Thank you for the sound advice, and honestly cutting through the political noise. I saw a lot of posts today about Republican grandstanding at cutting federal telework policies and other things basically designed to starve out fed staff. Made me second guess whether it'd be even right to walk into a situation like that, ya know?

But you're right, it is basically recession proof. My current job doesn't require a clearance, but it's a foot in the door and as long as I get any part time work cleared, I should be just fine financially. As you say I won't get rich, but a solid life is what I'm after. I grew up a child of Central European immigrants so as you may imagine there's some leftover prestige in working for the state and respect for those civil servants/contractors, even if the average American thinks of them as just some bean counter or under-achieving IT student lol.

I am serving the nation, in my own way.

> I think the public transit in DC is pretty good. Haven’t used it in a while but always felt like I could get to where I needed to go in DC.

For context, around here the Commission for the Blind can do most everything except transit. It's really only Uber or Lyft, and they can't subsidize that (for obvious reasons, cost is too wildly in flux). There is zero public transit here, unless you want to go from your hotel to the Boardwalk once per day.

Is 4k on the low end of what might be enough to get someone set up? I know inflation has been kind of rough lately, eggs at $6/unit and all. I figure even if I don't put in 30 years, I can at least put in a solid decade or so, and get some type of secured pension.