Maximizing Your Benefits for Retirement

4.3.24: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

4.3.24: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
Welcome back to the Federal Retirement Show. I am your host, Val Majewski with American Benefits Exchange. I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to join us to learn about what we have to talk about when it comes to federal employee benefits and retirement information. That's why we have the show. That's what this is all about. I recently worked a few different events for federal employees last week and got a lot of valuable feedback. Just getting a temperature gauge on what's going on with federal employees, where they're feeling regarding their benefits and retirement. The consensus is, as it has always been, is they just want to gather as much information as possible. You might be in the same boat. You might be thinking, where do I turn for answers? What do I do? What am I looking for? Uh, what do I need to know? And all those are great questions, and you may be left struggling to find those answers. Plus your day to day. The job that you have, the duties that you're responsible for at work, you may not have all the time of the day to research these things. Get all of your questions answered and know what information to gather. And that's where we come in. That's why we started this show, not just to give out information that we've already been giving to federal employees for the past 30 years, but to answer specific questions to share with you certain situations that federal employees just like you are going through and what they've done to overcome those things, or different strategies that you can put in place to make sure that you don't come across or fall into the same traps that other federal employees had when it comes to their benefits and retirement planning.

Speaker1:
So today, I want to go over some of the resources that we at American Benefits Exchange and the Federal Retirement Show have for you, the federal employee. And it's just ways in which you can gather more information, ways in which you can make things very simple so you can make the best decisions as you move throughout your working career. So let's dive into today's information as we talk about maximizing your federal employee retirement. But going over the resources that we at American Benefits Exchange have for you. So as I mentioned, the word I use a lot, especially on this show is maximizing. Sometimes I'll say optimizing, but you want to make sure that you're set up properly. You want to make sure you're taking advantage of all the things that the government has for you. First, you want to be knowledgeable of everything and then understand what's good, what's bad, what's kind of indifferent, what's necessary, what's not, and determine for yourself what is best for you, because what's best for you may not be what's best for the person you're working side by side with may not be the same for your manager or supervisor may not be the same for your team leader, whatever it might be.

Speaker1:
Everybody's situation is different, but the government does give you a bunch of things that you can take advantage of. Um, some things that are great. And then there are some things that I think you should avoid. We're going to go over that today because we at American Benefits Exchange not only want to make sure that you have all this information. And again, that's the reason why we started the show, the federal retirement show. But we want you to use it in the best way possible. So gathering information is great. But then we'll talk about what kind of your next steps are once you have all of the info question. And this might be why you're tuning in, but are you 100% sure you're going to have a great retirement, or do you have some doubt? You may have heard us ask this question before, but chances are, based on the conversations I've had with other federal employees across the country from all different agencies, it's not just one little specific section or one specific agency that we work for. After talking to federal employees, there are some doubts that creep in when it comes to retirement. Have you planned well enough? Are you going to have enough money in retirement? Can I retire when I want? Are I going to have to continuously keep working until this becomes feasible? There are so many different questions that federal employees have that put doubt in their minds of whether or not they're going to have a great retirement.

Speaker1:
Now, everybody's version of great retirement is different as well. Some may be okay with a certain amount of money. Others may need double that amount. Others want to travel the world. Others want to sit and relax after working long and hard. They want to make sure that they can just relax and enjoy it. Maybe you want to go see family, grandkids, whatever it might be. Now. We had a guest on the show. Her name was Brandy person, uh, a while back, but she said, and I loved using this quote, that you are planning for retirement, whether you know it or not. From day one, the first day you get hired, and the more information that you can gather, the more knowledge you can have, the better you're going to be as you go through your career and as you plan accordingly for that day that you walk out the door. So to answer this question, whether your first day on the job or you're going to be retiring in the very near future, are you 100% sure you're going to have a great retirement or. Do you have some doubt? We want to make sure that you are at the 100% area.

Speaker1:
Not even 99. We want to make sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that you know that your retirement is going to be exactly how you want it. You're going to have a great retirement. So I said part of this is gaining knowledge. Part of this is gaining an understanding. You have to start somewhere. Veteran employee benefits and retirement information. It can be like speaking a different language. You know, you're a government employee. Everything is a different acronyms or different sayings or different inside information that the regular person looking at. This would have no idea what it's all about. So you need to speak this language. Not only do we speak it, but we can interpret it and we can make sense of it all for you. But why is that? Because, and you may have seen us put this up here before. You don't know what it is. You don't know. That's a general statement. You don't know what it is you don't know. And we want to fill in those blanks. So through these resources that I'm going to talk about some of these items that you can reach out to us to get to acquire for us to send you. We want to fill in those blanks and give you the information that we believe you need to know, because there might be things you say, well, I just didn't know about that.

Speaker1:
That wasn't properly shown to me. That wasn't I wasn't trained on this. I wasn't educated on this. We want to fill in those blanks again, because some of these decisions that you're making now and over the course of your career could have negative effects to your bottom line, the amount of money you're taking home and negative effects on your future retirement income. Some things can be great that you're doing now, which is awesome, but we want to give you a high five. Pat you on the back for the things you're doing great, and try to remedy some of the things that you're not doing so well. So I use a perfect analogy of going to a doctor. Let's say you're going to do an annual checkup every year. Now that's kind of like what we do when we sit down with the federal employee. We do a checkup. We want to let you know where you currently stand. But why do you go into the doctor? Just let's just say your general checkup, right? You may not know something's up, but you just want to say, I want to go in. And I'd love for that doctor to give me a clean bill of health. I'd love to go in, do my annual checkup, check the box saying I've done it, find out I'm in great health. Walk out the door, head held high. Everything I'm doing is great, right? Blood work is great.

Speaker1:
Um, all the analysis is great. Height and weight, all the things looks awesome. And you want the doctor to pat you on the back and let you know you're doing a great job. We'll see you next year. But I said you don't know what you don't know. You may not know that something is wrong, and you would hope that that doctor would analyze your situation. Look at all the numbers, look at the charts, look at the data and figure out what's going wrong with you. If there is something, whether you know it or not. Now, if they bring that to your attention when it comes to your health, you're probably going to be like, well, what do I do from here, doc? What is my next step? What should I do to improve my situation? You want them to not only diagnose what's going on, you want them to prescribe something, give you a treatment plan, put you on a program to get you better back to where you want to be. Back to 100% healthy, right? 100% sure that you're in a good spot and you want to then have them prescribe you something, which I hope you then would follow to put yourself in a better situation. So I don't claim to be a doctor. I don't have a MD behind my name or even a PhD behind my name. But like a doctor, uh, our company, American Benefits Exchange, and our reps across the country, we want to have you come in, sit down with us.

Speaker1:
We can diagnose your situation. Look at all the numbers, look at the charts, look at the data. And hopefully we can patch on the back and tell you you're doing a great job. Keep it up. We'll see you next year. But what if there is a red flag? What if there is something where you're lacking? What if there is an alarming part of your benefits and retirement situation that you just didn't know about, you didn't know was going on in the same way you may not have known your health was bad, you would hope that we would diagnose it. Inform you about it, and then you'd say, hey, where do I go from here? We would prescribe some sort of treatment, some sort of plan going forward that would improve your situation. So that is the reason why we do what we do. That is the reason why we provide this out there for you. So you can look at it all and hopefully see that you're in a great spot. But if there is a problem, fighting it out sooner than later is better. Same with the doctor. You'd rather figure something out now while it's in a different in a maybe a more minor situation, or maybe it's in the early stages of being sick or whatever might might be before it gets out of hand, out of control and really detrimental to your situation.

Speaker1:
That's what we like to do. So again, I'm not saying I am a doctor or we are doctors, but using that analogy, I hope you can see that it's beneficial to find out now what's going on, rather than procrastinating and waiting and thinking under a false sense of security that everything is fine. So you want to get diagnosed and then ultimately treated well, what if you. You know what I've read on your own or want to see some information? What are the resources and things that we can provide you? Well, you've heard us talk about it. Hopefully you've seen this on our website, Federal Retirement Show.com, the book that we wrote. Okay. It's called There's No Excuse Your Guide to Maximizing your federal employee benefits. Again, that word maximizing taking advantage of everything the government gives you. But that book reads like I talk. Why? Because I wrote it. But if you can stand my voice in the way that I talk and how I present everything to you here, then you should have no problem reading this book. When it comes to benefits and retirement for federal employees, it is a good reference piece for you. Okay, it is a good baseline of knowledge, something you can refer back to should you need anything. On top of that, we've got other pamphlets that we've created.

Speaker1:
One of them is called the Top ten Mistakes that Federal Employees Make, and hopefully how you can avoid those. Now I said top ten. Does that mean these are all the mistakes that federal employees make? No, I'm sorry, that's not the case. But in my opinion, the top ten that I've seen federal employees make and how hopefully they can avoid them. And maybe there's things that here you said, nope, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. This doesn't pertain to me. Great, great. This is just in general, on the right side, you'll see a couple different reports. And this is something that we do. This is like, you know, again, filling out the chart at the doctor's office. When you sit down and go back to the doctor analogy, fill out the chart, fill out these forms, give us a baseline of all this information. And then we're going to ask you some more questions. Or we're going to dive deeper. What we do is we gather information from you about your situation. We plug it into our software. We have specific software that we've built over time and and tried to perfect, to give you a general overview and a little bit of detailed information in there as well, but a good overview of your personal situation where you stand, how you're projecting as you get closer to retirement, just to make sure you're on the right track.

Speaker1:
So it gives you a snapshot of where you are today and shows you how you're trending as you get closer to retirement. Why is that important? Because you want to make sure you're on the right track. Going back to my original question, are you 100% sure you're going to have a great retirement? Or do you have some doubt? Knowing where you stand and seeing where you're going puts you as close to 100% as possible if you prepare properly. That's our goal. You know, as you're trending that you're going in the right direction. So we've got a couple of different reports that we print out. We've got a federal employee benefits workbook that we print. It's essentially like the Cliff notes version of your benefits. You can read the book, but now these are plugging the workbook is plugging in your specific numbers and giving you a number of reference pieces in there as well. So you can not only learn about your benefits, but see exactly what your situation looks like. So if you love Cliff notes back in the day, instead of having to read the whole novel, this is the way to get your specific numbers in an easy to understand workbook. Then we've got a supplemental report that we can send you as well that goes over your retirement income strategies and what your future retirement income will look like again, so you can make sure you're on the right track.

Speaker1:
If that's not enough for you and you want some more information, we have detailed pamphlets on three specific federal employee topics that generally are of concern, and these are some of the top ten mistakes that I referenced in that pamphlet that we created. But saving money when it comes to option B of your family insurance, this is one of the mistakes that we see people make is overpaying or paying too much for option B, there are ways you can save a ton of money when it comes to your life insurance coverage with the government. This pamphlet goes over that and ways in which you can make your situation better. When it comes to your survivor benefit. This is not a topic that is always talked about or highly talked about. Had a conversation with a federal employee earlier today where they were concerned about the survivor benefit and what the best choice is. And if going with the government plan is going to be the best move for them. This goes over the survivor benefit plan, a little more detail and the different options that you have available both with and outside the government. The last bit, a very popular topic with federal employees is TSP, because we get the question asked, which way should I go with my TSP? What should I do with my TSP? I recently answered this question what do other federal employees would do? Most veteran employees that I talk to do what direction do they go in? You know what direction is right for you? It's not a blanket statement.

Speaker1:
This is what you should do. Know we have to analyze your situation and understand what it is you want to do when it comes to your TSP, what function you want your TSP to serve. But this is a good baseline of information for you, so you can see all the choices that are available to see which direction is right for you. If you want any of these resources emailed to you sent to you, I'd recommend you go to Federal Retirement Show.com you can fill out our form on there. You can sign up for a. Parliamentary benefits and retirement evaluation. This is something that we provide to federal employees again all over the country, whether it's me personally or one of our reps nationwide reaching out to you to specifically go over your situation, we can get you not only a personal benefits and retirement review. The supplemental report I just sent, we can get you a copy of the book. There's no excuse and any of the pamphlets that we just talked about, the top ten mistakes, the Fegley, uh, Survivor Benefit and TSP pamphlets as well. You can read all that. It can be sent, uh, digitally to you. So it's easy to read, easy to save onto your your systems, your computers, what have you.

Speaker1:
But the whole goal not only is to give you that information right, you can go on Webmd.com, you can go on Google, you can look up everything you have to to look up medically, but it really hits home when you sit down with a professional like a doctor, right? To get your situation diagnosed, to go over your personal situation when it comes to your charts, your blood work, etc., etc. same with benefits and retirement. You can analyze everything. You can look at opengov, you can Google everything, but you really want to sit down with an expert who knows about this stuff, who speaks this language, and can analyze all of your personal data and share with you exactly where you currently are and how you're trending, how you're going, what it looks like as you near or enter retirement. So I hope that you found today's information valuable. I hope that you were able to gather something out of this. And if there's any of that information that you want, go to the website, fill out the form. We'll be in touch. We'll get you everything that you're looking for. Well, I really do appreciate, as always, your time and attention and tuning in to the federal retirement show. We do this for you. It's because of you that we have a show. So thank you for tuning in and I really look forward to seeing you on a future episode.

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