Federal Employees Retirement & Benefits Podcast by CD Financial

Hosted by Charles Dzama

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298

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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EN-US

About the show

The objective of this podcast is to educate and enlighten you about your federal benefits and to guide you in creating a well-formed retirement income plan. Schedule your complimentary 15-minute phone call today! https://calendly.com/charlesdzama/dzamatalk-complimentary-15-min-phone-call

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September 30, 2026Episode 348 min

Taxes and "Do I Have Enough?" The 2 Fears Every Federal Retiree Carries

After a year of sitting across from federal employees within a couple of years of retiring — different agencies, different balances, different ages — the same two fears came up almost every single time. And they aren't really two fears. They're one, wearing two coats. This is what retirement planning actually looks like when you get past the account balance. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - The question people ask out loud — and the one they actually mean, about 20 minutes in - Fear #1: a tax bill on a schedule you don't control, and the IRMAA surcharge with a two-year lookback - Fear #2: "do I have enough?" — and the arbitrary target most people never chose - Why these two fears are actually the same fear - What eleven federal employees said, in their own words - Why a written retirement income plan is what turns both into arithmetic Which one is louder for you right now — reply 1 for taxes or 2 for running out 👇 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ START HERE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Get the Digital Federal Retirement Guidebook: https://cdfinancial.org/being-a-federal-employee-book/ Subscribe for Weekly Federal Retirement Planning Content: https://cdfinancial.com/newsletter Every name in this video has been changed. The concerns are real; the people are not identifiable. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 The Two Things Almost Everybody Says 0:45 What They Ask Out Loud vs. What They Actually Mean 1:26 Fear #1: The Tax Bill You Don't Control 2:19 IRMAA — And the Two-Year Lookback 3:30 The Inherited Tax Bill 3:55 Fear #2: "Do I Have Enough?" 4:20 The Number You Didn't Choose 5:55 Why These Two Fears Are Really One 7:00 What People Actually Told Me 8:35 Watch Next ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO WE ARE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, FEHB, and retirement income planning — where health meets wealth. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. All names and identifying details have been changed; examples are anonymized composites and are not testimonials or endorsements. Educational only; not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a recommendation regarding any specific account, product, or target balance. RMD ages, IRMAA thresholds, and tax rules depend on your situation and change over time — verify with the IRS, SSA, OPM, and a qualified tax professional before acting. #FERS #FederalRetirement #TSP #IRMAA #RetirementPlanning #CDFinancial Support the show

September 24, 2026Episode 12121 min

No Raise? Why Your Federal Retirement Plan May Need a Shift

How much money do federal employees actually need to retire? The White House's 2027 pay plan proposes no raise for most civilian feds, and the question everyone's asking is "why am I still working?" Better question: do you actually NEED to keep working, or do you just not know yet if you can afford to leave? Charles and Marcus walk through the 5-number test to run before you decide. 👉 Apply for a 15-minute call with Charles: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ In this episode: • Why your TSP balance alone can't tell you if you can retire • Your income floor: FERS pension, supplement, Social Security • The gap years: when the supplement stops at 62 and inflation catches up • Planning for big-ticket spending (roof, car, helping the kids) • Why a bad market year early in retirement is the scary one Chapters 0:00 No raise in 2027. Should you keep working? 1:27 Plan like it's real, but don't decide mad 2:13 "Just one more year": what it costs you 3:01 Is $900K in the TSP enough? 4:36 Number 1: What you cost every month 7:53 Number 2: Your income floor 10:39 Number 3: The gap years 13:53 Number 4: Big-ticket spending 17:14 Number 5: A bad market early in retirement 19:39 The verdict: know, don't assume The 2027 pay plan is a proposal; final pay tables are set in December. Verify current figures with OPM. Free resources Federal Retirement Guidebook: https://cdfinancial.org/being-a-federal-employee-book/ Checklist Challenge: https://cdfinancial.org/checklist-challenge/ WHO WE ARE CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees build a written retirement income plan. Where health meets wealth. Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. This content is for educational purposes only and is not financial, legal, tax, healthcare, or investment advice. Discuss all information with your individual adviser before acting on it. #FederalRetirement #FERS #TSP Support the show

September 23, 2026Episode 337 min

No 2027 Pay Raise? 5 Numbers That Tell You If You Can Retire Now

The White House sent Congress its 2027 pay plan, and for most civilian federal employees it proposes no raise. Three people asked Charles the same question that week: "if I'm not getting a raise anyway, why am I still working?" It's a fair question — but there's a better one, and five numbers that answer it. This is retirement planning driven by your situation, not by a headline. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - The better question: do you actually NEED to keep working, or do you just not KNOW yet? - What the proposed 2027 pay freeze does and doesn't change (and why December matters) - What another year of federal service actually buys you — and what it costs - The 5 numbers that turn "can I retire" from a feeling into a decision - Why your spending, your net pension, and your social security retirement timing matter more than your TSP balance Which of the five is the one you're missing? Reply 1 spending, 2 pension, 3 Social Security, 4 TSP income, or 5 taxes 👇 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ START HERE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Get the Digital Federal Retirement Guidebook: https://cdfinancial.org/being-a-federal-employee-book/ Subscribe for Weekly Federal Retirement Planning Content: https://cdfinancial.com/newsletter Want to run these five numbers for your own situation? The Guidebook walks through every one — link above. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 No 2027 Raise — So Why Am I Still Working? 0:37 The Better Question 1:14 What Actually Happened 1:52 RTO, DOGE, DRP — The Context 2:37 Frustration Shouldn't Pick Your Date 3:22 Is Another Year the Answer? 4:22 The 5 Numbers 5:37 Which One Is Yours? 6:52 Don't Let Washington Pick Your Date 7:30 Get the Guidebook ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO WE ARE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, FEHB, and retirement income planning — where health meets wealth. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. Educational only; not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. The 2027 pay plan described here is a PROPOSAL — final pay schedules are generally set by executive order in December and Congress may act before then. A pay raise is not the same as a retiree COLA. Verify current figures with OPM, SSA, and a qualified tax professional before acting. #FERS #FederalRetirement #TSP #PayFreeze #RetirementPlanning #CDFinancial Support the show

September 17, 2026Episode 12018 min

Should You Still Own Stocks in Your TSP After Retirement?

The same stock market feels completely different once you retire. While you're working, a drop is a discount. Once you're withdrawing from that money, a drop can lock in losses you never recover. Charles and Marcus work through what federal retirees should actually be asking about their TSP allocation — why moving everything to the G Fund isn't the answer, what the TSP's own L Income Fund implies, why co-mingled money gets pulled pro rata, and how a FERS pension changes what your TSP is even for. Chapters: 0:00 Safety or Growth After Retirement? 0:24 Welcome + This Week's Question 1:30 It Depends: What Is the Money Actually For? 3:00 Why Market Risk Feels Different After You Retire 4:42 Is the Answer to Move Everything to Safety? 5:34 What the TSP's Own L Income Fund Tells You 6:34 The Co-Mingling Problem and Pro-Rata Withdrawals 7:38 The Bucket Approach 10:00 How a FERS Pension Changes the Math 13:12 What to Decide Before You Change Your Allocation 15:41 Your Two Enemies: Market Risk and Inflation 18:00 Apply: Your 15-Minute Call CTA: Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Disclaimer: Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. Educational only; not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a recommendation regarding any specific fund. TSP fund allocations change over time — verify current figures at TSP.gov . Past performance does not guarantee future results. Support the show

September 15, 2026Episode 325 min

Your Federal Retirement: What to Expect in the First Year

Most federal employees spend years planning the day they retire. Almost nobody plans what the first year actually feels like. Your last paycheck stops, your first retirement check may not match the estimate, taxes change, healthcare starts running on a calendar — and taking money from the TSP can suddenly feel wrong, even though that's exactly what you saved it for. Here are the seven things to expect, and the retirement planning that keeps them from becoming surprises. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - Why the first year is a transition between two income systems, not a single event - The OPM processing gap — what interim pay is, and why you want a cash cushion - Why you budget on your NET pension, never the gross estimate - The first-year tax stack: salary, annual leave payout, pension, social security retirement or the supplement, and TSP withdrawals all landing in one year - Healthcare's calendar — FEHB, Medicare at 65, and IRMAA's two-year lookback - Source and timing for large purchases — it's not the trip, it's which account pays for it - The emotional shift nobody puts on an OPM form How many months of cash would you want set aside before you retire — three, six, or twelve? Drop your number below 👇 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ START HERE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Get the Digital Federal Retirement Guidebook: https://cdfinancial.org/being-a-federal-employee-book/ Subscribe for Weekly Federal Retirement Planning Content: https://cdfinancial.com/newsletter Want your first year mapped out before you're in it? Guidebook link above. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 The First Year Nobody Plans For 0:29 Welcome + How Much Cash Would You Set Aside? 0:55 #1 The First Year Is a Transition 1:25 #2 The OPM Processing Gap 2:11 #3 Budget on Net, Not Gross 3:27 #4 The First-Year Tax Stack 4:09 #5 Healthcare Has a Calendar 4:39 #6 Source and Timing for Large Purchases 4:54 #7 The Emotional Shift 5:24 Watch Next ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO WE ARE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, FEHB, and retirement income planning — where health meets wealth. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. Educational only; not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. OPM processing times and interim payment amounts vary by case and are not guaranteed. Survivor, FEHB, Medicare, IRMAA, and tax rules depend on your situation and change over time — verify with OPM, SSA, and a qualified tax professional before acting. #FERS #FederalRetirement #TSP #FEHB #RetirementPlanning #CDFinancial Support the show

September 10, 2026Episode 11918 min

How to Turn Your TSP Into a Monthly Retirement Paycheck

You can retire with a FERS pension and a healthy TSP and still feel lost the month the paycheck stops. Charles and Marcus walk through building a federal retirement paycheck from the ground up: what you actually cost each month, which income sources form your dependable floor, the gap your TSP has to fill, and how installment payments really work — plus the age rules to understand before you roll anything to an IRA. Chapters: 0:00 The Paycheck Stops, the Bills Don't 0:27 Welcome + This Week's Question 1:30 Start Here: How Much Do You Cost? 4:14 Building Your Dependable Income Floor 7:00 Finding the Gap Your TSP Has to Fill 9:47 How to Create Monthly TSP Income 11:35 The Age 55 / 59½ Trap Before You Roll Over 13:20 What Can Break the Plan 15:18 When to Review It 18:37 Watch Next Resource mentioned: the free Monthly Expenses worksheet at cdfinancial.org CTA: Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Disclaimer: Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. Educational only; not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. TSP withdrawal rules, penalty exceptions, and RMD ages depend on your situation — verify with TSP.gov , SSA, and OPM. Support the show

September 8, 2026Episode 314 min

Should You Still Own Stocks After Retirement?

Should federal retirees still own stocks? Charles thinks that's the wrong question — the real one is how much. This video walks through the two enemies of your TSP in retirement, inflation and a major market correction, and why the answer to one makes the other worse if your money is all in one pile. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - Why "should I own stocks" is the wrong question for a federal retiree - What the TSP's own L Income Fund implies about how much growth retirees still need - Enemy #1: how the G Fund can quietly leak purchasing power to inflation - Enemy #2: what a major correction does to money you're actively withdrawing from - Why separating income money from growth money changes the math - The pro-rata rule: why you can't just take your withdrawal from the G Fund How much of your TSP is sitting in the G Fund right now? Drop the percentage below 👇 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ START HERE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Get the Digital Federal Retirement Guidebook: https://cdfinancial.org/being-a-federal-employee-book/ Subscribe for Weekly Federal Retirement Planning Content: https://cdfinancial.com/newsletter Want your allocation looked at next to your actual income needs? Guidebook link above. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 The Better Question: How Much? 0:30 What the TSP's Own L Income Fund Shows 1:15 Enemy #1: Inflation and the Slow Leak 2:00 Why You Separate Income Money From Growth Money 3:20 Enemy #2: A Market Correction and the Co-Mingling Math 4:23 Watch Next: Will Your Money Last as Long as You Do? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO WE ARE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, FEHB, and retirement income planning — where health meets wealth. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. Educational only; not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any specific fund, or to move assets from any account. Allocation decisions depend entirely on your situation. TSP fund allocations and lifecycle fund compositions change over time — verify current figures at TSP.gov. All examples are illustrative. Past performance does not guarantee future results. #TSP #FederalRetirement #FERS #GFund #RetirementPlanning #CDFinancial Support the show

September 3, 2026Episode 11822 min

Cheap Advice, Expensive Federal Retirement Mistakes

A low fee on your TSP is real — but it only pays for the investment account. It doesn't coordinate your FERS pension, Social Security timing, the FEHB/Medicare Part B decision, your survivor benefit election, or your taxes. Charles and Marcus walk through what a cheap plan quietly costs federal employees, why retirement flips the job from accumulation to distribution, and what to ask before hiring or switching advisors. Chapters: 0:00 Cheap Fees vs. the Whole Picture 0:30 Welcome + This Week's Question 1:51 Why Federal Employees Are Right to Care About Fees 2:52 Accumulation vs. Distribution: Why Retirement Changes Everything 6:06 The Trade-Offs That Don't Show Up on a Fee Schedule 8:51 Why Federal Retirement Isn't Just a 401(k) 11:11 Part B, Survivor Benefits & the Choices Nobody Assigns You 12:54 The Scissors and the All-Clad: What Quality Actually Buys 17:04 What to Ask Before You Hire (or Switch) an Advisor 19:34 When Is Cheap Actually Enough? 22:19 Watch Next CTA: Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Disclaimer: Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. Educational only; not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Figures discussed are illustrative — verify with the IRS, SSA, and OPM. Support the show

September 2, 2026Episode 305 min

Is Your TSP Ready for Retirement? The Income Conversion Test

Your TSP monthly income balance may look substantial—but how much monthly retirement income can it actually provide? In this video, Charles explains how federal employees can turn a TSP balance into a practical monthly paycheck. You’ll learn how to calculate the gap between your retirement income and real expenses, establish TSP installment payments, and account for taxes, inflation, and market risk before making withdrawals. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - Why your TSP balance alone doesn’t tell you whether you’re retirement-ready - How to calculate the gap between your income and monthly expenses - Why some retirees spend more—not less—after leaving work - How TSP installment payments can create a monthly income stream - How inflation, taxes, and investment choices can affect your income - Why a bad market year early in retirement can create lasting problems What monthly income do you expect your TSP to provide in retirement? Share your target below. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ START HERE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Get the Digital Federal Retirement Guidebook: https://cdfinancial.org/being-a-federal-employee-book/ Subscribe for Weekly Federal Retirement Planning Content: https://cdfinancial.com/newsletter ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Turning Your TSP Into a Monthly Paycheck 0:35 It’s Not About Your Balance—It’s About the Gap 1:01 What Your Real Monthly Expenses Look Like 1:47 The Free Monthly Expenses Worksheet 2:35 Why Retirees Often Spend More, Not Less 3:17 How to Set Up TSP Monthly Payments 4:04 The Blind Spots: Inflation, Taxes, and the G Fund 4:52 One Bad Market Year Early in Retirement 5:11 Watch Next: Should You Still Own Stocks After Retirement? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO WE ARE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter decisions around FERS, TSP, FEHB, taxes, and retirement income planning—where health meets wealth. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. This content is educational only and is not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. TSP withdrawal options, tax consequences, investment risks, and retirement-income needs depend on your individual situation and may change. Verify current TSP rules at TSP.gov and consult qualified financial and tax professionals before acting. CD Financial is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Thrift Savings Plan or any federal agency. #TSP #FederalRetirement #RetirementIncome #FERS #ThriftSavingsPlan #CDFinancial Support the show

August 27, 2026Episode 11718 min

Your FERS Retirement, Explained: Pension, TSP, Taxes & the Decisions You Can't Undo

FERS retirement in one place: your pension, TSP, and Social Security — and the decisions that become permanent the moment you make them. Charles and Marcus explain how the three legs of federal retirement connect, what a $3,000 pension actually nets after taxes, FEHB, and the survivor benefit, and the choices you truly can't undo. Chapters: 0:00 The Three Legs of FERS Retirement 0:24 Welcome to the Podcast 0:57 Leg 1: Your FERS Pension 1:56 Leg 2: Social Security Timing 2:36 Leg 3: TSP — How It All Connects 3:34 What You Actually Get: Pension Deductions Walkthrough 6:14 TSP: How to Withdraw Without Mistakes 9:36 IRMAA: The Two-Year Lookback Trap 11:14 The Decisions You Can't Undo 12:00 Survivor Benefit: The 60–90 Day Window 12:52 FEGLI: Keep Basic, Do the 75% Reduction 15:34 FEHB: Suspend, Never Cancel 16:30 Taxes: Why You Can't Do This Alone 17:48 Watch Next: FERS Annuitant vs. Annuity CTA: Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Disclaimer: Advisory services are offered through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial, an Investment Advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC, an affiliated company. Educational only; not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Figures discussed are illustrative — verify with OPM. Support the show