s/o - if you're a fed, how much do you have in TSP & how old are you?

[Anonymous]

30, 4 years of service, $76k in TSP. Rolled a $16,000 traditional IRA in from my first job. Started maxing in January 2013, mostly thanks to reading threads like these on DCUM and bogleheads.

Letting it ride on on 50% C, 14% S, 26% I, 10% G for the next twenty years or so with a single yearly re-balance on my birthday. Fingers crossed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:30, 4 years of service, $76k in TSP. Rolled a $16,000 traditional IRA in from my first job. Started maxing in January 2013, mostly thanks to reading threads like these on DCUM and bogleheads.

Letting it ride on on 50% C, 14% S, 26% I, 10% G for the next twenty years or so with a single yearly re-balance on my birthday. Fingers crossed.

Why the G?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Why the G?

The G-fund never loses money...I'm holding it as cash so I have a source of funds to re-balance with in a down market year.

Hopefully, I'll never have to bother, but the likelihood is that I will have to bother multiple times over the next 20+ years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:30, 4 years of service, $76k in TSP. Rolled a $16,000 traditional IRA in from my first job. Started maxing in January 2013, mostly thanks to reading threads like these on DCUM and bogleheads.

Letting it ride on on 50% C, 14% S, 26% I, 10% G for the next twenty years or so with a single yearly re-balance on my birthday. Fingers crossed.

Why the G?

You know they charge you to rebalance? You're better off in L2050 or L2060

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You know they charge you to rebalance? You're better off in L2050 or L2060

We all pay the same thing percentage-wise, re-balance or not. Straight from the TSP:

"Your share of TSP average net administrative expenses is based on the size of your account balance. For example, the G Fund’s expense ratio* for 2014 was .029%. Therefore, if you invested in the G Fund in 2014, earnings were reduced by 29 cents per $1,000 of your G Fund balance."

https://www.tsp.gov/planparticipation/administrative/administrativeExpenses.shtml

It's why there's currently a limit of only two inter-fund transfers per month (which I feel is about one too many). A handful of folks back in the mid-2000s were trading their entire account balances practically every day and it was running the admin costs up.

L funds, even the L2050, are a shade too conservative for my taste and also include the F-fund, which I have no desire to hold. (L2060 doesn't exist yet in TSP, but will after 2020 when L2020 is retired). With that being said, socking everything away into a L fund is a fine choice if you have no interest in muddling thru the details.

[Anonymous]

I'm not a fed. How is TSP different from 401k?

I'm 36 and have been maxing out 401k most of my career and have 399k. DH is slightly ahead, because he has a few years more work experience due to me taking 2yrs off for our first child.

[Anonymous]

31, 7 years of service, $200K

[Anonymous]

47, 10 years of service and 355K (at end of Dec.)

[Anonymous]

My husband has 24 years of service, he's 53, and his TSP has about $900,000.

[Anonymous]

29, 7 years in 77k. It went down last year

I also started at a lower GS and only put in 10% for a few years, but am putting the full max in now. Really sucks that I put the full max in last year, but it didn't go up.

[Anonymous]

23 years of fed service. Started maxing my contribution early when a savvy friend gave me an earful. Now have 600k

[Anonymous]

59,25yrs,600k, had to pay out 40% in divorce 5 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:wow, i feel horrible. 42, with about 80k and 10 years of service. started as a GS-9 (with a PhD and thus having made no money during 8 years of grad school) and finally at a 13. whohee. Even worse, DH, who is 50, has just under 200k AND we have two little kids who will be going to college when we are looking at retiring. we're screwed.

My parents were like this, including the PhD. I went to UMCP on full scholarship plus some, then went to Harvard for my own PhD. I agree...don't worry about college, and save save save for retirement.

[Anonymous]

50, 18 years as a fed, not maxing out for about ten years, $520k plus IRAs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a fed. How is TSP different from 401k?

I'm 36 and have been maxing out 401k most of my career and have 399k. DH is slightly ahead, because he has a few years more work experience due to me taking 2yrs off for our first child.

TSP is basically the fed version of a 401k.