Working longer, retiring slightly later, can have a big time payoff. And it’s particularly true for federal workers. Most are under the Federal Employees Retirement System, which offers them benefits based on a civil service annuity (for life and partially indexed to inflation), Social Security (fully indexed to inflation) and whatever they have in their Thrift Savings Plan. Although they are likely to have more in retirement than a private sector employee earning the same salary, chances are their total income will be reduced in retirement. So financially, the longer you work the more you have to spend in retirement. And if you never retire, well, do the math.

In the real world, however, most people are anxious to retire. Especially if they’ve worked a long time or have other things they want to do that don’t fit in with getting up and going to work five days a week.

So how do you compromise to have the best of both the work and retirement worlds? Make sure that your golden years are 24 carat, as opposed to a future of penny-pinching as inflation eats into your FERS benefit.

Solution?

For the answer, we went to benefits expert Tammy Flanagan. She’ll be my guest on Your Turn today.