TSP Millionaires

[Frixxxx]

...

As a note, my left-most number ticked up recently. 3 years to clear 100 clams. Yummy, very yummy...

Still on target for grinding out $70K from my TSP account in today's money for 35 fantastic years of old age bliss. I will probably step away from the risk plate five years out so I will have to suffer with a bit less. Trust C/S/I long term. And, please do not make us 'invest' more in the crappy G Fund (which is where your pension 'investments' slop to...).

Thanks to a wonderful year, I ticked up a sweet balance as well. I hope my left number ticks to a 5 soon as I start the 11 year countdown.

Good Job Boghie in finding that article. I want so bad to be on the list by the time I retire,

 

[jkenjohnson]

I bumped my million up by 20%. Yee Haw.

 

[Hallatauer]

I had hoped at one time to make that million $ mark but, I doubt now that it will happen. I retired at age 52 and starting taking a withdrawal under 72T rules. Though I'm still going up... this year has been especially good to the account to the tune of about $125,000, I think I will hit 59 1/2 before I get that magic 7 figure number. All's good though as I will be in great shape when that time comes and the million dollar mark is just that, a number.

 

[DreamboatAnnie]

I bumped my million up by 20%. Yee Haw.

Way to go Jkenjohnson!

 

[Cactus]

Now there's over 4000. A Growing Number of Wealthy Federal Employees : FedSmith.com

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 400"]
[TR]
[TD]Account Balance
[/TD]
[TD]Number of Participants
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Under $50,000
[/TD]
[TD] 2,798,455
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]$50,000 – $249,999
[/TD]
[TD] 1,426,098
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]$250,000 – $499,999
[/TD]
[TD]375,472
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]$500,000 – $749,999
[/TD]
[TD] 95,664
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]$750,000 – $999,999
[/TD]
[TD]21,485
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]$1,000,000 and over
[/TD]
[TD]4167
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[Frixxxx]

Now there's over 4000. A Growing Number of Wealthy Federal Employees : FedSmith.com

Did you read the rollover part of the article? Pretty telling when the millionaire club has an average rollover of $546,117.04

 

[rothnroll]

How many active duty Military do you think comprise those 4 thousand?

 

[Boghie]

Frixxxx,

The article stated that 18% of the millionaires rolled over assets from prior retirement accounts. That means 82% did it the hard way. I'm proud of em and want to be one someday. We all do with what we got with the time we have. I dumbly wandered the desert for more than five year before getting serious.

RothNRoll,

Without a match making a mill in TSP is much harder. But you have something called a real pension. Our pension won't even pay the rent. It won't keep me in dart and beer money. And, it definitely will not pay my health insurance premiums - which I will have to fully pay for in retirement. If you mix a military retirement with a FERS retirement you really got something going...

 

[rothnroll]

Frixxxx,

The article stated that 18% of the millionaires rolled over assets from prior retirement accounts. That means 82% did it the hard way. I'm proud of em and want to be one someday. We all do with what we got with the time we have. I dumbly wandered the desert for more than five year before getting serious.

RothNRoll,

Without a match making a mill in TSP is much harder. But you have something called a real pension. Our pension won't even pay the rent. It won't keep me in dart and beer money. And, it definitely will not pay my health insurance premiums - which I will have to fully pay for in retirement. If you mix a military retirement with a FERS retirement you really got something going...

Understood about the pension thing. It is possible for someone with 25 years of service to be on active duty with 1 million in TSP, with deployments and catch-up's. That is what had me wondering how many active duty members there are...

 

[Skorcher]

How many active duty Military do you think comprise those 4 thousand?

The number of military millionaires has to be very small since their average balance is so small. From the article:
"This is important as the average TSP account from TSP investors who are in the uniformed serviced was $18,343 in December 2014. The average TSP balance for TSP investors who are in FERS was $115,046 for the same time period."

 

[PessOptimist]

How many active duty Military do you think comprise those 4 thousand?

Understood about the pension thing. It is possible for someone with 25 years of service to be on active duty with 1 million in TSP, with deployments and catch-up's. That is what had me wondering how many active duty members there are...

Military TSP didn’t start until Oct 2001. So the best case we could find for a balance would be after 13 or so years. It would be interesting to see some statistics on our military brothers/sisters and their balances.

Skorcher answered part of this while I was typing.

PO

 

[Boghie]

Understood about the pension thing. It is possible for someone with 25 years of service to be on active duty with 1 million in TSP, with deployments and catch-up's. That is what had me wondering how many active duty members there are...

Along Skorcher's thought...

It is not too difficult to end up with a cool mil if you start young, invest in equities, and contribute 10% (meaning 15% for gubmint employees in FERS) of your salary to TSP. Remember, you will generally get COLAs and promotions which will increase your contributions.

However, an active duty military member will have to clear that match with his/her own cash. My 10% contribution equals your 15% contribution. It is still possible, but much more difficult.

In the end, I personally think the military should dump all/most of the pension benefit and match to 10% contributions to TSP. Or maybe automatically dump 5% into TSP (to an L Fund) and match the next 5%. That would reverse things and make the military retirement benefit better than the government service benefit. An additional benefit is that those who serve less than retirement years would have a transferable asset for retirement. Anyway, to me, that is fair. I got a fair deal but your deal should be fairer:cheesy:. I have never had the opportunity to get shot at - and even if you never had trigger time it definitely does not mean you never will have trigger time. Me, my risk is Twinkies and Jolt.

 

[uscfanhawaii]

Frixxxx,

....Without a match making a mill in TSP is much harder....

The MATCH is really quite a game changer. It would be interesting to hear the stats on MATCH balances only (plus growth). As many of you have heard me say before...I was one of the few who switched to FERS from CSRS back when it first came out. Now, 31 yrs later, maybe I can finally stop second guessing myself. :blink:

I now have almost $300K in my TSP from matching and growth of the matching alone. So the comparison of FERS to CSMP basically comes down to $300K gov't match in FERS vs. the higher pension in CSRS. Without doing the detailed math, I have to say that I prefer the $300K, where it is mine to do as I please, invest or spend where I want, and ultimately pass on some of it to wife and kids.

$1M total TSP is still my goal, and with 2-3 yrs left to go, I think I have a good chance of making it.

 

[Cactus]

Did you read the rollover part of the article? Pretty telling when the millionaire club has an average rollover of $546,117.04

Yes, now I don't feel so bad starting off at zero. It's a lot easier when you start off half way there.

Still, it was only 1 out of 5 of the millionaires that rolled anything in. I'll try not to think about that as I plod along.

 

[jkenjohnson]

You have to start young, max out your tsp, save, save, save and buy a lucky rabbit's foot.

 

[Cactus]

Yes, that is one thing missing from these numbers that I would like to see. I wan't to see the break-down of account balance by years of service. It would make more sense to see if those with 50K or less have less than 10 years of service while the millionaires are all 25+.

 

[WorkFE]

There is so much that goes into planning for that moment that you decided to stop/alter your career.
If you have been an employee with a pension and a 401K you are fortunate but even if the only thing you have is a 401K it's not the end of the world unless you waited until you were 55 to start saving.
Personally I evaluate my retirement savings as a package minus SS.
If you are collecting a military retirement of $1500 a month that has a retirement savings of $270K. Lets say that individual then collects a civil service pension at 60 of $1000 a month, that has a retirement savings of $180K. So this individual has a retirement savings value of $450K before adding the value of their TSP/401K.
Plus other investments, stocks properties etc.
Obviously having a Million dollars and a pension is a good thing to have I just believe you have to look at your finances as a package. I even include my spouse in our package to evaluate where we are in relationship to where we want to be on that moment of decision making.

 

[WorkFE]

Sorry, soap box would not let me get off:laugh:
Just that folks get hung up on the MILLION mark.

 

[Frixxxx]

 

[jkenjohnson]

There is so much that goes into planning for that moment that you decided to stop/alter your career.
If you have been an employee with a pension and a 401K you are fortunate but even if the only thing you have is a 401K it's not the end of the world unless you waited until you were 55 to start saving.
Personally I evaluate my retirement savings as a package minus SS.
If you are collecting a military retirement of $1500 a month that has a retirement savings of $270K. Lets say that individual then collects a civil service pension at 60 of $1000 a month, that has a retirement savings of $180K. So this individual has a retirement savings value of $450K before adding the value of their TSP/401K.
Plus other investments, stocks properties etc.
Obviously having a Million dollars and a pension is a good thing to have I just believe you have to look at your finances as a package. I even include my spouse in our package to evaluate where we are in relationship to where we want to be on that moment of decision making.

I agree. $1,000,000 ain't what it used to be. I would feel more comfortable with $3,000,000, but I'm not going to get there unless the market doubles in two years.