Val goes into detail about why he hosts The Federal Retirement Show on a weekly basis, and shares his passion for helping federal employees retire successfully.

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5.19.23: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

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

Val Majewski:
Well, welcome back to the Federal Retirement Show. I'm your host, Val Majewski, Vice President of sales and marketing here at American Benefits Exchange. And through the the episodes that we've had through this journey so far with the federal retirement show, you know, I've been talking to a lot of people and I appreciate, number one, those of you who have been diligently, obediently, consistently tuning in to learn about your federal employee benefits and retirement information. And when I'm talking to to folks just like yourself, federal employees who have seen the show, federal employees who have gained valuable information as a result of watching an episode or watching multiple episodes or seeing follow ups on certain topics. And I hear the feedback. That is why we do it. So today I'm going to be talking for a while as to why do we do the show right? You may be seeing a number of episodes and a lot of valuable information, but what sparked all of this and let's go back to the beginning and figure out why exactly do I host the federal retirement show and provide all of this information to you and topics and items that I think that you need to know when it comes to your benefits and retirement information? Well, based on the feedback I've been receiving, the fact that this information is not readily available for you or is not easy to decipher is one of the main reasons we've been.

Val Majewski:
Our company has been working with federal employees and military personnel for 30 plus years and we find that there is a lack of information out there. We find that this is information that is greatly needed because when you first get hired, you fill out a bunch of paperwork, You make a number of elections when it comes to your benefits, you may or may not understand what all of those things are, but you're tasked with now going to work and making sure that you can now do your job and you're making sure that you take care of all the tasks that are assigned to you within whatever position you have with whatever agency you're in, within the federal government. And all of this information, as I mentioned, is not provided properly to you. It's not properly explained to you when it comes to how these choices that you made when you first got hired, how they're going to affect your working career and how well you're going to be preparing for retirement. So when we talk to federal employees and we understand that there is a lack of information, a lack of knowledge, so we got to get this information out to you all. We've got to find a way where we can share this info on a consistent basis, talking about topics that are important to you and hopefully all of these topics that we've discussed so far are valuable and important to you, but also bring to light some of the things that you probably didn't know about some some information that you may not have known existed or some choices that you have when it comes to your benefits and retirement that you didn't realize were there or you didn't realize how some of those choices were going to affect your paycheck, how they were going to change over time when it comes to costs or benefits or things of that nature.

Val Majewski:
So when we at American Benefits Exchange decided to start this radio show podcast, we just wanted to continue the work that we were already doing, but do it on a different platform, right in this format. So you can not only go back and view it later, but you know that new things are coming, new topics are going to be discussed, new items are going to be released on our end with a lot of valuable information that we hope that you you watch, you rewatch, you gather all this info and see how it works best for you and your situation. Now, information is great, right? Then there's application of information, which I want to go over here in just a second, but we start with the information educating and training federal employees just like you when it comes to benefits and retirement info, educating and training. Now, again, information is great, but now what do you do with the information? What's the appropriate direction for you to go in? And that's where I really want to tackle today as to why we're doing what we're doing.

Val Majewski:
So let's dive into the the slides that I have available for you and go a little bit deeper as to why we host the Federal retirement show. So first and I did mention this right, but you don't know what it is. You don't know. You don't know how many times I've talked to federal employees just like you, who did not know a lot of the information that I covered in a basic benefits and retirement presentation, whether in a group setting or one on one with that particular person. There's a lot of blank stares, eyes glassed over, surprised looks on people's faces when we go over this information, because as I said earlier, it's not readily available. It's not given to you when you first get hired. You don't have trainings on these things. You are tasked with going to work and doing your job and you're left to figure out your benefits and retirement stuff on your own. So there's a lot of things that were missed. And when you don't know what it is, you don't know, it becomes a problem because there's a false sense of security. There's, number one, a lack of education. It's not your fault, but there's a false sense of security, thinking, hey, I'm going to work for the government, I'm going to put my time in, I'll work 30 years, I'll get my gold watch and I'll be good.

Val Majewski:
The government's going to take care of me. I'm going to be set. And then when I meet those people that had that false sense of security and they see the numbers, once we go over their entire situation, there's another look of shock on their face when they say, That's it, this is what I'm going to get. Oh, I can't retire on that. Well, then you've got a couple choices to make and you can either retire on a lesser lifestyle or you're left to continue to work. And I did have a guest on a while back, Miss Brandy Person, and she said, whether you know it or not, you are planning for retirement from the first day you get hired. If you can take advantage of everything the government gives you, make the right choices along the way, optimize and maximize your benefits. You can plan for retirement as soon as you'd like to, but you're doing that from day one now. Maybe your day one was years ago and you're just hearing this information for for the new time or for the first time, this is where your day one is actually starting now, the day that you know all this information and that you can make better choices. Today is your day one. You are planning for retirement from this day forward. And the longer you wait, the more you procrastinate, the harder it's going to be.

Val Majewski:
You know, we talked about financial landmines in a previous episode of the Federal retirement show, and one of them was procrastination. When you understand what it is you need to do and how to go about doing it, it is now up to you to take action, right? Put your best foot forward, take that first step and take action so that you can set yourself up properly so you can retire how you want and when you want. But let's say again, you didn't know the information existed. Hopefully this channel and this podcast radio show will bring to light a lot of this information for you so you can reach out to us and want further analysis. You'd want to dive deeper into certain topics. We can certainly do that. But the information that we're providing, the reason why we're hosting this show, is to provide the information that you probably did not know beforehand. And again, this is not your fault. It's just not provided to you when you first get hired and you have to go searching it out and reading through all of this material that's somewhere on the Internet or in an employee handbook or in some other place, and you're left to decipher it and speak that language and understand everything. It's not very simple. And doing that on your own time outside of your job and family life is not usually a high priority. So it gets pushed back.

Val Majewski:
It gets pushed back, and then we walk back into that procrastination area even when it's just gathering information. So we try to provide this in small doses, right? Each episode is usually 30 minutes at the most, and they vary from 5 to 30 minutes. And we can really provide some accurate, honest, solid information for you, the federal employee, so you can make the best decisions going forward. Now, we also provide, though, a lot of additional resources. So not just information because information is great. And you can read information, you can watch these videos, you can listen to this if you're listening to it on any of your podcasts and not seeing the video version, you can hear all the information, but then what do you do with it? What are what are the benefits of gathering the information? If it's not easy to utilize? And that's where we come in as a company, right? The federal retirement show said our our home company where where I work and operate on a daily basis is called the American Benefits Exchange. And we focus primarily on federal employees and assisting not just with the information, but where to go from here, where to go from here. Now, first, starting with with the information again, we've got all of the episodes that you've tuned into. You can go back and watch episode one. Up until now, I wrote a book called There's No Excuse Your Guide to Maximizing Your Federal Benefits.

Val Majewski:
You can certainly grab a copy of that. You can book a benefits and retirement review in order to earn a complimentary copy of that book Once we're completed or done completing your Benefits and retirement review, we've got another resource called the Top Ten Mistakes Made by Federal Employees. And this is just going over some of the highlights, right? So if there if there's information you need, you can find it. You can get it from us either by viewing the episodes, requesting the copy of the book, ordering a copy of the book on Amazon or getting a benefits and retirement review performed and then receiving a complimentary copy of the book. There's the free resource called The Top Ten Mistakes. Now, this is just a top ten. It's not certainly all of the mistakes that federal employees can make, but it's the top ten, in my opinion, that I've seen federal employees make, and then how to avoid those things. So you can really prepare yourself by getting information from the book, from the federal Retirement show, from the Top ten Mistakes pamphlet. Beyond that. So on the far right side of the screen, you'll see that there's the Federal Employee Benefits workbook. This is something we created years ago. I call it the Cliff Notes version of your benefits. But this is a way that that we and our representatives across the country can do a full benefits and retirement analysis, making sure we go over everything like your fegley, your pension, Social Security, the first supplement, TSP, survivor benefits, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Val Majewski:
We want to make sure that we are giving you all of the information specific to your situation. So this is one of the reports that we're able to provide for you. Once you get your benefits and retirement review done, you'll get a custom completed federal benefits workbook and going over all of these different things. Now, as a supplemental report, we've also got, we call it the Fers estimate, but it is a shortened version just going over the numbers showing you what your pension looks like, Social Security or the first supplement TSP projections, retirement income projections, costs of certain benefits as we go that way, you can get not only the broad picture through the benefits workbook, but also just a snapshot using the supplemental report, and you can see exactly where you stand. So again, I go back to the question that I asked at the beginning Why do we host? Why do we perform the federal retirement show? It's to provide information. Yes. It's also to provide guidance. Again, information is great, but if you're not sure how to handle that, how to utilize that information, what's it really doing for you? So why do we host the show? We want to provide information, but also we want to give you the opportunity to reach out to us so that you can get proper guidance.

Val Majewski:
And as I said, we have folks all over the country. So if you're interested in getting personalized guidance, one on one assistance, whether in person or virtually most people nowadays choose to do things virtually via Zoom teams or just over the phone. You can request that opportunity, request that information going to federal retirement show.com, completing the form. And as it says on there, you'll see if you do get a fully performed benefits and retirement review you can earn a free copy of There's no Excuse which will have a ton of information in there for you that you can review. And it's tangible. Something that you can hold and look at. Put notes in, bookmark all of these things. But we want to show you what your numbers look like. Again, information is great, but how does it pertain to your specific situation? That's where we have to dive a little deeper and we've got to go into all of the ins and outs, put it down on paper so you see what your numbers are today and you see what your projections are in the future. Now, I came up with the title of this episode and the content that we're going over as a result of the calls I had last week with other federal employees. And last week there were a number of federal employees who have been with the government for 20 plus years, and they didn't understand everything that had to do with their benefits and retirement info.

Val Majewski:
They've been working hard. They've been doing their job. They've been preparing as best that they thought they knew how. But we took a deeper dive into their situation to make sure that we were maximizing or optimizing their benefits. And what I mean by that is reducing cost as much as we can. If we reduce cost of benefits, well, that's more money in your pocket, providing more for retirement. So saving more money when it comes to your future or just making sure that that is set up properly as well, so that when you get to retirement, you know, without a shadow of a doubt that you're going to retire how you want, when you want with the lifestyle that you want and you know what those numbers are going to look like because you've properly prepared. And if some how you over prepared. Well, I know your future self is not going to hate you for doing so as long as you're not living in the poorhouse while you're working, but you want to make sure that you're set up properly. So why are we doing this show? What is the content and the information for it is so you can go through your working career knowing that you're set up properly, you're optimized, and you're maximizing everything along the way so that you are properly prepared for retirement. That's what this whole game is all about.

Val Majewski:
This game of working as a federal employee. Sure, you get paid and you can get paid very well while you're employed, but when it's your time to leave, you want to make sure that you set yourself up properly. And I say your time to leave because this should be a choice, right? It should be a choice. You shouldn't feel like you have to work forever. You should now choose at a certain time, Hey, this is when I'm going to retire, because I've prepared for this moment and I'm ready to go now. If you love your job, I talked to a couple of federal employees last week who said, you know what, I'm in a good situation because I love what I do. I love what I am doing, and I can see myself continuing to do it. But I do want to retire someday. I do want to do something else. I do want to go visit family. I do want to travel. Some that had said that said they were thinking of doing some different types of employment, different types of part time work in retirement, something a little different while collecting their proper pension, TSP money, Social Security or first supplement what have you. So just understand that. And going back to the question, I keep repeating it why do we do this? It's for the federal employees that I talked to last week. It's for the federal employees that are watching this right now, just like you.

Val Majewski:
This is for the people that we're going to talk to in the future so that, you know, all the information, you know, all the variables, you know, all the choices that you have. You know how to set yourself up properly and then it's just on you. And we can't help, you know, you've heard the the saying you can only lead a horse to water. You can't make them drink it. Well, we want to lead you as close to the water as we possibly can so that you can see it. You can taste it. It's up to you to take a drink. It's up to you to apply this information within your working career so that you're set up properly. And if you need help doing that, that's what we and our representatives across the country are here for. It's to make sure that you are applying the information properly, You're utilizing the information in the best way possible. You are maxing. Amazing. And you keep using that word maximizing or optimizing your setup. So that you're taking advantage of everything the government gives you, every opportunity that you have. So when you get to that perfect moment when you retire, that desired time, when you're saying, I'm out of here, I'm leaving, it is done on your terms. It is done properly with the money that you're expecting, with the cost reduced as much as possible. All of the choices are made because they're made with a reason.

Val Majewski:
Because you knew all the information. I see so many federal employees that make decisions because they just they just think that's what they're supposed to do. They have no idea what the consequences are, no idea the reasons behind it. Or maybe they got that information from a colleague. Hey, so, so and so is doing this. I'm going to do it, too. Well, what are the effects of that? Do you really need to do that? Maybe you do. But why are you doing certain things? Is it just because, you know, without a shadow of a doubt, this is the best thing for you or you're just doing it because this is what people are commonly doing and where do they get their rationale from? Right. So are those people that you're listening to experts in this area or you just following along? Because, you know, it's the the thing to do. I'd rather you be the expert and being the one that can help out your colleagues and give them that why response or tell them why you're doing something or why they should do it as well because you have the knowledge and understanding that you've learned from shows like this or from the one on one conversations that we have. So really, I appreciate you all. I appreciate the fact that you're tuning in and learning as much as you can about your federal benefits, your retirement information.

Val Majewski:
Continue to watch because we're going to continue to put out content that we believe is needed by federal employees, just like you, information that we believe is going to assist as you plan properly throughout your working career and get ready for retirement. I do invite you to visit federal retirement. Show.com fill out the form, get a one on one analysis done. Worst case scenario, it just validates everything you already knew. And you know you've got a second opinion and you're you're set up properly going forward. Worst case scenario, it's what you thought you knew is turned all the way around and you're not as prepared as you thought. And now we've got an opportunity, we've exposed that and we've got an opportunity to fix it. Right. It's like going through an annual checkup with your doctor. You don't want them to find anything, but you're glad you found it early rather than procrastinating and and just sitting on it thinking everything's okay. We want to make sure that your situation is set up perfectly and we can continue to analyze that as things change, as you get closer to retirement, it's not necessarily a one and done deal. We can continue to analyze that, go over it on an annual or semi-annual type basis. So thank you again for joining me. I'm Val Majewski, host of the Federal Retirement Show, and I look forward to seeing you on a future episode.

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