Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.
Welcome to Reyna Retirement. Reyna Reyes has dedicated her career to helping people make smarter financial decisions. Reyna Retirement is all about breaking down complex financial concepts into language you can actually understand.
Now here's the co founder of American Federal Benefits Consultants, Reyna Reyes.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Hello and happy day to you. And economically speaking, there are many things we want to learn in the federal government. What does that even mean? Raina, what the heck is economically speaking? Well, that's an acronym. If you're in military, FED government, Fed service, anything like that. You know that there's a bajillion different acronyms that people use. For example csrs. What does that mean? SCISSORS or sisrp. Sipping on some siserp. No, it's Civil service. CSRS is Civil Service Retirement System. What about furs?
One of my, one of my. One of the guys that work with us went to a meeting and there was a, another group doing a conference where they dressed up as animals. So that's F U R S. But no, we are fers. FERS Federal Employee Retirement System.
So there's that. What else is there? Fegli that is Federal Employee Group Life Insurance. Now if you were military, you had SGLI which turned into vgli. They do the same thing. Remember FEGLI Part B increases every five years in cost just like VGLI did. So fegli, Federal Employee Group Life Insurance. What's fehp? Any takers?
Federal Employee Health Benefit. And that's where you choose whether you want to have health insurance through Blue Cross, Skiha, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Aetna UnitedHealthcare. There's a bajillion different versions of them. Remember, your benefits are not managed by the federal government. They are chosen by the federal government but not managed by them. Who manages fegli? Who's one of our favorite cartoons from long since passed Snoopy? FEGLI is managed by MetLife. Okay, now let's see here. What's another good one? FedVIP. Well that's Fed VIP. That is dental vision managed by Benefeds. So that's a private entity that manages your dental and vision as well.
Okay, some people say sbp. Well that's a very military thing. Survivor Benefit, Survivor Benefit Protection or something like that. But over here is just a survivor's benefit and that's where you can choose to spend a little money to make sure that if you pass away, your honey gets money monthly, forever from your pension. Okay, what's another acronym? Tsp. That is Thrift Savings Plan, some people say.
Because if you say TIS anyway, the tis we're going to whisper quietly in corners about the tsp, the Thrift Store Savings Program. That's the Fed version of a 401k. Essentially, you put money in, you get a match. If you're first civil service, no match for y'. All. But firs you get a match of 5%, as long as you're putting in five. And it's a bucket of money that you grow. They grow. It amasses to an amount. But what's the issue? In most cases, you may not have paid tax yet in the majority. So we want to make plans for taxes and things like that. Right.
What's another benefit? Ssa. Well, that's Social Security Administration, and that's your leg two of retirement ssa. Also, if you're too young for Social Security. How young is that one?
62. When you're 62 years of age or older, you can turn on or start receiving Social Security benefits. But there's things we got to watch out for, like how much money you're making at your job and also how much money could you be making if you waited a little bit longer? Or what if you're under 62 and you can't get no Social Security? You know, Mick Jagger can't get no satisfaction and you can't get no Social Security until you're 62 years old. But if you're under 62 and you retired fully with an unreduced pension, like being MRA, which is minimum retirement age or over with 30 years of service, then you may be getting the supplement, the FERS special supplement. So some people make the acronym S P P. I don't. I don't care, but that's what it would be. You get a supplement until you're able to reach age 62, which is when you would get Social Security. You see, then there's also a bunch of other ones. There's tons of them, but this is the quickest intro you need. And it's probably a little bit too rapid fire for you. But reach out to me and my team, we can make sense of these for you because they all matter to you. Just because they have acronyms means they didn't want to take up a bunch of space on the paper. Right.
But in our meetings, we go through? What does life insurance mean? What should you keep? What might get too expensive to keep? And then survivor benefit? How much money do you spend? What options do you have? What benefits does it leave your spouse? Who all gets survivor benefits and who will never see a survivor benefit? Who gets paid from life insurance versus a survivor benefit? Tsb, who's your beneficiary for that? How are you going to distribute this money? Are you ready to pay taxes on this money? Have you ever taken too much money and paid too much taxes? Oh, the pain of taxes, right? So we want to plan for all of these acronyms to make sense for your life, which we're not going to shorten into an acronym because you are ready to take this next chapter of your life and we can help you do it. Reach out My number here, 850-450-6500. And we have an entire nation of specialists ready to help and we do workshops as well. Reach out. Let's get scheduled and at least get started planning because it's never too soon to get planning. And it's never too soon, never too soon to learn these acronyms. We'll see.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Reyna Retirement. With a strong commitment to ethical standards, Raina works hard to find the right solution for each individual or family who reaches out for advice. To contact Reyna directly, call 850-450-6500. That's 850-450-6500. Or to reach the team at American Federal Benefits Consultants, call 1-800-872-8857. That's 1-800-872- 8857. You can also go online to AmericanFederal.org not affiliated with the United States Government. Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. These opinions are not intended as investment advice, nor do they predict future performance of any product. All information provided is believed to be from reliable sources. However, we make no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of any statement. The information is intended to be educational in nature and does not provide a guarantee or specific result. All copyrights and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. American Federal Benefits Consultants is an independent organization, not a government agency or affiliated with the federal government or any state government. The terms see ESRs, FERs, FELI, and FEHB are all registered trademarks of the U.S. office of Personnel Management. American Federal Benefits consultants, agents, consultants, or any independent contractors do not provide tax, legal or investment advice and do not engage in the solicitation or sale of securities. Consult with your tax advisor or attorney regarding specific situations.
