i just had to erase my profound and life changing advice for you after reading your latest post...if you have been buying since '09...you have done well...that was a true market bottom
at times I hated the fact that I pulled money from tsp. when I was a fed tech for roughly 4 years, I went through a divorce, and ended up leaving that job. I only had about $6K in that fund, and simply pulled it rather than investing. I had thought that I was going to change career mindsets... And go into a different field I stead of military full-time. Then in 2009 I was offered an AGR position, and was back in full swing again. So I did get in at the bottom of the market. The only issue was that I invested very little until about a year ago. In fact, I had lost my log-in info (and to be honest... Didn't have a desire to check tsp). That all changed when I bought my home a year ago and decided that I really need to start preparing.
So... With that I've been jumping Into a few "financial independence" classes and have been doing a Ton of research. I have a list of goals, and have already started executing them. After looking at my income, along with my wife's I realized I was squandering money away and instead, why not throw that at the principle of the house? I crunched the numbers, tossed more in TSP, and now make an additional house payment each month. I'll turn my 30 year mortgage into an 8 year one (that's when I plan to pay it off). I'm expecting a call soon for a promotion, so I plan to try to max my contributions to TSP with that extra cash.
In theory it's all a good plan. I still have money left over to fool around with, and all of that's done with my income. My wife makes a bit more than me, so once I get her involved a bit more, I think I can really get this ball rolling.
So in some ways I regret that I pulled my money out of TSP back when I thought I was going to leave the full-time gig behind. But in other ways it was a blessing as I did not suffer through 2008. I wish I had invested a lot more in 2009 and 2010... But at least I invested something. Plus in a way, I am glad I did what I did as it helped to build my credit to what it finally is, and it helped me gain hard assets (like the house).
As for compounding for 23 years... That's the plan. I don't plan to yank that cash out of tsp... Especially if I start tossing the max contribution in there for 5 or 6 of my last years. I've served over 17 years now (mixture of active duty, national guard, and now AGR). I may even stay in after the 7 years... Really depends on what I got lined up after retirement at 45. Lol. I gotta do something