Criteria for Downsizing House During Retirement Your housing needs will likely be different during your retirement than during your working years. A common question for those who are retired is whether they should relocate or downsize their house. Here are some things to consider when making this decision. Finances Read more…
Benefits of Retiring as a Federal Employee One of the benefits of a career with the federal government is that you are covered under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). FERS is a retirement plan that provides benefits from three different sources: a Basic Benefit Plan, Social Security and the Thrift Savings Read more…
Switching from Accumulation to Withdrawal During most of your working career you will be adding money to your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account in hopes that you can accumulate enough funds to adequately supplement your retirement income when that time comes. When retirement does arrive, you can finally start withdrawing Read more…
The TSP is a retirement plan for federal employees. It has limited investment options, but its simplicity and low cost structure makes it a powerful part of a federal government retirement plan. Besides the TSP, federal employees can receive other benefits during retirement including a FERS supplement, pension, social security, Read more…
What are the Tax Differences Between Traditional and ROTH TSP Accounts? One of the differences between a Traditional TSP account and a ROTH TSP account is in the taxation of contributions and withdrawals. For a ROTH account, you have to pay taxes on your contributions but the account can grow Read more…
Two very common ages to retire as a federal employee are 60 and 62. You might think that the difference between the two ages doesn’t matter as long as you’re eligible to retire, right? But, it could actually have a very big impact on your retirement. Also, the eligibility to Read more…
Many federal employees want to retire as soon as possible. But before you act too soon, it’s good to consider the impact that your retirement date will have on your benefits. Note: Before picking a retirement date, it is important to know that you are eligible to retire first. Read more…
If you’ve watched my stuff for any amount of time then you’ll know that I love the Roth TSP! Getting TAX-FREE growth is amazing and I recommend it all the time. But I have to be honest, it doesn’t make sense for everyone. There are 3 specific circumstances where Read more…
A common question among federal employees is, “when is the earliest I can retire?” It would be great to have a simple answer to that question. Federal employees have the ability to retire at many different ages depending on their years of service and what benefits they prefer to have Read more…
Surprise! You know that lump sum payment you get at retirement for any unused annual leave? The government wants to take back 40%-ish of it. But there are some things you can do to keep a bigger slice. The Problem I recently got this question from Read more…
