Free · No account needed

Retirement, explained for NYC teachers.

Teacher Retirement Lab is a free, plain-spoken guide to your pension, TDA, health benefits, and everything else that decides when — and how well — you can retire. Build your personalized Retirement Roadmap: a visual timeline of your milestones, in about three minutes.

Start My Roadmap Browse the FAQ

Three ways in

  • Learn

    Plain-language guides to pensions and TRS tiers, TDA, benefits, and more — plus a searchable 300-question FAQ and short courses.

    Explore Learn →

  • Tools

    A free personalized Retirement Roadmap and quick calculators built around your actual numbers — pension, TDA, and CAR days.

    Start your Roadmap →

  • Watch Coming soon

    A growing video library that walks through the trickiest retirement topics a few minutes at a time.

    Explore Watch →

Built for NYC teachers — by people who actually read the tier rules

Official sources tell you the rules. We help you understand what they mean for you.

  • Specific to NYC, not generic advice

    Everything here is built around the NYC Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), your TDA, CAR days, and city health benefits — the actual rules that shape your pension, not one-size-fits-all retirement tips.

  • Plain language, real answers

    Tiers, service credit, survivor options, WEP and GPO — we translate the jargon into what it means for your timeline and your paycheck.

  • Independent and on your side

    We’re not TRS, your union, or a payroll office, and we don’t sell financial products. Our job is to help you understand your own benefits and walk into every meeting knowing the right questions to ask.

  • Free to learn

    The Learning Pages, the FAQ, and the coming Retirement Roadmap are free. Optional paid Lab Reports go deeper when you want a personalized document to prepare with.

Build your Retirement Roadmap.

Free, no account needed — a visual timeline of your milestones in about three minutes.

Start My Roadmap