Your federal benefits come with their own rulebook, and most advisors have never read it. We have. We'll walk you through your TSP, your FERS pension, your survivor benefits, and how it all fits with the money you've saved on your own. In plain English, start to finish.
Prefer to talk to a person? Call us at (518) 480-8848
"Nobody hands you the manual on your last day. So we wrote our own."
Federal retirement combines a defined benefit pension, Social Security, and a defined contribution plan, each governed by separate eligibility requirements, computation formulas, and tax treatment. Decisions made in one system frequently affect outcomes in the others.
Your retirement isn't one account. It's three separate pieces with three separate sets of rules, and they don't coordinate themselves. When you retire, how you take your TSP, and what you elect for your spouse all pull on each other. Get the order right and the pieces work together. Get it wrong and nobody even sends you a letter about it.
Here's the part most people don't hear enough: your federal benefits are genuinely good. This isn't about fixing a broken system. It's about understanding a strong one well enough to get everything out of it that you've already earned.
FERS was built as a three-part system on purpose. A steady pension, Social Security, and your own savings in the TSP. Your job before retirement is making sure all three are ready to hold weight.
A monthly check for life, based on your highest three years of salary and your years of service. It sounds simple until you're choosing a retirement date, and suddenly a few months here or there changes the math. We'll show you exactly how your number gets calculated and what moves it.
You've been paying into it your whole federal career. The question isn't whether you get it, it's when to take it, and how that timing fits alongside your pension and TSP withdrawals. Claiming early, at full retirement age, or later can mean very different lifetime totals.
For most federal employees, this is the biggest pile of money they'll ever be responsible for. Decades of contributions and matching, and then one day it's all yours to manage. What you do with it in the first year of retirement matters more than most people realize.
And here's the thing about a three-legged stool: it only works when the legs are set up to carry the load together. That's the whole point of a real plan.
Upon separation from federal service, TSP participants may retain their balance in the plan, elect installment payments, take partial or total distributions, purchase an annuity, or transfer eligible funds to an individual retirement account. Each election carries distinct tax consequences and flexibility tradeoffs.
You have options, and none of them are automatic. You can leave the money where it is, set up monthly payments, take some or all of it out, or move it somewhere with more flexibility. Every one of those choices has a tax consequence attached. Our job is making sure you understand each door before you walk through one, because some of them don't open back up.
Low costs and familiar funds. But withdrawal rules are more rigid than most people expect, and that surprises a lot of new retirees.
Turn the balance into a regular payment. The amount, the frequency, and which money comes out first all deserve a careful look.
Moving funds to an IRA can open up flexibility and options the TSP doesn't offer. It can also be the wrong move for some people. It depends on your situation, which is exactly why we start with education, not paperwork.
Traditional TSP money hasn't been taxed yet. How much you take, and in what year, decides what the IRS gets. Sequencing is everything.
These two come up in almost every conversation we have with federal employees. Both are worth getting right the first time, because one of them you can't undo easily, and the other one you can't undo at all.
When you retire, you'll choose whether to reduce your own pension so your spouse keeps receiving income if you pass away first. It's one of the most permanent decisions in the entire process.
Why it's tricky: the election affects more than the monthly check. For many couples it's also connected to keeping federal health coverage for the surviving spouse. Skipping it to save a few percent now can cost far more later. We'll walk through what each election means for your household before you sign anything.
All those sick days you never used? Under FERS, unused sick leave gets converted into additional service time when your pension is calculated. It can quietly raise your monthly check for the rest of your life.
Why it's tricky: it counts toward the size of your pension, not toward your eligibility to retire. People mix those up constantly, and it changes when the smartest retirement date actually is. Bring us your balance and we'll show you what it's really worth.
Maybe you've also got an IRA from an old job, some savings, a working spouse with a 401(k). Most federal employees we meet have pieces scattered across both worlds, federal and personal, and no single view of how it all adds up.
That's where we start. One clear picture: what comes in each month, from which source, in what order, and what the taxes look like at every step. When you can see the whole board, the decisions get a lot less scary.
And for the record, we're not here to push products. The first job is understanding what you already have.
Don't worry if you can't find everything. We'll help you track it down.
Bring your questions about TSP, FERS, survivor elections, or your retirement date. You'll leave understanding your own benefits better than you did walking in. That's the whole promise.
Or just call. A person answers: (518) 480-8848