About FedHorizon
Federal employees make the most consequential financial decision of their careers — when to retire — with an outdated OPM calculator, a generic HR pamphlet, and a spreadsheet someone emailed them years ago. FedHorizon is the tool that should have been there from the start.
Who's behind FedHorizon
FedHorizon was founded by Chris, a career federal employee with firsthand experience navigating FERS. To maintain a clear separation between his federal employment and this independent project, he publishes here in a personal capacity under his first name.
I built FedHorizon because I was tired of watching smart people make a $400,000 lifetime decision based on a guess. Federal employees deserve the same level of analysis that people with private-sector financial advisors take for granted.
Why I built this
The federal-benefits corner of the internet is crowded with content that's generic, out of date, or both. FERS has specific mechanics that broad retirement tools routinely get wrong or skip entirely: the special retirement supplement and its earnings test, the FEHB five-year rule, special-provision multipliers for law enforcement, firefighters, and air traffic controllers, and the tradeoffs between early-out, deferred, and postponed retirement.
I built FedHorizon to handle those details correctly, keep them current as the rules change, and always show its work.
Why you can trust the numbers
Every figure on FedHorizon traces back to a primary source: OPM regulations and statutory tables, IRS contribution limits and tax brackets, TSP and FRTIB rules, SSA earnings-test figures, BLS inflation series, and GSA locality tables. The calculation methodology is published openly — not hidden behind “trust me.” Where a number could be contested, the rule it comes from is shown.
That's deliberate. You shouldn't have to take an anonymous author's word for anything. You should be able to follow the citation, read the underlying OPM rule, and confirm the math for yourself. And if you ever find a figure that doesn't match its source, I want to hear about it. Corrections are taken seriously and fixed quickly.
Every pension and eligibility figure in a FedHorizon report comes from a deterministic formula built from OPM's published FERS Handbook and statutes; Social Security, TSP growth and tax figures are calculated from disclosed assumptions. The AI in the report translates your numbers into plain English. It does not touch the math. Read the full methodology → · See our worked test cases →
Transparency
I am not an OPM employee, a federal pay or benefits administrator, a registered investment advisor, an insurance agent, an attorney, a CPA, or a financial planner. Nothing on this site is financial, insurance, legal, or tax advice. The tools exist to give you accurate, well-sourced numbers so you can make your own informed decisions — and, where the stakes are high, bring sharper questions to a professional you've chosen yourself.
All outputs are estimates based on publicly available OPM formulas and the inputs you provide. Actual benefits are determined by OPM based on your official service record at the time of retirement. For guidance on your specific situation, consult an appropriately licensed professional, such as a financial advisor, tax professional, CPA or attorney, who understands federal benefits.
Independence
FedHorizon is an independent commercial project and a product of Northsight Holdings LLC. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to OPM, the TSP, the FRTIB, or any agency or department of the United States government.
Questions, corrections, or partnership inquiries: hello@fedhorizon.com
Start with the free estimate — results appear instantly. The full 12-section report is free during beta; optional paid reports or features are planned for after the beta, and nothing is sold during it.