Should I burn my sick leave before retirement? Hi, I'm John Raleigh, Certified Financial Planner with All About FERS, and today, we're going to talk about what are the best options to use your sick time before your retirement. Your sick leave is an important part of your compensation and understanding your sick leave options and the best uses is a great place to start. Most federal employees have saved up
many hours of sick leave. This gives those who have saved up your sick leave options of how to benefit from your sick leave. Let's start by discussing your sick leave. With sick leave, you can first, use the sick leave if you have a legitimate medical reason to use your sick leave. Second, you can use upon your retirement, your sick leave to increase your years of service,
which will ultimately increase your pension. Third, taxes due on your sick leave not used till retirement, are spread over the length of your retirement, this could be spread over 30 plus years, what if you have medical issues that need to be taken care of, do you take care of them now or in the future? I'm going to use me as an example. I've had both of my hips replaced, me using my sick leave to have my hips done while working, meant the surgeries and rehab were done under my sick
time. It was most important to me to have the hips replaced before retirement and not to be done once I was retired. Also, the pain associated with my hips forced me to have it done sooner than later. The big question to be answered was, is the lack of the increase of my pension worth the value of having it be done now? And this is a question you need to answer, ultimately, the decision to use your sick time or increase your pension comes
down to a question of what your needs are? There is a tremendous value in increasing your pension, but it may be better to take care of the medical needs while you're being paid, and working your plan and making sure your benefits are being used for you and your family's best needs is the ultimate goal here. You have worked hard for these benefits, and you deserve to have them be used in the best way for you. I hope this gives you a better insight on some of the options you have available
for your sick time and your accured sick time. Thanks for stopping by All About FERS, and until next time, Happy Planning!