There are a number of US federal employees who post regularly on this board. It seems like many of us are planning to leave well before minimum retirement age and then collect a deferred FERS pension when we reach MRA or full retirement age.
My plan is to leave about 12 years before full retirement age (7 years before MRA), live mostly off of savings until FRA, then start collecting my pension. DW's small SS benefit will kick in about 2 years into FIRE, which will help out some. My SS will kick in a few years after my pension starts (assuming I start collecting around 65). At that point, when the pension and both SS benefits are going, our projected living expenses will be mostly covered with our remaining savings serving mainly as a supplement/back-up.
I've run the numbers six ways to Sunday using cFiresim, Firecalc, Monte Carlo simulators, etc., and all say that this is a sound plan. But I can't help having some anxiety about that first 12-15 years when I will be pretty much on my own. So I'm wondering, have any of you feds actually executed a similar FIRE strategy? What went right? What went wrong? Did you have any issues getting your pension after being out of the federal work force for a while? I'd love to hear your stories.
Thanks!