Your Federal Pension Check

Be prepared! Your Federal Pension check may be delayed.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is having more and more responsibilities outsourced. Retirement checks could take longer than expected to be distributed.

Even if you have turned in all of your paperwork on time - in does not guarantee that you will immediately receive your Federal retirement check.

How Long Before I Get My First Retirement Check?

In my experience, most Federal Employees will not receive their first retirement check until 3 months after they retire.

But you need to know that the first checks will only be about 80% of your monthly pension.

You will not receive 100% of your monthly pension until OPM has reviewed your file and officially calculated your benefits. It may take approximately 3 more months for that to happen.

In most cases, when you finally do receive your first 100% check, you will also get a check with the difference between your 80% checks and 100% of your monthly pension.

So you will eventually get all of your pension money - it just takes time.

Example of Delay

Remember, these are just estimates. It all depends on how backlogged OPM is.

I have seen it take 8 months for a Federal Employee to receive their *first* retirement check! Than means if they retired on January 1st - their first check didn't arrive until September 1st!

What if your first check takes that long to arrive? Do you have enough money in savings?

Be Prepared Financially

During your career, I encourage you to have at least three to six months living expenses in cash reserves.

But when you are getting ready to retire - you want to have 2 years of living expenses in a savings account. Not in stocks, or bonds - in a plain old savings account or money market account.

This way, if you do not receive your Federal retirement check for several months, you will still have enough money to pay the bills.

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Are You Prepared to Wait 6 Months for your Pension Check?

When I talk to Federal Employees about their retirement, I’ve seen seven particular mistakes that seem to come up again and again.

In addition to teaching federal retirement classes, I’m also a Financial Planner for Federal Employees.

I’ve helped many Federal Employees retire successfully – so I’ve seen the problems that come up, but I also know how to fix them. While I can still help Federal Employees get out of these mistakes – I’d rather help you avoid these mistakes all together.

I’ve created a special report just for you, because I want to help Federal Employees avoid costly retirement mistakes.

What are the most common retirement mistakes that federal employees make?

Register to get access to my FREE Special Report on The 7 Classic Retirement Mistakes Federal Employees Mistake… and How to Avoid Them. I will also send you my monthly Newsletter (e-zine) Federal Retirement Planning.

I am providing this Special Report totally free to subscribers of Federal Retirement Planning. Just complete the form below, and click on the “Subscribe” button. You will then receive a confirmation email asking you to confirm your request.

Don’t let these 7 classic mistakes ruin your federal retirement. Register for my monthly Newsletter (e-zine) Federal Retirement Planning and get your copy of my FREE Special Report today.

Return from Your Federal Pension Check to FERS Retirement

Return from Your Federal Pension Check to CSRS Retirement