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Retiring This Year: Federal Retirement

The application, the OPM timeline, and what your first year of retirement income looks like.

ForYour final months before retirement
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What you’ll learn

This track covers the mechanics of actually retiring, the part most guides skip. Learn the application packet you file, how long OPM takes to finalize your annuity and how interim payments bridge the gap, what hits your final paycheck, and what your cash flow and tax bill look like in the first year.

Lessons

7 lessons · 7 available
  1. 01Phased retirement: who qualifies and what it costsWorking half-time while drawing half your annuity, the two eligibility routes that allow it, and the supplement you give up.
  2. 02The retirement application packet (SF-3107)What forms you file to retire, and the documents OPM needs to process your annuity.
  3. 03OPM processing time and interim paymentsHow long OPM takes to finalize your annuity, and how interim payments tide you over until it does.
  4. 04When OPM pays your annuity, and what the deposit saysThe monthly payment cycle, how to read the OPM1 TREAS 310 deposit on your statement, and what to do when a payment does not arrive.
  5. 05Your final paycheck when you retireWhat lands in your last salary payment, which deductions stop, and when each retirement payment actually arrives.
  6. 06Your 12-month pre-retirement runwayThe federal deadlines that close permanently when you separate, sequenced backward from your retirement date.
  7. 07Your first year of retirement: cash flow and taxesWhy the year you retire stacks salary, your leave payout, and a partial annuity into one unrepresentative tax year.

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