Who is Retiring, or Retired?

**tsptalk** · 01-11-2006, 02:03 AM

How many of you are either retired or within a couple of years of retiring? With our good friend Spaf and others retiring, we need to come up with new features here on TSP Talk as your allocation strategies will certainly be changing.

Please post any ideas you may have for the site that would be geared toward our retired members and short timers.

Thanks.
Tom

**Spaf** · 01-11-2006, 04:49 AM

The retirement strategy

The question is: How do we help each other?

I'm kind of new to the FERS short time position. Haven't been here before!

July 31st is my retirement date. And, I feel like I've been treated like a "mushroom" concerning my retirement strategy.

If any members would like to chime in, please do! Maybe, just maybe we can make the road a bit smoother for those that follow.

Thanks Tom!

Regards, and lets be careful!

Spaf

Dave M · 01-11-2006, 02:26 PM

Strategy? The strategic goal is accomplished once one retires -- to work no more. After that the goal is to find ways to fill the hours. For me that means chess, wargaming, bicycling, getting out on the water.

Dave

**Birchtree** · 01-12-2006, 12:17 AM

I know I thing for sure - life actually begins at 60 - and a little extra jingle in the pocket sure makes it delightful. Power account, baby, power account.

Dennis - give me Dow 17,000 and S&P 1700 and I buy the lake place and entertain the eventual grand kids.We'll talk more - got lots of ideas to save taxes.

**Master** · 01-12-2006, 02:53 AM

Tom,
You might want to re-poll using 5-year brackets. Just as recommended allocation. People with many more years to retirement will probably have higher tolerance for risk... like going back on the market at its peak.
I have 25 yrs to retirement (67).
M

**yakers** · 01-12-2006, 08:45 PM

I became retirement eligible a few months ago. I like my job a lot under my last boss. I would not have considered retiring. New boss, looks OK. But a few years back I had a real jerk, I would have left if I could but family & compensation & retirement made me put up with him.

Now being retirement eligible, having the house paid off, no debt and a nice dollop of funds in IRAs & other places and I have "jerk proofed" my work life. I don't feel desperate to leave, my attitude toward work has improved and my effectiveness (if not my efficiency) have improved. I am happy, I sing happy songs to myself and maybe a few are somewhat audible around the office. People wonder who the happy guy is.

I don't know about retirement but Financial Independence is "priceless".

**tsptalk** · 01-12-2006, 11:40 PM

Sounds good yakers!

**ocean** · 01-13-2006, 12:46 AM

Echo with Birchtree, power account .. power account .. I have 5 more years to take the DSR (Discontinued Service Retirement). My Army Base will be closed in 5 years (estimated) then I will take the early retirement. I am taking the next 5 years to build my power account. Give me the C, give me the S, and give me the I ... Yeah baby ..

Ocean

**yakers** · 02-20-2006, 04:09 PM

As the original poster asked, how has your progress to or in retirement changed your asset allocation or other financial plans? I am 55 and expect to retire in the next two years. Over the last two years I have increased my G Fund and put my new contributions in the L 2020 Fund. For 15+ years I was 100% in the C Fund.
My inclination is that when I retire I will shift everything into an L Fund and just have them send me 4% or 5% of the balance each year until I hit RMD age. Another possibility is to transfer some of the TSP into a traditional IRA and then roll that over into a Roth IRA. I'll have to do more tax estimating to figure out if that is a good move.

**ayla** · 02-20-2006, 07:26 PM

I"m 59 and retired. Retired a bit earlier than normal because of some health problems. Would be nice to have some pertinent links about IRA's, why rolling over the TSP might be good, etc.

Relevant to what info I would like to see about trading strategies, my pension which is CSRS is pretty generous and stable so I feel free to take a fair amount of risk with my TSP. My main desire is to know what strategy makes sense but always believed the saying "no guts no glory" so don't assume all us "gray-hairs" want to avoid risk.

**tsptalk** · 02-20-2006, 08:43 PM

Thanks for the feedback.

When you say trading strategies, did you mean within your TSP or IRA?

I have been wanting to be more active with the IRA information but I haven't been sure if this site is the best place for it. Maybe a separate website project.

Tom

**EW_ret** · 03-21-2006, 07:22 PM

I retired last year under CSRS. My monthly CSRS pension has been sufficient to pay the bills and enjoy life. I am still putting aside about 10% of my net pension income into my taxable investment accounts at Vanguard. I have not worked any other jobs, and I have no desire to work at this time,

I was very conservative in my TSP accounts until recently. I did not need to be aggressive because I do not need to withdraw the money until RMD when I turn 70. I asked myself should I remain conservative and stay in G Fund, or be aggressive with 60% or more in CSI? What strategy should a young retiree use if they do not need the money from their investments?

I was very conservative with my TSP until last week when I went 65% into the equity funds C, S, and I. By COB today I will have an 85% allocation in the equity funds. Is this being too aggressive? Even with this allocation in my TSP, my overall equity position will stand at 57% in stocks and 43% cash and bonds.