TSP investors suspending contributions

[FUTURESTRADER]

I remember standing in line waiting to get into the retirement system meeting our agency was having in 1986. I was talking to my clerk that had ~30 years of service in.....and asked her if she was changing from CSRS to FERS. She said "If is so good for me....why are they pushing it".
Needless to say, I stayed CSRS, but always remember her words of wisdom.
The presenters at the meeting did make it sound like the FERS matching was the way to go. Not many people in my agency switched to FERS.

Too brilliant, sad but true.

 

[FUTURESTRADER]

Welcome F4mandolin! Nice first post. I remember those days, FERS or CSRS? Hell if I knew. I was 20 at the time. I made the wrong choice also.

Ditto, tho I'm not ready to concede the choice just yet. But the effort required to educate ourselves is justified and should be much more supported by the government as a large part of each individual's job duties.

 

[XL-entLady]

Welcome F4mandolin! Nice first post. I remember those days, FERS or CSRS? Hell if I knew. I was 20 at the time. I made the wrong choice also.

Ditto, tho I'm not ready to concede the choice just yet. But the effort required to educate ourselves is justified and should be much more supported by the government as a large part of each individual's job duties.

Yes, nice first post!

And, Futurestrader, I bolded part of your response because it couldn't be more important!

When I joined the service I was FERS by 6 days and my HR person tried everything she could think of short of falsifying documents to switch me to Offset so I could choose CSRS, but it couldn't happen. She then explained to me that I'd better stay as informed as I could about the new system (FERS). I took her advice and tried to learn, but worked in remote areas and before the advent of the internet there wasn't any information out there.

In our agency were we told about compounding? Or bonds vs. equities? Heck no! (I have to say 'heck' because I live in Utah! :laugh We weren't even told to ensure we got our matching contributions! I paid attention and I've retired in better shape than many of my co-workers are going to. And the internet has gifted us with sites like this MB for information. (Thanks again, Tom!) But when I get on my soapbox about TSP to my friends who are former co-workers, they still tell me, "It's a good thing you tell us this stuff because we don't get it from the brass!"

Bummer. Sad. Criminal.

Lady

 

[pogo]

i agree FUTURESTRADER,if it was not for FERS i would of not got in the market (educate myself) i would of been like some of the CSRS people and just take my monthly check from the post office. I see what some of the carriers get for 30-35yrs and i shake my head in disbelief. I"m glad that i am in FERS.

 

[Thunderhorse]

Welcome F4mandolin! Nice first post. I remember those days, FERS or CSRS? Hell if I knew. I was 20 at the time. I made the wrong choice also.

Yes, I remember those days. I didn't have a choice as I was a "recent hire" at the time. I do remember the hand wringing and lively discussions among co-workers who did have to decide which road to take.

 

[HedgeHog]

I have been in the TSP 19 years and have taken the maximum advantage of saviing over the years. I do believe there is a destructive mentality by the plans managers that the plan should be a buy and hold savings plan or get in the "G" fund. People who have followed that mentality were most likely financially harmed in the past year.
Having read through liturature the plan managers put out and their actions I think the whole group should be replaced. In spit of them I worked out a little over a 7% gain in 2008 with my 2 IFTs a month. It would have been a lot more without that restriction. HedgeHog.

 

[roskopfm]

Its not buy and hold, you can move twice a month. Fidelity and Pruduntial dont let you even change more than once a quarter. I think the restrictions are fair.

 

[Show-me]

Buy and hold is just that and with two trades a month you can not even do a good DCA into a fund. I use to break my account up into 20% increments and do a classic DCA into a bottom I can not do that now and that kills if you are not exactly right and that is impossible to do constantly. With DCAing it is much, much better.

Just because Fidelity and Prudential do it should not be a reason we do it that way and if I don't like Fidelity or Prudential's policy I can shop around and transfer my money out of their accounts.

Point is times are changing and even the media dogs will tell you this is NOT a buy and hold environment and will not be for a very long time. If you want to make money you need to be nimble and have options. We are in the age of electronic trading with instant information on the web. Full access to market news, earnings, economic data, trading desks, limit orders, stops, calls, puts, ETF's, inverse ETF's, leveraged ETF's, etc. We need to be on the cutting edge or get left behind by the market leaders. It is that simple, market leader take advantage of new products and trading vehicles. My belief is the day of the buy and holder will fall to the wayside as the baby boomer's die off and a new generation steps up.

We had that with the unlimited IFT and now we don't have it when we need it the most and we are not saving any money with the restrictions like Tracy Ray said we would. Their timing was awful on this and the majority of participants are inactive or not proactive in managing their account or keeping up with market fundamentals or trends.

 

[Show-me]

Also, while I'm feeling frogie, the idea that it is a savings vehicle just got shot to hell this year when some of the fund lost 30% and 40%. If it is a savings vehicle we should just have a G fund.

 

[JTH]

Its not buy and hold, you can move twice a month. Fidelity and Pruduntial dont let you even change more than once a quarter. I think the restrictions are fair.

If you think someone restricting your money is fair, so be it, but I most certainly don't. Fair would have been NOT changing the rules on me, OR letting me withdrawal all of my money and invest it elsewhere.

 

[CountryBoy]

If you think someone restricting your money is fair, so be it, but I most certainly don't. Fair would have been NOT changing the rules on me, OR letting me withdrawal all of my money and invest it elsewhere.

Amen and well said JTH,

And I seem to remember my mom saying if bonehead jumped off the bridge then you would? I don't give a crap what other companies do or don't, we had the rug pulled out from under us by those Mowrons in Alabama. Still

CB