Top 10 Mistakes Made by Federal Employees — Part 1: Federal Benefits and Retirement Training

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1.16.26: 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'm your host, Val Majewski with American Benefits Exchange. And as always, I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to view our content. That's what it's here for is for you, the federal employee that's looking for accurate information when it comes to your benefit and retirement situation. There's a lot of other episodes, so if you like today's content, you've never been here before. Welcome. But there's a lot of other episodes, over 160 of them now that you can go back to and you can view them all on on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, on our website. Federal retirement Show.com. If you have a question about your benefits and retirement situation, chances are we've covered it in one of our episodes and if we have not, well reach out to us. Go to our website Federal retirement Show.com fill out the form. One of our experts. If it's not me personally, we'll be reaching out. But you can also suggest to me or that person that would do an episode on this. Why don't we see an episode on X, Y and Z or ABC? We'd be happy to cover it. Make sure it's information that that you're looking for, because if you're looking for it, chances are there's another federal employee out there that is. So again, thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here. Now today's episode we're going to start a new series.

Speaker1:
There's a pamphlet that I wrote years ago called The Top ten Mistakes Made by Federal Employees. And we go over the different ones. And it's not just the only ten, but at the time when I wrote this, it was the top ten that I had seen in my experience. And I've been doing this now for over 13 years, working specifically with federal employees. I consider myself a subject matter expert. I certainly am not going to claim to know everything, but through my experience, I know a whole lot. And we came up with this pamphlet, I wrote it, it's a short little thing. It's top ten mistakes, and I want to revisit that. I want to give you a fresh new perspective on all these mistakes. So I said, as the name implies, there's ten of them and we might throw a few extra mistakes in there as we go. But I want to give you a fresh new perspective on these things, and I want to make sure that you have a good understanding of where other federal employees might fail, so you don't do the same thing. And if I had a longer way to put the title as the top ten mistakes made by federal employees and how to avoid them, I certainly do not want you to make any of these mistakes. I want you to ensure that you are set up properly over the course of your working career, so that when you get to that blessed day call retirement, you can leave happy with your head held high, retiring how you want, when you want, and with the lifestyle that you want.

Speaker1:
Then talking to a lot of federal employees recently and we did that, uh, when we talked about our checklist last episode. But we want to ensure that you get to that that finish line knowing everything with confidence, because if there are some things that are left unturned, there's some question marks and you retire and you fill out that paperwork and now you start getting the retirement check. You may not be as happy as you think. So let's let's ensure that you are. So this series again it's going to be the top ten mistakes. We're going to cover. One mistake each episode and we're going to elaborate on it, give you a fresh new perspective on that. And hopefully you do not make any of the things that we're going to talk about. Um, if you have questions, comments, concerns. Again, I highly recommend you reach out to us. I'll talk about that here in just a little bit. So let's dive into today's content. Talk about the top ten mistakes made by federal employees. We're going to talk about mistake number one. Mistake number one. Well first of all let me go back here. This is a copy of the pamphlet.

Speaker1:
If you do want this, reach out to us. We can send you a PDF copy. You can certainly, um, get it. You can get your full benefits and retirement review done as well. I'll talk about that here in another second. But what is mistake number one? Mistake number one. Very simple. And this is a big one, is never attending a federal benefits and retirement training. And this is maybe it's offered by your agency. Maybe somebody outside, they hire an outside firm to come in, at least talk about the basics when it comes to benefits or retirement or you first got hired and you're thinking, man, retirement is forever from now. I don't need to know that stuff. I'm not retiring anytime soon and you put it off. It is very important that you know all the details and all the things that go into your situation as a federal employee, because they're not going to really train you on this. And this is not a knock against the agency. I'm going to tell you kind of what happens. And you can describe your personal situation and experience, but you get hired. They might have you fill out a few things, right. Hr will have you make some choices. But what I meant to say is they might explain things kind of. Um, I haven't really talked to a federal employee that was explained all of these things. In fact, a lot of the people that I help, a lot of clients that I have are in HR and they're not experts in this, but they'll have you fill out some things and you'll make some choices.

Speaker1:
And you may not know how those choices affect your paycheck or or change over time or or what the consequence of making those choices are, or all the different options that are available. And there's some great things that the government offers, but if it's not given to you properly, or if you're not fully educated on these things, you may not have known all the correct things to to make, the choices to make and what's going to be most beneficial. So attending a training where they go over all these things, or at least giving you a baseline knowledge, the more information you have, the more educated a choice you're going to make. And you still may not make the best decision, but you'll make a better decision. And if you you learn something, then hopefully you put yourself in a better situation, a better position going forward. And that's the the whole purpose of that is you should know all the ins and outs and whether this training is 30 minutes long or three days long. I don't know why it would be three days. That's a, a lot of, uh, filler information they'd have to throw in there if it takes that long, but at least it's better than not attending at all.

Speaker1:
Sometimes these are virtual, or sometimes it's it's through a union or organization or association that you belong to. Our company, we partner with a lot of government associations and we give a lot of talks, a lot of face to face and virtual presentations to federal employees. And you'd be surprised. I talked to so many, too many to count people that have worked for the federal government for 20 plus years, and they're shaking their head or their their jaws are dropping and they're like, I can't believe I didn't know this stuff. I can't believe that nobody ever told me this before. This is somebody that's been with the government for 20 years or more, and they're just learning some of these very basic things for the first time. So the earlier you can learn this, the better. Why would I say that? Why is this a big mistake? Again, there's a misconception that these trainings are only for those that are nearing During retirement or of retirement age or whatever it might be, whatever excuse or whatever, fill in the blank that you might have. Right? I'm not retiring. I'm not nearing retirement. I'm not old enough to attend one of these things. That is incorrect. Okay, that is completely false. You could attend these whether you're you're 21 years old, fresh out of college. You just got hired by the government. You should attend one of these.

Speaker1:
If you're younger than that, attend one of these. You are in need of this information, and you need to make dollars and cents of all the choices that you have and all the choices that you've made and all the options that are available. So again, you can be set up properly as you're going through your working career, and you can be confident that you're set up properly. Now why do we do these all the time and why do we have this this show. It's because you need this information. So the earlier that you can gather it, the better you're going to be. And let's just we can use an example of the time value of money and hopefully all of you have seen this. The time value of money example. There's one where somebody starts really early and they only save for like 7 or 8 years. Maybe it's ten years. And then there's another person that started when the other person stopped, and they contributed all the years until they retired. And because that earlier person started as early as they did, they end up having more money over time, given the same type of circumstances. Now, maybe I didn't describe that perfectly, but the longer or they have, the earlier that they started, the earlier that in this situation they learned this stuff, the more likely that you were going to be positioned properly and save more money and have more when you do retire.

Speaker1:
So it is absolutely false that you have to be of retirement age, or these benefits and retirement situations or trainings are only for those that are nearing retirement. Absolutely false. You are planning for retirement from day one, so if you know it or not from day one, we've said it before on this show, we had a guest on this show that talked about that exact same thing. You were planning for retirement from day one. Now, if you don't start until year ten, that's that's on you. But whether you know it or not, you are planning for retirement from day one. Whether or not you take advantage of all that time is up to you. So the earlier that you can learn this, hopefully you you learned it on day 30 instead of year 30. But the earlier you can start, the better because you'll you'll have more time to position yourself, take advantage of everything the government gives you, and we'll be talking about some of those other mistakes as we go. So don't think I'm not giving you everything right away. What are those other options? What are those other things? What are all the areas that I need to know? We're going to talk about that over the course of this series with those other mistakes. But you're planning from day one. And if you're watching this one now and you're like, I can't wait till next week, you got to tell me now, we'll go back and view our other content.

Speaker1:
We have, again, 160 episodes full of all of this stuff. That's for you and your benefit. But you're planning from day one. Use all the time that you have. Planning for retirement is not cramming for a test the night before. You have to take advantage of all the time that they give you. Why do we say it? Also? Because a full understanding of your benefits and retirement situation, or other of all the benefits provided to you by the government, as well as all the supplemental options that are out there for you, right? The supplemental options, the things that the government doesn't offer. There's a lot out there that are offered by other companies and other other plans and other solutions and other things that could put you in a better spot. It's not just what the government offers, it's all the things also that are outside of the government. And there are companies out there that specifically specialize in government employees, and they have plans specifically designed for government employees. I'll give you one example. Right. What if, uh, if you're not familiar, you can go back and view our previous episode on this, but the government does not offer you disability insurance. That's not an option that you can choose when you first got hired. You can't choose which long term or short term or combo plan do you want for disability insurance? So if you were to get disabled unable to work, maybe it was something outside of work.

Speaker1:
It's not covered by worker's comp. What's the government going to provide? They don't have true disability insurance. That's something that's offered by an outside insurance company. But those are things that maybe you didn't know existed because nobody ever told you. They didn't realize that you didn't have true disability insurance. That's just one area that government employees need to learn about so you can set yourself up properly. But this will help you maximize your situation, reduce costs, and have you plan for retirement most effectively is by learning all of these things. So mistake number one not attending a benefits and retirement training is a huge mistake. And I will even add this little. Or if you have attended not attending soon enough. So if you're hearing this and you're like, I've never been. Go find out when the next one's going to be. Find out who's an expert out there. If you if you've never done that before, then reach out to us. We can go over on a personal basis your situation. Get all the questions answered, just as if you were doing a full benefits and retirement training workshop somewhere. Whether it's provided again by your agency, by your organization, your union, you answered an ad on Facebook or Instagram, whatever.

Speaker1:
Attending a training with an expert. Now I will say this with an expert. You want to make sure that this person knows what they're talking about, because there's a lot of people that can claim to be experts and they're not. But if you're if you know that you're getting it from a reliable source, learn this information, gather this information sooner rather than later, it's very important. So again, mistake number one not attending a benefits and retirement training or workshop. Huge mistake. Huge mistake. And if you want to avoid that today, either look to see when the next train is going to be or go to our website, Federal retirement Show.com fill out that form. As I mentioned earlier, one of our experts will reach out. We'll do a full benefits and retirement review for you. We'll create a couple different reports, and we will give you all the personal information that you would receive at a workshop or a benefits training for. It's all tailored though towards you. It's not general in nature. It'll be very specific to your situation and we can answer your specific questions. And maybe you don't know what questions to ask, but new ones will pop up as we go through your your information. We'll make sure we get all that to you, because our end goal is to put you in a better place tomorrow than you were today. And that's just knowing that you're going to go in the right path, and we can review that over and over.

Speaker1:
It's like going to the doctor to get your annual physical. We can continue to review it and ensure you're heading in the right direction. This is all to give you peace of mind. So I keep saying this so you can retire when you want, how you want, and with the lifestyle that you want. So very, very important. Avoid mistake number one by attending a workshop or gathering as much information as you can on benefits and retirement your personal situation. Get a review done however you do it. So as I said, this is a series. It's going to be at least a ten part series. We might throw a couple extra mistakes in there for you, but we're going to go over each mistake and I'm going to give you my fresh new perspective on it, because I wrote that pamphlet several years back. Want to give you my fresh new perspective. So next episode we'll talk about mistake number two, three, four and so on. So stay tuned. Looking forward to bringing all this content in a fresh new perspective on the top ten mistakes made by federal employees. Thank you again for joining us and taking the time out of your schedule. If you like the content, subscribe. Get notified when a new episode comes out, and we really look forward to seeing you on a future episode.

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