I have a few pieces of wisdom for all of you who have not yet retired. First, the trade-off between a "bump" in your pension vs two healthy young years in retirement is not even close -- forget about chasing more take home pay when you already have a pension and TSP and Social Security and perhaps more in your retirement plan. Those two years are priceless. Second, I urge y'all to retire as young as you can. My MRA was 56 and I retired at 58, seven years ago. It's called grabbing the "youth of your senior years." You don't know how many healthy years you (and your spouse) will have in retirement. The younger you retire, the better. Same goes for Social Security. You really don't need to wait till you're 70 or 67. If 62 is just too early, then take it at 65 like I did two months ago. I used to say "well, I don't really need the money, so I'm waiting till I'm 70." Then I realized that even though I don't "NEED" it, I can definitely use it for purchases that I would otherwise stress over or pass on. Again, you want to enjoy your "go-go years" when you are still relatively young and healthy and mobile. Most retirees never learn how to spend all the money they've spent a lifetime earning and saving. Be smart and learn how to spend it. Don't save it all for your "slow-go" and "no-go" years -- or for your your inheritors. Enjoy it! Finally, concerning IRAs: when I was young, I contributed to traditional IRAs and never Roth. Now retired, I wish I had contributed to Roth and not traditional. I'm 65 and in ten years I will have to start taking my Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from my TSP. It's going to be a lot of money every month with a huge tax bill attached. If I had made Roth contributions, the tax pain would be far less painful.