Mike, all I can say is be careful what you wish for. The TSP was started for federal employees with radical changes to the civil service retirement system. For any federal employee who became a federal employee in the mid eightees and later, there is effectively no civil service retirement system. There is still a federal retirement but it makes up a very small percentage of what a federal employee gets after working for forty years. The TSP is the federal retirement. Those with the old CRS get the TSP also, but their contributions are capped at half the others. When active duty military was brought in, it allowed for a good supplement to the military retirement career GI's would get. Although active duty military retirement has been cut somewhat, comapred to the previous fifty at twenty, it is still the most valuable commodity most of you will have if you retire from the military. The danger of a consensus that cries for for TSP allowances for active duty is that they will rarely give you anything without taking something else. The more TSP they may give will most likely mean further cuts to military retirement pensions. It may sound good when you are still five or ten years out from retirement but for most who have been down this road, a military pension is by far more valuable than increased TSP. You guys on active duty should be trying to get congress to put the pension back the way it was and just leave the TSP sleeping dog the way it is.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

Turk,

Good points. I would definitely not want them to take away retirement benefits in order to add to the TSP.

Even if there was a matching 10 cents on the dollar, that would be an automatic 10% gain for the first year.

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One thing that investors should keep in mind is the rate of inflation. The G fund looks less and less safe with rising inflation. Right now we have a pretty steady inflation rate of 2-3%, but any increases could negate any "safe" returns from an investment.

I try to get a 8% minimum return on my investments a year. Some years I do great (20+%), other years not so good (6%). But I'm hoping to average 9 or 10% over the lifetime of my investments. 5 or 6% returns available through the TSP just don't make much sense for an investor who is willing to put a very minimal time investment into researching other options.

Totally agree! I don't want to see my benefits eroded away in favor of the TSP. Personally, I'd love a true 401k option in the military with matching funds as long as I get to chose my investment vehicle. But for the average GI with little or no knowledge of investing, it could leave many future retiree's with little saved for retirement if they have to make those decisions themselves.

The TSP does have funds besides the G and F. The C and S funds have averaged over 9 percent return averaged over the past ten years. The new L funds look very promising to help investors get their money to the proper level of risk based on how far they are out from retirement. There were many people in government and private sector who were getting ready to retire in 1999-2001 time period who had a lot of their retirement wealth wiped out. Even though you may average good returns over the life of your plan, the closer you get to having to utilize the funds, the less risk you should assume. You only have one working life to get ready for those 'golden years.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

Anybody know anything about pennie stocks? I want to get into something in the stock market, but I don't have much to play with. Just curious...

Thanks!
Joe

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Joeninpo

The tyrant custom, most grave Senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down

Penny stocks, (typically defined as any stock with a price of less than one dollar), are absolutley the riskiest way to use your money. It is an area fraught with dummy companies set up for the sole purpose of seperating you from your cash. Fraud around every corner, proceed with caution. If you decide to pursue this, investigate any company as much as you can first. I recomment the web sight : stockpatrol.com to help you research the fraudulent back ground of any company. But remember, just because they don't know about it doesn't mean it isn't a crooked company. It is something to only play with, with money you won't cry over if you totally lose it. The nineties are gone. Good luck.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

Yeah...I know it's almost as bad as dealing with one of those payday loan places. I was just curious to see if anyone had actually had any success with them, and if so, how did they avoid all of the pitfalls.

Thanks!
Joe

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Joeninpo

The tyrant custom, most grave Senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down

One of the significant changes that took place from the fall out of the scandalous dot com days is the need and ability for exchanges/brokers to easily identify the 'day trader'. Those of us small timers who may want to play around with small investments and penny stocks have to now take care not to be flagged and labeled as a habitual day trader. The nature of penney stocks is that you have to be a day trader, paying close attention to the charts all day, monday through friday, since you are making money from the peaks and valleys, (in most cases), and the other case is running up with a fraudulently hyped stock, (aren't they all?). Any way, now days, if you make 4 or more trades on one stock within one week, you may be flagged as a day trader. One trade is a buy or a sell, not the combination of the two. Now, what may happen if your broker or another institution flags you as a day trader depends on the amounts and circumstance involved. At the minimum, your broker may shut down your trade, if they see you making too many trades that can be defined as day trades. Besides the pitfall of extremely high risk in this type of money use, this is one of the major pit falls today.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

Wow! I didn't know that. I still don't even have a broker yet...I can't seem to find one that wants to work with anyone that has less than $1k to throw away. I'm still doing research at this point, and I'm checking out the sites that you guys have posted on here as well as some others that I've found. Thanks again for the help!
Joe

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Joeninpo

The tyrant custom, most grave Senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down