FED Legacy

We help Federal Employees Retire on time and with confidence

10/16/2026

Taking a lump sum from your TSP counts as income for that year. It can push you into a higher tax bracket and trigger IRMAA, the surcharge that raises your Medicare premiums.

You can take your money out any way you want. Check what that withdrawal will do to your taxes and Medicare costs before you take it.

10/15/2026

A question we get a lot from federal employees is whether they have to take all their money out of the TSP once they retire.

You don’t. You can leave it in the TSP, move part of it, or move all of it. The choice is yours, and there’s no rule forcing you to do any of it at retirement.

10/14/2026

Your pension is one of the biggest parts of your federal retirement, so it has to be calculated correctly.

We’ve seen clients try to retire and find out their service computation date was wrong. Their pension came out lower than it should have, and they spent months going back and forth with HR and OPM after they had already stopped working.

Give yourself enough time before your retirement date to review your records and fix any errors.

When was the last time you checked your service computation date?

10/13/2026

Say you need $1,500 a month from your TSP as soon as you retire. If the market drops 20 to 25% like it did in 2022, you’d be selling shares at the bottom just to cover your bills.

Moving part of your TSP into something more conservative, like an income IRA, can keep that monthly income coming without depending on where the market is that month.

How much income will you need from your TSP each month in retirement?

10/12/2026

She planned to take money from her TSP whenever she needed it. Then we went through her tax brackets and her Medicare premiums.

How much you withdraw each year affects your tax bracket and what you pay for Medicare. A systematic withdrawal plan keeps more of your TSP in your pocket and less with the IRS.

Do you have a plan for how you’ll draw down your TSP?

10/10/2026

She was 70 and had worked 45 years. She was about to fill out her paperwork to keep full FEGLI Basic coverage in retirement.

Right now she pays about $30 a pay period. With the no-reduction option, that would have become $410 a month.

She had a lot of money in her TSP and didn’t need the coverage. She chose it because she thought it was her only option.

Do you know what your FEGLI will cost after you retire?

10/05/2026

Whether you retire on time comes down to how your income is structured against your debts.

10/01/2026

There are 13 weeks left in 2026, and your federal benefits are worth a close look before the year ends.

FedLegacy founder William Smith walks through the five issues his team heard most often on recent calls with federal employees:

Getting into your TSP and SSA accounts
Money sitting in the G Fund and L Funds
How much of your savings will be taxed
What you have in FEGLI and what it costs
Who's listed as your beneficiaries

Starting now gives you time to fix what you find before December.

09/29/2026

Retire in 2000, and your TSP runs out at age 71. Retire in 1988 with the exact same plan, and it lasts 30 years with money left over.

Both retirees start with the same TSP and take the same amount out every month. Both keep 75% in the C Fund and 25% in the G Fund.

The retiree who started in 2000 averaged about 8.2% a year. That's a good return, and the money still didn't make it past 71.

Then came 2008. The C Fund lost about 37% that year, which is roughly a 26% drop on a 75/25 split. Meanwhile, the monthly withdrawals kept coming out at low prices.

Start dates only 3 years apart can end very differently. Retire in 2012, and the account finishes 30 years later with about 8 times what the 2015 retiree has left.

This is sequence of returns risk. The order of your returns in your first 10 years of retirement matters more than the long-term average. And the TSP takes each withdrawal proportionally from every fund you hold, so in a down year you're selling C Fund shares too.

Watch William run the numbers year by year in the video. Then book a Discovery Call to test your own TSP against the worst stretches in market history.

09/23/2026

Depending on your agency, your first federal retirement payment can take anywhere from 3 months to 8 months to arrive. In the meantime you'll receive interim payments based on an estimate, and once your retirement is fully processed, you get the back pay you're owed. The waiting period is still real, and it's much easier to get through when you have a plan and some cash set aside before your last day at work.

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