Your Retirement Reviews

10.31.25: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

10.31.25: 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, really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to join me to view our content. That's what we're here for. We're for you, the federal employee that's looking for accurate information when it comes to your benefits and retirement situations. And today is no different. We're going to review some of the the questions in the commentary and some of the situations that I've recently uncovered while talking to federal employees just like you and doing their benefit retirement reviews. But I just want to stop for a second and say, if you like our podcast, if you like the information that we're putting out there, be sure to subscribe. Um, get notified when a new episode is is out, and also share this with a colleague. There's so much good feedback that we've gotten throughout the entire world. You know, federal employees that are not just stationed here domestically, but also abroad, overseas and lots of great feedback. And we want to continue to do what we're doing, but we want to also continue to reach as many federal employees as possible. So if you like the show, you like the podcast, not only make sure you view it on all the different channels and opportunities that you have to view podcast, but share us with a colleague. Let some of your your federal employee friends, um, know about the federal retirement show because that's what we're here for.

Speaker1:
We want to spread the word. So what we're going to talk about today is just situations that I've come across while reviewing different federal employees benefits and retirement situations and questions and things that I think would benefit you, uh, a federal employee that's looking for this kind of information. Now, first of all, why do we do what we do when it comes to the benefits and retirement review? Uh, when we sit down with the federal employee, we go over the entire situation, right? We gather a bunch of information, we have specific software that we've created that will shoot out a couple different reports, and we can review your stuff with you. And we do that all over the country. We can do it face to face. We can do it virtually. And we just want to get you a baseline knowledge of where you currently stand as a federal employee. Take a sneak peek as to what retirement's going to look like down the road, whether that's, you know, in the next couple of years or 30 years down the road and ensure you're on the right track and along the way, answer any additional questions you might have, ensure you're maximizing what the government gives you, eliminating some of the things that may not be of value to you, or eliminate costs or reduce costs. Save you some money over time and make sure you're as prepared as possible when it comes to retirement.

Speaker1:
That's what a benefits and retirement review is. It's taking a deeper dive into your situation, hopefully confirming everything that you already know, but along the way, sharing with you some of the tips and some of the things that you probably didn't know. And utilizing that information so you could be in the best setup possible. That's what we do. That's why we do it. Right. It's it's not just a hey, we're a one trick pony and we're trying to help you out in one situation. I've seen that a lot in this industry where people are just, you know, hunting for a certain thing. People in my position are just trying to look out for themselves. And I'm not saying that's everybody, because there's a lot of great people out there that help better employees, and this is a specific knowledge base that those people need to have. Right. You need to be the expert in this. We need to be the experts in it for you to to trust what we're going to say and the guidance that we're going to provide you. But my job and the the agents in the representatives that work with our company, their job is to ensure we put you in a better situation today than you were yesterday. And that's improving upon the stuff that you're taking advantage of with the government eliminating things that are unnecessary, eliminating unnecessary costs, reducing costs along the way, saving more for retirement.

Speaker1:
There's a lot of ways in which we do that. But as I said along the way, there are some situations. There come different questions. And a lot of those are very common, some of which are going to be unique. We'll talk about a few of those today, but a lot of the situations, a lot of the questions that we get are common. And we've gone through we've had a lot of episodes on FAQs, frequently asked questions. We've talked about other situations that I've encountered, you know, because a lot of these episodes stem from conversations I'm having with federal employees. So this is this episode is no different when it comes to that, because these questions or these comments came from recent, very recent discussions that I've had with federal employees during their benefits and retirement review. And I think they can help you, the listener, the person that's looking for more information. So let's dive into today's content and talk about situations that I've seen during your federal retirement reviews. So where do we start? And I got this while doing a workshop. I got this also while talking to a federal employee and the spouse. The spouse was not a federal employee. Um did not attend the workshop and just said, what is the best piece of advice that you can give a federal employee? Now, this is blanket statement. We'll get into some more detailed, uh, questions here in just a second.

Speaker1:
But really, when it comes to it, it's and I'll pause for a second because I want to I want to make sure that I'm, I'm giving this to you in the right context here. But the, the, the false sense of security that I see the federal employees have is a problem. And the best piece of advice that I can give a federal employee is to gain as much knowledge as possible regarding your benefits and your retirement situation. Now, I'm not saying that federal employees are are naive to the fact that there's more information out there, or that they're not educated when it comes to, you know, just themselves. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying the false sense of security comes from a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge, and the thought that, hey, I work for the government, I'm going to put in my time and I'm going to get taken care of, and there's not really much for me to learn. And if the government wanted me to learn something, they would have told me about it. That's what I see. So the biggest piece of advice that I can give is ensure that you take it upon yourself to learn these things, either talking to an expert like me or like anybody else on our team, but going out and finding the information and the knowledge. Educating yourself when it comes to your benefits and retirement situation.

Speaker1:
Because I hear it time and time again when I give workshops and I give individual presentations and do benefit reviews. The government did not teach them these things. They did not have any idea of what I was talking about before we talked, because it was not provided to them. And again, that false sense of security that that overconfidence thinking. I work for the government and if they wanted me to learn it, they would have taught me it. And if I just put in my time, I'm going to be taken care of. That is not the case. So you have to take it upon yourself. Um, attend a benefits and retirement workshop a for training. Just because you hear the word retirement in there doesn't mean it's only for retirees. You're planning for retirement from day one, whether you know it or not. So you need to take advantage of all that time that you have and learn this stuff as much as possible. So it might say retirement workshop, retirement training, whatever. That doesn't mean that it's only for retirees. If you just got hired yesterday, it's there's going to be things in that training that's going to be beneficial for you. So take advantage of the resources that are available. Um, if it if it is a retirement training, but speaking to somebody like me do it. The earlier can do it the better, because the more you can maximize and optimize and take advantage of everything the government gives you.

Speaker1:
So going back to the question, what is the best piece of advice that I can give a federal employee? Take it upon yourself to learn as much as you can, as early as you can about your benefits. Every time your situation and your future self when you do retire is going to thank you for it. Because you're going to be set up properly, you're going to have the money there that you're going to need in retirement. You're going to live a retirement how you want, when you want, with the lifestyle you want because you properly prepared. So that is the single best piece of advice that I can give. A federal employee recently been helping a lot of federal employees out with their retirement paperwork, and the question I got asked is, how do I ensure that my retirement paperwork is filled out in an orderly fashion? It's completed in an orderly fashion. Why is this important? Well, we're in the middle of a government shutdown, number one. So the retirement applications are not getting as processed as fast as they could have, um, before the shutdown. Also, people have a lot of questions during the shutdown, you know, do I want to stay around? Do I want to stick around if I'm retirement eligible? Um, and also, we're getting towards the end of the year where a lot of applications come in for retirement.

Speaker1:
It's a very popular time to retire at the end of the year. Right. December 31st is a very common retirement date for federal employees. So how do I ensure that my retirement paperwork is filled out in an orderly fashion? Completed properly? You have to speak to somebody and you have to know what all the choices you're making are so that you make the right ones for you and your family. Also, just having another set of eyes to guide you through that. I've worked with a couple of federal employees recently. We went through page by page, the retirement application, ensuring that all the forms were filled out properly or that they understood all the choices that they were making with all the different sections of the retirement form. You know, what is the survivor benefit mean? What is my fegley continuation mean? What does this question mean? What should I put in here? Where do I send this? How do I do that? You don't want to be left alone. So talk to an expert. Somebody that's done this before again, like myself or somebody else on our team. And we can walk you through the retirement application process. The other thing that we do when it comes to that is we don't charge you for it. There are a lot of groups out there that may charge a fee to walk you through the retirement application. This is not something that that we charge for.

Speaker1:
It is a it is a free service, complimentary service for federal employees. We just want to ensure that you're filling it out properly. Now, why is that important? The reason the person asks the question is because they had heard that it can take a while to process the application, and that is true. Now what if your application is filled out incorrectly? The chance of it getting held up is going to be a lot higher than if it was filled out properly, or if things were were missing in the application. Is it going to get processed? Heck no. Right. Opm is backlogged as it is. They're understaffed. It's not their fault, but they're backlogged. And we're about to have an influx of retirement applications coming at the end of the year. And if you're part of that, you want to ensure that your paperwork is filled out properly so it can get processed as smooth as possible. If it's not filled out properly, then there's a chance that it's not going to get processed fast enough and you're going to be left thinking, what's going on? Where? Where's my retirement paycheck? How come I'm not getting this? Or how come I'm not getting that? Well, it just wasn't properly filled out. And they may ask you for more information that you should have provided on the front end, which can be given to you by the person that's helped you with the retirement application, right? If you don't talk to somebody, you might think or assume that it's just fill out the paperwork, send it in, and you just hope that you checked all the boxes and and did everything correctly.

Speaker1:
That's not always the case. So talk to somebody. Get guided through the retirement application process to ensure that it is filled out in an orderly fashion. That can help with the timing of your application getting processed. I can't guarantee it's going to make it quick, but I can pretty with pretty much 100% certainty. Know that it's going to take longer if it's not filled out in accordance to what OPM is looking for and what they want when it comes to a clean, filled out application. This question we've answered before, but we're talking about Fhb and Medicare. And with Medicare right now being in their AEP annual enrollment period, and there's a lot of questions that are surfacing about Medicare. There's a lot of news, uh, advertisements on the TV when it comes to Medicare and the different choices, I get asked a lot how do your fhlbb, your federal employee health benefits and Medicare coordinate, and how do they work together? And the answer is simple. We've done it before on another episode, but I wanted to bring it up because the people that I've been talking to recently have had this question. So if you haven't seen a previous episode and you don't want to go diving back into it, I want to answer this question again.

Speaker1:
But Fhlbb, your federal employee health benefits and Medicare do coordinate and work together, but they work together differently depending on whether you're actively employed or when you're retired. So when you're actively employed and you have you hit age 65 when you become Medicare eligible, number one, when you hit age 65, you'll automatically be eligible for and covered under Medicare Part A. Now, you should enroll in that right away. There's no reason for you not to, because you've been paying into Medicare this entire time while you're working. And when you turn 65, you automatically get part A. You should enroll in that right away. You will choose whether or not you're going to enroll in part B of Medicare. And that's the additional optional side of Medicare that you'll have to continue to pay for going forward. Right now, it's about $185 a month for part B. In 2026, it will go up be over $200 a month for part B, so that's a decision you have to make now while you're working. You're not going to have to choose part B of Medicare. That'll be more of a decision for when you retire if you have not chosen it while you're working. But how does it work while you're still employed? Your federal employee health benefits will be your primary while you're employed, and Medicare will be your secondary. Now, when you do retire, when you separate from service, it will flip flop.

Speaker1:
Medicare will be your primary coverage and your FB will be your secondary. Enact as as like a Medicare supplement type of plan. They coordinate together. It just depends on which one's primary and which one's secondary. And as I mentioned about part B of Medicare, depending on what. Agency you work for. If you're a postal employee, in order to keep your health insurance in retirement, you will have to take part B in retirement. It would be a requirement. Okay, military folks, ex-military. If you're on Tricare for life, you have to take part B of Medicare to get Tricare for life. Um, other federal employees, you may not be required to take your part B of Medicare, but it might be a good move for you. You just have to understand the cost involved and what part B actually covers. So that's a that's a conversation we can have specifically on your situation. If you if you need more assistance on that go to our website. I should have mentioned earlier but I didn't. It's federal retirement Show.com. You can fill out the form. One of our experts, if it's not me personally, will be reaching out to you to answer any questions and go over your situation. But that's federal retirement show.com and we can get you more information if you have additional questions on how Medicare and your fhlbb work together. We get asked a lot of times about TSP.

Speaker1:
So the next question, the next thing that I've been getting asked about, and it's in a lot of different ways, right. This this question gets structured in a lot of different ways. But the gist of the questions that I've been getting answered recently is, how do I properly set up my TSP for retirement? How do I properly set that up now? I would tell you, while you're working, you accumulate as much money as possible in your TSP. At least put in 5%. This is just my opinion on this. At least put in 5% towards your TSP of your contributions. Why? Because the government will match up to 5%. So if you put in five, they will match five. If you put in ten, they're going to match five. If you put in 20, they're going to match five. But if you put in three, they're only matching three. So maximize the amount of free money you get from the government. Put in at least 5%. So a cute while you're younger, how do you set it up for retirement? You accumulate as much as you can in TSP. Take advantage of the investment options that you have in TSP. First of all, if you're not educated on those things, you can go back and view our previous episode or episodes. We've talked multiple times about TSP and the different index and fund options that you can choose within your TSP, and see the risk tolerance and things of that nature.

Speaker1:
You can check out past performance history on tsp.gov of how all those funds have done. So you can see which ones you'd like to be in, but accumulate as much money as you can. Now, as you get closer to retirement, you can set it up in a number of different ways. You can set it up so your money can just sit and grow in retirement and have it be rainy day money. That's an option that a lot of federal employees choose. A lot of federal employees I talked to also want to take their foot off the gas when it comes to risk as they get closer to retirement. And that can be within five years, three years, two years, one year from retirement, or you wait until you retire, but a lot will take their foot off the gas when it comes to risk and move to more conservative options. That's up to you. But maybe you're in the position where you're going to get enough income from your retirement, your first annuity, I mean, your Social Security. Maybe you have other income sources that your TSP is just going to be sitting and growing. That's an option for you. But there's a lot of federal employees. Also. How do you set your TSP up properly? Retirement if you need income from your TSP? I'm not a huge fan of setting yourself up, so you just withdraw money periodically from it.

Speaker1:
I like setting you up with guarantees and setting up on guaranteed lifetime income. You can turn your TSP into a guaranteed lifetime income stream. So there's no fear, no risk of the money ever running out. So it'll be like your pension, like your Social Security, which you're also lifetime income payments. You can set your TSP up to pay you a lifetime income payment. So you know 100% that every month the money that you need is going to be hitting your account with no fear of it ever running out or going down to zero. So how do you set your TSP properly for retirement? You got to build a TSP number one so you have it there for you in retirement. You have to know what function, what purpose you want your TSP to serve. And it can be multiple things. It doesn't have to be one thing for all of your TSP funds. You can break it up into a lot of different ways, but there are options for you both in TSP and outside of TSP that you need to know about. And TSP is only going to tell you about what's available within TSP. You need to speak to an expert to understand all of the options that are available to you, both in TSB and outside of TSP, so you can have it set up properly for whatever you desire you want it to do for you in retirement.

Speaker1:
That is a huge thing. Okay, so number one, what function, what purpose do you want your TSP to serve. And then two, what options are available to have that desired function that desired purpose? Talk to an expert. Have them go over all those different options with you so you can determine for yourself what is the best for you and your family. There are so many different choices out there, so many plans, so many things you can take advantage of. Um, and options you have both again NTSB and outside of TSB. Educate train understand all of those. Then lastly, there was a question that came up, uh, about disability retirement. Maybe other people out there are in this situation, but had a federal employee, uh, they found worker's comp for several years now. They had an injury illness that occurred while on the job. They've been on worker's comp not working basically on on disability within the government plan. Right. That's worker's comp not getting paid by the government, but on getting paid a worker's comp payment. And that eventually is going to end, um, you know, based on the type of illness, the type of injury, and they're still going to be disabled and unable to go back to work. And this federal employee had asked me and said, well, I'm 68 years old. How does disability retirement work for me? What are my options over disability retirement? Because they were under the impression that they were going to retire on disability retirement.

Speaker1:
Now I will back up a second. Disability retirement is typically reserved for federal employees that are not yet 62 or older. Right. Not yet 62 or older. And that's the way that you can retire, collect an immediate pension, an immediate annuity for a period of time. You'll also get Social Security disability or no guarantee you'll get it, but you have to apply for it. And when you hit age 62, your disability retirement paycheck will turn into your regular retirement paycheck, and your Social Security disability payment will turn into your regular Social Security payment because now you're eligible for regular retirement and regular Social Security. So this person is 68 on worker's comp. It's going to run out at some point. Um, but what what are their options? What are they going to do as far as disability retirement? Well, you would if you filed for disability retirement, it would just turn into regular retirement because this person is already eligible for full retirement and already past age 62. So they will calculate the pension not as disability retirement, but they'll calculate the pension as regular retirement. And they will not be on Social Security disability because they're eligible for their regular disability. Sorry Social Security. So understand that if you're disabled or on worker's comp or your payments are going to end, or you're now forced to make a decision because you're not able to go back to work if you retire, it's not disability retirement.

Speaker1:
If you're older than age 62, it's going to be considered regular retirement, and they're going to calculate it as such. So material that you might read about disability retirement, how you get a certain percentage for the first year, then the second year. That is not pertinent for those that are older than age 62 or 62 and older, because they're going to calculate your pension, not as a disability retirement, as a regular retirement, and your Social Security is not going to be disability, Social Security, it's going to be your regular Social Security because you're eligible for that because you're 62 or older. So this was a unique scenario. If you have questions about this as well, um, let me know. Right. If you have questions about, you know, worker's comp, about schedule rewards because of a certain, you know, illness or certain injury that you had, if you got questions about disability retirement and how it works and how it coordinates with Social Security and all these things, reach out to us. Again, the website is Federal Retirement Show.com. Fill out the form. We'll be in touch to go over all of your benefits, but also answer your specific questions like the ones we've gone over today. So that was our episode today about your retirement reviews, right? These questions, these situations stemmed from retirement reviews with actual federal employees recently over the last couple of weeks.

Speaker1:
And I feel like if these people had questions and there are others out there that have similar questions right now, it's not just this was not a one off unique scenario. These were situations that other federal employees can benefit from. So if we did not cover though your situation or if you want to get your retirement and benefits review done, reach out to us again. I'll say the website one more time. Federal retirement Show.com fill out the form. We will be in touch. Well, again, I thank you for joining me. Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule. It's been a pleasure to be the host of the Federal Retirement Show. Looking forward to to the next episodes and the next questions and the next situations that we're able to help you with. We've gotten, like I said earlier, a lot of great feedback from federal employees around the world. So it means what we're doing works. It means what we're doing is valuable. It means what we're doing is, is adding, uh, just some peace and comfort to federal employees that are looking for answers. If we have not covered your question, I will say one more time. Reach out to us. We'll make sure to add that to a future episode. Again, my name is Val Majewski with American Benefits Exchange. You've been watching the federal retirement show, and I really look forward to seeing you on a future episode.

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