the finish line. Reaching your Minimum Retirement Age or 30 years lets you retire; it does not mean your plan is sound. Readiness is about whether the plan holds up if things go wrong.
That buffer is the margin of safety. A resilient plan builds in slack across income, savings, debt, and timing, so a bad market or a surprise expense does not break it. A plan that only works in the best case is not really a plan.
Readiness spans a few areas. Your income against your expenses, your savings and debt, your health coverage, and your date and paperwork all need to line up. A weak spot in one can undo the others.
This lesson is a final pass across those areas. Each links to a deeper lesson, and your free readiness score puts numbers to most of them. Use it as a pre-flight check before you file.
How do I know if I am ready to retire from federal service?
Check each area in turn. Does your income cover your expenses with a cushion? Can your savings sustain withdrawals, and is your debt manageable? Does your health coverage carry over, and are your date and paperwork set? Eligibility alone does not make you ready. Running each area, ideally with a readiness score, turns a gut feeling into a clear answer.
Is reaching my Minimum Retirement Age enough to retire?
No. Reaching your MRA, or another eligibility milestone, gives you the right to retire, but not the assurance that your finances are ready. You can be eligible and still fall short on income, savings, or coverage. Readiness is a separate question from eligibility, and it is the one this checklist answers.
Will your income cover your expenses?
Start with income against expenses. Your guaranteed income is your FERS pension, the Special Retirement Supplement until 62, and Social Security. Compare that floor to what you expect to spend.
The TSP fills the gap. Whatever your expenses exceed the guaranteed floor, your TSP withdrawals cover. The smaller that gap, the less market risk your plan carries.
Build in a margin. Expenses in retirement can surprise you, from health costs to home repairs to inflation. Income that only just covers an average year leaves no room for a bad one.
Map the timeline, too. The supplement ends at 62, and Social Security can start anywhere from 62 to 70. Your income mix shifts at those points, so check that each phase still covers your spending.
How much income do I need to retire?
Enough to cover your expenses with a cushion, not a single magic number. Compare your guaranteed income, the FERS pension, the supplement, and Social Security, against your expected spending. The gap is what your TSP must cover. A common approach is to aim for income that covers your needs even in a bad year. Your own number depends on your spending and your other assets.
What counts as guaranteed retirement income for a fed?
Your FERS pension and Social Security are guaranteed income for life, not exposed to the market. The Special Retirement Supplement bridges you from retirement to 62 if you qualify. Together they form an income floor that does not depend on investment returns. Your TSP is the part that does, so the larger your guaranteed floor, the more stable your plan.
Are your savings and debt in shape?
Next, check your savings and your debts. Your TSP should support a sustainable withdrawal pace, with a cushion against a bad market early on. Lower debt and a cash reserve both reduce the pressure on it.
Test the TSP for sustainability. A sustainable pace, often near the 4 percent rule of thumb, should fund your gap without draining the balance. Sequence-of-returns risk makes the early years the ones to stress-test.
Weigh your debt. A mortgage or other payments you carry into retirement raise the income you need each month. Entering retirement with less debt lowers your required income and your risk.
Keep a cash cushion. An emergency fund, separate from the TSP, lets you cover a surprise or a down market without selling investments low. It is the simplest buffer against sequence risk.
How big should my TSP be to retire?
Big enough that a sustainable withdrawal pace covers the gap between your guaranteed income and your expenses. There is no universal target; it depends on how large that gap is. A common check is whether a withdrawal rate near 4 percent funds the gap without draining the balance. A readiness score or a Monte Carlo simulation can test this directly.
Should I pay off my mortgage before retiring?
We explain the tradeoff rather than advise a choice. Carrying a mortgage into retirement raises the monthly income you need, which can strain a fixed pension and TSP. Paying it off lowers your required income but uses savings you might otherwise invest or keep liquid. The right answer depends on your interest rate, your cash flow, and your comfort with debt.
Why do I need an emergency fund if I have a pension?
Because a pension covers regular expenses, not sudden ones. A cash reserve lets you handle a surprise without selling TSP investments at a loss. That could be a home repair, a medical bill, or a bad market. It protects your portfolio from sequence-of-returns risk in the early years. It is a small buffer that keeps one bad event from forcing a costly move.
Is your health coverage set?
Confirm your health coverage carries into retirement. To keep FEHB as a retiree, you generally need to have been enrolled for the five years of service before you retire. Missing that rule is hard to undo.
Check the five-year rule now. Count back from your planned date to confirm five years of continuous FEHB coverage. If you are short, you may be able to fix it before you separate, but not after.
Plan for Medicare at 65. FEHB continues alongside Medicare, and at 65 you decide how the two work together. It is a later step, but worth knowing it is coming.
Tie coverage to your date. If you are considering an early exit, confirm that your retirement type keeps FEHB. An immediate or postponed retirement protects it; a deferred one usually does not.
Will I keep my health insurance when I retire?
Usually yes, if you meet the rules. To carry FEHB into retirement, you generally need three things. You must have been enrolled for the five years of service before you retire. You must retire on an immediate annuity and be enrolled on your retirement date. Meet those, and your coverage continues for life at the same premium share. The five-year rule is the one to check early, because it cannot be fixed after you separate.
Do I need Medicare if I keep FEHB?
You are not required to take Medicare to keep FEHB, which continues either way. Most retirees enroll in premium-free Part A at 65. Part B is optional and has a premium, so you weigh the cost against the coverage. When you have Medicare, it generally pays first and FEHB second.
Are your date and paperwork ready?
Last, lock in your date and your forms. For FERS, the last day of a month is usually the strongest date, so your annuity starts the next day. Your date also drives your leave payout and your survivor election.
Decide the survivor election. Your survivor benefit election is largely irrevocable and controls whether your spouse keeps FEHB. Settle it, and get your spouse’s consent if you elect less than the maximum, before you file.
Account for your leave. Your unused annual leave converts to a lump-sum payout at your pay rate. The leave year and a January raise can change its value, so factor that into your date.
File early. The retirement application, the SF-3107, goes to your agency, which forwards it to OPM. Submitting a few months ahead reduces the gap before your full annuity is finalized.
When should I file my federal retirement paperwork?
File well before your separation date, often a few months ahead. Your agency processes the SF-3107 retirement application and forwards it to OPM, which takes time to finalize your annuity. Interim payments cover you in the meantime, but filing early shrinks that gap. Confirm the lead time your agency prefers.
What do I need to decide before I submit my retirement application?
Lock in your retirement date, your survivor benefit election, and your health and life insurance choices. If you are electing less than the maximum survivor benefit, get your spouse’s notarized consent. Check that your date captures a full final month and the leave payout you expect. These choices are hard to change once your annuity begins.
What is the SF-3107?
It is the Application for Immediate Retirement under FERS. You file it with your agency, which certifies your service and forwards it to OPM to process your annuity. It is the core form that starts your retirement. Filing it complete and early helps avoid delays in your first payments.
Your readiness checklist
Pulling it together, readiness comes down to a few areas all being in shape at once. Income covers expenses with a margin. Savings sustain withdrawals and debt is manageable. Health coverage carries over, and your date and paperwork are set.
No single area makes you ready. A strong pension does not help if you lose FEHB; a big TSP does not help if you file the wrong date. The plan is only as strong as its weakest area.
Use the table as an at-a-glance check. It shows what being ready looks like in each area. Where you fall short, the linked lessons and your readiness score show how to close the gap.
There is no gut-feel substitute for running the numbers. Your free readiness score scores most of these areas and shows where you stand. Work through the checklist, close any gaps, then file with confidence.
What being ready looks like
| Area | You are ready when |
|---|---|
| Income | Guaranteed income plus a sustainable TSP draw covers your expenses, with a margin |
| Savings & debt | Your TSP pace is sustainable, debt is manageable, and you hold a cash cushion |
| Health coverage | You meet the five-year rule to carry FEHB into retirement |
| Date & paperwork | Your date, survivor election, and SF-3107 are set and filed early |
What is on a federal retirement readiness checklist?
It covers a few areas: income, savings and debt, health coverage, and your date and paperwork. Income should cover your expenses with a cushion. Savings should sustain withdrawals, with manageable debt and a cash reserve. Your coverage should carry over, and your date and forms should be set. Each area has to hold on its own, since a weak one can undo the rest.
How far ahead should I start checking my retirement readiness?
Start a year or more before your target date. Some items, like the five-year FEHB rule, can only be fixed before you separate, so finding a gap early matters. Others, like your survivor election and your date, need decisions in the final months. Checking early gives you time to close gaps; checking late can lock in a shortfall.
Does a readiness score replace a financial advisor?
No. A readiness score gives you a clear, numbers-based picture of where your plan stands across income, savings, debt, and timing. It is a strong starting point and a way to spot gaps. For complex situations, taxes, or personalized advice, a financial professional can build on what the score shows. We provide the education and the tools; the decisions remain yours.