31 years old. 8 years service. $117000. 100% stocks but only do 10% since my wife is stay at home with two kids.
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31 years old. 8 years service. $117000. 100% stocks but only do 10% since my wife is stay at home with two kids.
Hi Jim, sounds like you are doing ok, I too have been adding to my TSP starting out with 5 or 6 %, I don't really recall, then with each pay or step increase, I would add another 1% to my TSP deposits until I maxed out. Last year I dropped it down a bit so as not to miss out on a couple of year end matches due to exceeding the max. Now I am back to max. My balance grew by about $80,000 since this time last year. I just ran a report on retirement income and it says, with my current balance and amount of contributions, I should retire in seven years, just shy of 1 million $ at a 7% return rate; hopefully it will be better than that. If I withdraw $5000 per month, my account will continue to grow faster than my withdrawals and I will soon be north of 1 Million $ and growing!
Best of success to you in your retirement!
Hello All: I became 55 y.o. this Nov. I joined TSP Talk sometime last year and don't have enough time to keep up with all the threads, so I generally post to the Fund Talk thread, and just noticed this one today. After reading a bevy of posts, I have to commend everyone for just investing something.
Most of my career has been civilian/corporate and I have been with the federal government since July 2008. Prior to that, I have invested in 401Ks and some without a match. My philosophy was to follow the advice of my grandparents, which was to pay yourself first and save something up for retirement, no matter what the amount. So, while raising two daughters after a short-lived marriage of 6 years and very little child support, I remember investing $25 per month to an investment company during the early 80s through early 90s, when I discovered the fees were eating into my investment.
To fast forward: On average I have Roth and Traditional outside 401Ks and an annuity in the amount of approximately $32K. Since 2008, I started investing 25% of my salary in TSP, lost some of it prior to transferring what was left into the G fund. At some point the next year, I started investing the max as a GS 9, and continued to max as I promoted to GS 13 since two years ago. During the year I turned 50, I contributed the max and catch up, literally trying to catch up, so I can invest as much as I can until my target retirement of MRA + 10, which is December 2018. My TSP balance is approximately $239K, and I generally invest in the C, S, I, L2050 and F, but since April 2017 I have stayed the course in C35, S30, I25, F10.
I plan to continue to invest as aggressive as possible without taking too much risk, so I pay more attention to the market now. Since my husband has a much nicer retirement nest egg, I will not withdraw a pension upon retirement but at age 62 or 65. Also, our plan is to not withdraw funds from TSP until 70, unless we necessarily must. We will travel and do the things we weren't able to, due to raising kids, helping family and working, while we still have our good health. During the times we're not travelling, I will substitute teach high school, in order to keep my teaching certification valid. Our kids are grown, and we have two grand kids who we will spend more time with also.
I didn't see anyone post anything about life insurance options, but they too are part of or financial plan. I also have a life annuity insurance plan with Alliance, formerly Aviva that operates like an annuity or life insurance plan. My plan has a max of $260K, which is payable in lump sum if I depart prior to age 65. After age 65, I becomes an annuity in which I can receive lifetime payments from its appreciated value. Our mortgage will be paid off in 1 year, have a balance on credit cards that an be paid off monthly, and 1 car note. So, I don't think I'm doing too bad on my catch up endeavor.
34yo
10 years service (mid-upper GS-12 equivalent currently)
$179K balance
I didn't watch my balance after I started, didn't know what I was doing, and it took me until the end of 2011 for my gains to really start taking off. At the time my balance was $45K, only $3K of which was gains. Ouch! I was reacting at the wrong times, now watching my balance, just a plain noob throwing money away.
I ended up getting into a contribution allocation I liked for "buy and hold" risk exposure and settled on:
G - 8%
F - 15%
C - 42%
S - 35%
I - 0% (at the time, the Greek thing seemed to be tanking the I-fund, although I realize now I-fund is more interested in British and Japanese markets)
That did reasonably well for me, and I have since gained $56K compared to $69K in contributions, not counting this quarter. I'm now trying to stay in touch with TSPTalk to improve those gains (by getting on board which whichever fund(s) is performing best at the time), and minimize losses during down turns.
Right now, I am contributing 5% matching + 1% Roth, plus maxing out a Roth IRA. I was in the 10%-12% contribution range for a little while, but life expenses have taken me down from that. Planning to up TSP by 2% with each pay raise until max is reached in 5 years.
You don't say what age you want to retire by, but I think you still have very good shoot at $1M+ by age 62.
I put together the attached spreadsheet a couple of years ago. (Hopefully it attaches. And, hopefully my logic putting this together is good too.)
I made an adjustment to use your age and TSP balance. It shows someone that averages a GS-7 Step 1 salary, contributes 5%, gets an annual 10% return, can save $1M+ by age 62.
Attachment 42612
And, as you probably already know, you're probably going to have to invested in either the C, S, or I funds; or a combination of those funds, to average 10% annually.
Some of you will wonder where I came from. Well, I've been one of those viewers in the background for a very long time, probably 20+ years.
I just turned 54 and I have almost 31 years worth of service (started January of '87) and I'm currently a GS-13. My current TSP balance is just over $930k.
I started out in a job series that went GS-5/7/9/11, so I got to GS-11 fairly quick. And, got a GS-12 just a couple years later. I only got my GS-13 a few years ago.
At one time I was contributing about 15% to the TSP, but for about the last 10 years I have only contributed 5%.
You will see I start out conservatively. Luckily, I had a friend /co-worker that basically hounded me to contribute more and to get more aggressive. And, you will see below I did get more aggressive starting about year 5. I got pretty lucky that I did not lose too much between 2007 and 2011. What is not reflected below is that I was early to move to the G-Fund during this time and avoided a big loss. But, I was actually slow to fully move back into the market full-time, so I missed a really big gain too.
And, my thoughts the last few years have been...if I want to retire early, I more afraid of being out the market, than being in the market. If being in the market does not work out, I can always work more years. And, if I decide to be conservative, I will have to work more years anyway. Therefore, to me it is worth the gamble of staying 100% in either the C, S, or I funds.
Also, I created a spreadsheet probably 25 years ago that lead to me believe that $1M+ was possible by my MRA. This probably helped me stay the course.
Below are most of my balances over the years and how I was invested:
Starting working at age 22 in January of 1987.
1/31/1988 - 100%G - $7.20 (first TSP deposit was probably just a 1% match)
1/31/1989 - 100%G - $327
1/31/1990 - 100%G - $3,313
1/31/1991 - 100%G - $7,268
1/31/1992 - 75%G/25%C - $12,886
1/31/1993 - 15%G/85%C - $20,898
1/31/1994 - 10%G/90%C - $30,482
1/31/1995 - 9%G/91%C - $37,941
1/31/1996 - 6%G/94%C - $59,952
1/31/1997 - 100%C - $81,661
1/31/1998 - 100%C - $104,982
... (not much happen here, so I left these years out)
1/31/2003 - 100%C - $134,169
1/31/2004 - 90%C/10I - $195,442
1/31/2005 - 90%C/10I - $223,911
1/31/2006 - 25%C/25%S/50%I - $271,611
1/31/2007 - 28%C/22%S/50%I - $324,858 * (Basically 4 years of almost no growth) *
1/31/2008 - 100%S - $324,034 *
1/31/2009 - 100%I - $294,075 *
1/31/2010 - 100%I - $296,487 *
1/31/2011 - 75%S/25%I - $339,653 *
1/31/2012 - 100%G - $417,926
1/31/2013 - 100%S - $478,460
1/31/2014 - 100%S - $565,458
1/31/2015 - 100%S - $620,055
1/31/2016 - 100%S - $596,869 * (Lost money this year)
1/31/2017 - 100%S - $806,439 ** (Great year! Hopefully get another one just like it soon!) **
12/14/2017 - 50%C/50%I -$930K+
So, I just turned 54 and God willing hope to have $1.2M+ by my MRA of 56.
I have 3 fed friends that are already TSP millionaires. One is a GS-13, another retired as a GS-14, and the last works for the FAA as an Air Traffic Controller (okay, his pay scale is off the chart).
Anyway, it appears $1M+ by retirement is possible by normal fed workers. Actually, I believe it is possible by anyone that averages just a GS-7 Step 1 salary, contributes 5%, averages annual 8% return, and works from age 23 to 62. Attached is spreadsheet I put together in 2016 that shows it is possible. (Hopefully, my logic used to create this spreadsheet was good.)
Attachment 42613
Hopefully, my story encourages others to just go for it.
Have a Great 2018 folks - 2017 was stupendous!!!
Age: 53
Balance: $499K (as of 2017/12/29 - Dang market lost a fraction of a percent)
Investing: Alternate between three allocations (Conservative, Normal, Aggressive)
Expected Balance at age 65 (using Quicken and DinkyTown.Net):
- Retirement Age: 65
- Expected Return: 8.25% - My actual IRR since 2004.
- Expected Inflation: 3.0% - I still expect very muted inflation. Could change, but...
- Expected Contributions: 15% of Gross Salary, 10% from me, 5% match
- Expected Balance: $1.425 million
- Expected Annual Withdraw (20 years): $80K
- Expected Annual Withdraw (30 years): $65K
Edelman Financial's VERY Conservative estimations:
Age: 53
Balance: $499K
Investing: Alternate between three allocations (Conservative, Normal, Aggressive)
Expected Balance at age 65 (using Quicken and DinkyTown.Net):
- Retirement Age: 65
- Expected Return: 5.5% - A disgustingly conservative number.
- Expected Inflation: 3.0% - I still expect very muted inflation. Could change, but...
- Expected Contributions: 15% of Gross Salary, 10% from me, 5% match
- Expected Balance: $1.111 million
- Expected Annual Withdraw (20 years): $50K
- Expected Annual Withdraw (30 years): $37K
- Edelman Financial determined that I need 40K annually inflation adjusted from my TSP account for thirty years of retirement and an additional 8 years for the wifey. There are additional assets ($140K) from the sale of the house that bring the 30 year window distributions to well over that requirement - at 5.5% return. Yowser...
I frequent another website (BBC) where we discuss everything from fishing, to boating, to finance. I have to say, the overwhelming majority of the members on this site should be very satisfied with where they are financially, and how well they're prepared for retirement.
After reading some of the personal accounts regarding retirement savings (or the lack thereof) of some of the folks on that other site all I can say is OUTSTANDING WORK. :bigok:
What fund(s) are you currently contributing into?
Are you following any TSP strategists, TSP Calculator?
How frequently do you move between fund(s)?