Resources
📥 Checklists, worksheets & calendars
The calculators on this site handle the arithmetic. These documents handle the part that comes before it — the records, the figures, and the dates you need in front of you. Each one is built from published agency sources, dated, and re-issued when the underlying tables change.
Every resource page below sets out the full contents in the open, before any email request: what is in the document, who it is for, and which official sources it draws on. If the page answers your question without you sending an email, that is a fine outcome.
FERS Pre-Retirement Checklist — Five Years Out to Your Final Day
A dated checklist of the documents, elections, and deadlines that appear in the last five years of a FERS career: verifying creditable service and locating every SF-50, the five-year FEHB and FEGLI continuation rules, the deposit questions, and the retirement package your agency sends OPM on your final day.
PDF checklist6 pagesUpdated 2026-07-30
VA Claim Document Checklist — What VA Asks For, in One List
VA names the records it asks claimants to supply, but the list is spread across several pages and forms. This checklist consolidates those categories — service records, medical records, dependency documents, identifiers — into one sheet with a tracking column, so nothing on VA's own list goes missing.
PDF checklist4 pagesUpdated 2026-07-30
SNAP Application Prep Worksheet — The Figures Your State Agency Asks For
Every state SNAP application asks for the same categories: household composition, gross earned and unearned income, shelter and utility costs, dependent care, and medical costs for elderly or disabled members. This worksheet gives you one page to write those figures down, with the FY2026 limits printed beside them.
worksheet3 pagesUpdated 2026-07-30
COLA Watch Calendar — When Each Agency Publishes Its New Numbers
Government pay and benefit figures change on a fixed annual rhythm: SSA announces the COLA in October, USDA's SNAP tables turn over October 1, VA rates take effect December 1, and OPM's General Schedule lands the first pay period of January. This calendar puts every publication date on one page.
calendar2 pagesUpdated 2026-07-30
Why these arrive by email
Every figure in these documents comes from a table that changes on a schedule — SNAP allotments each October 1, VA rates each December 1, the General Schedule each January. A file downloaded once and kept becomes wrong without announcing it. Sending them by email keeps a single dated version in circulation, and lets us send the corrected sheet when a table turns over. It is double opt-in, and unsubscribing takes one click.
COLA Watch — annual pay & benefit updates the week they drop
One email when the numbers change. Double opt-in, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
These documents are educational reference material, not legal, financial, or benefits advice. Every agency named here makes its own determinations; the official sources are linked on each resource page.