Reminder to make sure you're contributing to your TSP

https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/investing/average-401k-balance

The general rule of thumb is to expect 4% of your savings to be pulled out during retirement to try to maximize the length you can retire.

So for example, if you're getting used to living off 80k/year, then you want to have $2M inflation adjusted when you retire.

If you stay in 20 and get a pension that gives you, let's say, 3k then you still need to make up another 3.7k a month which is $1.1M.

If you have a TSP make sure it's not in the G fund, newer TSPs will auto put it into an Lfund but double check.

Just put in at least 5% for the match, but try to max out as much as you can, just stay under the yearly limit.

The average 401k balance at 65years old is 250k. Which means you will need to subsist off 10k a year. Even if you buy a house, utilities and tax alone will be above that so you'll end up having to continue to work in your old age.

At age 20 if you put in 5% of 40k in per year, so you put in 2k a year for 45 years you'll have an equivalent of 820k (as in it'll be as if you had 820k right now) which gives you 32k a year. Not amazing but far more doable than 10k.

If you did 10% or 4k you'd have 1.2M or 48k.

Note - when you calculate how much Future Value (FV) you have, don't forget to include inflation. For example in 30 years 13M has the equivalent buying power of 4.8M today. So if you end up with 1M without accounting for inflation expect maybe 400k of actual buying power that will continue to degrade. Just think if you can survive off 4% of that for 20-30 years, if not then increase your savings.