The Federal Retirement Show: How We Serve Federal Employees and their Families: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

The Federal Retirement Show: How We Serve Federal Employees and their Families: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
Well, welcome everybody. My name is Val Majeski. I'm vice president of sales and marketing with American Benefits Exchange, and welcome to the federal retirement show. It's going to be an awesome ride. We're going to be going over the ins and outs of the federal benefits and retirement systems over the course of time. And I really just want to again welcome you and thank you for taking the initiative. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about the federal benefits and retirement. Now a couple of things. First of all, why are we doing this? Well, there's a lot of information out there that you need to know. And one of the biggest things that we say in our industry is, as experts in the federal market is you don't know what it is. You don't know. And what does that mean? Well, when you first get hired as a federal employee, there are there's a lot of paperwork and things that you fill out, selections that you make, benefits you sign up for. And if you don't make any changes over time, those things stay exactly the same and it's also not properly given to you. I should say the information the education is not given to you when it comes to planning properly for retirement or even how your retirement system works. So we had American Benefits Exchange and our team of experts across the country.

Speaker1:
What we do is educate and train federal employees with regard to their benefits and retirement information. This is information that you need to know information that allows you to make the best decisions, not just today for your working career, but over the course of time so you can plan properly so you can get to that that end goal of retiring on your terms comfortably with the amount of money, with the amount of benefits, with the amount of everything that you want to have when it comes to your future. So you might be asking, you know, who am I? Who is our company whose American benefits exchange, well, AB and our leadership. We've been in and helping federal employees and military personnel for 30 plus years. We do so because again, we find that most federal employees are very uninformed when it comes to their benefits and retirement information, and they find the information that we provide, the guidance that we provide to federal employees extremely valuable. What are some of the things that we go over? Well, we'll talk about your your pension system, let you know exactly exactly what it is. You have what you don't have, how things change over time, costs that are involved, what your retirement eligibility is and also how to calculate your retirement. We'll also do some income planning for you so you can see exactly where you currently stand and how you're trending as you move closer to retirement.

Speaker1:
Now there's a lot of tools and resources that we have at our disposal, including proprietary software that allows us to run extensive reports for you not to too much information, but just enough so you can see exactly where you stand. Now you can see our website. Think ABC.com? There's a tab in specific information on there for federal employees. Now our company is a national organization. We have representatives nationwide. We've helped federal employees of all shapes and sizes from all different agencies. So if you're a postal worker in Miami, Florida, or if you work for the IRS in Los Angeles, California or you work for the VA in Washington state, you know we can assist you and have assisted folks from those agencies and more. Now our company also, you know, we partner with a lot of government unions and associations to help out their members, which are made up of federal government employees. With this information, we we attend local, regional and national events. We perform both live in person and also virtual training seminars to provide this valuable benefits and retirement information. We offer solid guidance and solutions also to any issues within the benefit structure. So you may think, well, this is great value, you know, I'm glad you're providing me this information, but where do I go from here? What if the report you show me shows that I'm not properly planning for retirement? What if the report shows me that I'm paying too much for a certain benefit, or I need to plan better for retirement? I need to do something with with this or the other thing that's where we come in again.

Speaker1:
So we're not only experts in the information, but we can also provide guidance and solutions to make sure that not only are you set up properly today, but you are heading in the proper direction or the direction that you wish to go in as you get closer and closer towards retirement. And we can reevaluate along the way to make sure that that plan is still holding true and that you are still on track. It's not that we just see you one time and you're like, Hey, 20 years from now, I'm going to retire and we're done. We guide you along the way. We make sure that you're continually set up. Now, who am I right? I said, My name is Val Majeski. I'm vice president of sales and marketing here. Not only do I head up our entire team of representatives that assist federal government in. But I also assist folks as well, I've been doing so for the past 10 years, I consider myself a federal benefits expert that does not mean that I know every single thing out there, but through my experience and through my history of helping federal employees, I do know a whole lot.

Speaker1:
From time to time, I do get stumped and from time to time, there are very unique situations out there. You may have one of those. You have very unique questions, very unique situations that need specific answers. If I don't know that or for one of our representatives do not know we will do our best and our diligence in order to get you the appropriate answer in a timely fashion, but it comes down to the individual person. Why is that? Well, because your situation is different than the person that you work next to is different than that person they work next to and the person you know, your counterpart across the country and so on. Your specific situation is unique and you need to know about your current benefits what your retirement is going to look like, if again, if you're on track. And really what what your specific situation is going to look like in the future. Now we don't always have a crystal ball, but we can predict and project what that's all going to look like using our proprietary software. So our end goal? Why do we do this? So not only why are we doing the show? Why are we providing you this information? Why do we want to educate and train federal employees? Because it all comes down to making sure you, the individual federal employee who is watching this right now is set up and prepared properly both today and as you move closer to retirement.

Speaker1:
Now, if you have never gotten your situation looked at before, I highly, highly recommend it. Whether it's by us or somebody that works with us now, I will say I'm very confident in what we do and I'm confident in what we're able to do for you, the federal employee. But we can analyze your situation. Take a snapshot of where you currently are today. Project out what your future is going to look like. That way, you can see how you're trending and if it's not trending in a direction that you want it to go in. You have the ability to make changes, make changes today, not procrastinate, not delay. Not just say, Hey, I'm going to do it after the new year. I'm going to do it after this. I'm going to do it after I get promoted. I'm going to do it after my next pay raise. You have the opportunity today to make a change to positively affect yourself in the future. You have to, I promise you, your future self is not going to hate you for properly preparing or even over preparing for retirement. But I have met numerous, numerous federal employees that were on the verge of retiring or within a few years from retirement.

Speaker1:
That said, I wish I would have met you five years ago, 10 years ago. I wish I would have known this when I first got hired 20 years ago. And this all comes down to just being properly educated and trained when it comes to your benefits and retirement. Because the government gives you a lot of things, it's up to you to make the right decisions to make sure you're optimized or are set up properly, and it's up to you also to maximize what the government gives you, maybe eliminate some of the bad, but enhance a lot of the good, right big questions that we get asked, You know, what should I do about Social Security? What's my best strategy with TSP? What are my options with TSP? As I near retirement, what am I eligible to retire? What's my retirement going to look like? How do I run the calculations? We can give you the formula, or we can just run it through our programming and do all the calculations for you? Take the guesswork out of it and present it to you in an easy to understand and easy to review format. So these are the things that we do as a company and why myself and the folks at American Benefits Exchange want to bring this information to you through the federal retirement show.

Speaker1:
So I hope you enjoy it as we go forward. Look, subscribe to this. We've got a ton of information out there. I swear you're going to make sure that you're going to get hooked on finding out more and wanted to learn more regarding your benefits and retirement situation. It's not an obsession, but it can become addicting because there's a lot of information out there that is just not publicized. It's just not widely given to you. It's not put in your face every single day. And as much as the government provides you an opportunity for employment, things like that when it comes to changes, when it comes to modifications to the retirement or benefit structure, when it comes to budget reform and other things that affect federal employees, their retirement, their benefits that's not widely publicized or given to you. You're kind of left to figure this all out for yourself. Just like when you first got hired, you weren't properly educated. You filled out a bunch of forms and said, Hey, let's go to work. We're going to fill in the blanks. We want to provide you that information. Why? Because we care about you. We want to make sure that you are set up properly. So then we can help you pat yourself on the back down the road, say, Man, I did the right thing. I set myself up properly. Myself, my family, I'm set.

Speaker1:
I could retire on my terms and you're not going to be working until you're 70. Nothing wrong with that, if you wish to. Plenty of federal employees I've talked to that worked well into their seventies because they love their job and what they do. But it wasn't out of necessity. It was out of love. There's plenty of federal employees that want to get out right away when they first are eligible. Because they've prepared properly, they plan properly. They've had a goal in mind, they've set that goal. They've accomplished that goal because they've talked to a company like ours and one of our representatives across the country to make sure that they were hitting those goals set up properly. So you can go to our website again. Think ABC.com, a lot of information on there. You can double check on who we are. You can also request some personal information. There's a tab on there where you can click on Hey, I want to get a complimentary benefits evaluation, fill out some form and somebody within our company will reach out to you and make sure that we get you to the appropriate answers to your questions, as well as the reports that I was talking about. So you can see exactly where you stand and how you're projecting. Again, this the name of the title of the show is the federal retirement show.

Speaker1:
We want to make sure that everybody is set up properly when it comes to retirement, not just half or some of the people we talk to, but everybody now given the appropriate time horizon and the appropriate planning, you can do that too. And I say this in every, every event that I give, every virtual training that I perform, I say it's never too early and it's never too late to start planning for retirement because there are some people on the calls that I give or some people in attendance to the seminars that I give that say, Hey, I'm a couple of years from retirement, you've got the opportunity to set yourself up properly with whatever time you have available now. The opposite is true. If you just got hired, you say you just got hired in retirement is 30 years away, and it's so far in the distant future that you're thinking this information. I don't need to know this now. I've got plenty of time. I'm going to tune in when I'm 15, 10, five years from retirement, and I'd say that's also false. It's never too early to start. Never, because the earlier that you know this, like I said, there are people that said, Val, I wish I would have met you 20 years ago. I wish I would have known this when I first got hired. Because if you set yourself up properly now, it's not going to take as much work for you to set up your retirement plan and make sure that you're going to retire comfortably on your terms.

Speaker1:
Because you've got time, you've got longevity. Ok, so I've never once and I will say this, I say this as a joke when I give presentations, but I never once had a federal employee enter retirement and say, Val, I don't know what we did wrong. We must have messed up. I have way too much money in retirement. This is horrible, right? You're going to be patting yourself on the back being like, Wow, I over planned. I've got way too much money in retirement. This is awesome. I'm making more in retirement than I was while I was working. So take the time. Subscribe to our show here. Make sure you're tuning in when all the new episodes come out because we're going to be sharing the valuable information, telling some stories along the way, trying to keep it lighthearted, maybe add some comedy to the mix. So I want it to be entertaining for you. But talking about some, some real world stories, we'll have some guests along the way, some of our reps in the situations that they've seen over time and really dive in again just to the information, the information that we know is so valuable to you, your family and ultimately to your future retirement.

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