Federal Employees Retirement & Benefits Podcast by CD Financial

Hosted by Charles Dzama

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294

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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August 13, 2026Episode 11514 min

Age 60, $850K in TSP, a FERS Pension: Retire Now or Wait

Can a federal employee retire at 60 with $850,000 in TSP and a FERS pension? In this episode, Charles and Marcus walk through a real federal retirement case study — the FERS pension formula, Social Security timing, and a safe TSP withdrawal rate — to answer the question everyone in this position is asking: retire now, or wait?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- The FERS pension formula — and the 10% bonus you get by waiting to age 62 with 20+ years of service- Why Social Security timing can grow your check by 8% a year after age 67- The 4% TSP withdrawal rule — and why it's a fuel gauge, not a hard limit- How to build a 3-pillar income floor: FERS pension + Social Security + TSPAre you within a few years of retiring at 60? Drop your target retirement age below, and I'll tell you the first thing I'd check for your situation. 👇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━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/newsletterWant your own version of this math, in writing? Guidebook link above.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 The $850K Retirement Question0:28 Welcome to the Podcast1:40 Setting the Scenario: Age 60, $850K TSP, FERS Pension3:01 Pillar 1: Your FERS Pension5:00 Pillar 2: Social Security Timing & Taxes7:30 Pillar 3: TSP & the 4% Withdrawal Rule11:08 The Verdict: Retire Now or Wait?13:22 Recap: The 3-Pillar Checklist14:12 Subscribe to Watch Next: Your FERS Pension Isn't What You Think━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━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 $850,000 TSP balance and all figures in this episode are illustrative — your FERS pension, Social Security timing, and safe withdrawal rate depend on your situation. Verify with OPM and SSA.#FERS #FederalRetirement #TSP #SocialSecurity #RetirementPlanning #CDFinancialSupport the show

August 11, 2026Episode 275 min

4 federal retirement mistakes you can't undo

Four federal retirement mistakes to avoid. These decisions have a short window to get right — survivor benefit, FEHB, FEGLI, and TSP withdrawals — and for most of them, there's no fixing it later. In this video, Charles walks through exactly what to do with each one, and why the "obvious" move (cancel, take the lump sum) is usually the expensive one.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Survivor benefit: the short window to change it — and why you can't count on a fix later- FEHB: why you should SUSPEND, never cancel, your federal health insurance- FEGLI: how a 75% reduction on Basic can cost $0 at 65 — don't just cancel it- TSP withdrawals: why pulling a large lump sum is a one-way doorWhich of the 4 scares you most? Drop a 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/newsletterWant a plan so these are decided on purpose, not by accident? Guidebook link above.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 FERS Decisions With No Do-Overs0:42 #1 Survivor Benefit (the 30-Day Window)1:55 #2 FEHB: Suspend, Never Cancel3:09 #3 FEGLI: Do the 75% Reduction, Don't Cancel4:17 #4 TSP Withdrawals: A One-Way Door5:22 Watch Next: TSP Withdrawals With No Regrets━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHO WE ARE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, FEHB, FEGLI, and survivor benefits — 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. Election windows, FEHB/FEGLI rules, and TSP options depend on your situation and current OPM rules — verify with OPM before making elections.#FERS #FederalRetirement #FEHB #FEGLI #SurvivorBenefit #CDFinancialSupport the show

August 7, 2026Episode 11416 min

Federal Employees Are Withdrawing TSP in the Wrong Order—Here's the Cost

Have a Financial Advisor for Federal Employees respond to your questions. Apply for a Retirement Consultation:https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/Two federal employees retire the same year with the same TSP balance. Five years later, one has paid tens of thousands more in taxes. The difference wasn't the market — it was the withdrawal decisions. In this episode, Charles and Marcus walk through the five TSP withdrawal mistakes behind that gap, and how to avoid each one.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━IN THIS EPISODE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Mistake 1: the big lump sum — why cutting into the "wheel of cheese" too fast can't be undone- Mistake 2: why the tax withheld is NOT the tax you owe (and the filing-season surprise)- Mistake 3: withdrawal order — how pulling from the wrong bucket can cost more than a bad market year- Mistake 4: timing that trips IRMAA and bracket creep — including the 2-year lookback- Mistake 5: the fix — a written withdrawal sequence before you separate- Why the goal isn't the lowest tax THIS year, it's the lowest tax over 20–30 years━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Same Balance, Tens of Thousands Apart0:31 Welcome — CD Financial Podcast2:13 Mistake 1: The Big Lump Sum (The Wheel of Cheese)3:42 Mistake 2: Withholding Isn't Your Real Tax Bill6:24 Mistake 3: Withdrawal Order — Traditional vs. Roth7:48 Sailing the Tides: Adjusting Year to Year9:30 Lower Brackets Now = Smaller RMDs Later11:55 Mistake 4: IRMAA & Bracket Creep (2-Year Lookback)14:52 Mistake 5: The Written Withdrawal Sequence16:10 Watch Next: FERS Retirement Explained━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHO WE ARE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, taxes, Medicare, 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. Tax brackets, IRMAA thresholds, Social Security taxation, and RMD rules depend on your individual situation and change yearly — verify with the IRS, SSA, and a qualified tax professional before acting. Client examples are anonymized and illustrative.#TSP #TSPWithdrawals #FederalRetirement #IRMAA #TaxPlanning #CDFinancialSupport the show

August 5, 2026Episode 264 min

If You're Retiring Now, Watch This Before You Claim FERS

- Gross vs. net on a FERS pension — and why the difference matters- How the survivor benefit election takes ~10% off the top- Why FEHB (health insurance) is often the single biggest deduction- What federal and state taxes do to what's left- The number that actually reaches your bank account — your "port of entry"Your FERS pension has a number that looks great on paper (gross) and a number that actually lands in your bank account (net) — and the gap is bigger than most federal employees expect. In this short video, Charles walks a $3,000 monthly pension through every deduction, dock by dock, until you see what really comes home.Do you know your FERS NET number? Not just the gross.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━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 Gross vs. Net — Why It Matters0:25 The $3,000 Pension Sets Sail0:30 Deduction 1: Survivor Benefit (–10%)1:00 Deduction 2: FEHB (Your Health Insurance)2:01 Deduction 3: Federal Taxes3:03 Deduction 4: State Taxes3:26 What Actually Reaches Your Bank Account3:46 Watch Next: The FERS Choices You Can't Undo━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━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 $3,000 example and all deduction figures are illustrative — your survivor election, FEHB premium, and tax bracket depend on your situation. Verify with OPM and your agency.#FERS #FERSPension #FederalRetirement #RetirementIncome #CDFinancialSupport the show

July 30, 2026Episode 11317 min

The Roth Conversion Mistake That Costs Federal Employees a 10% Penalty

Roth conversions can be powerful — but do one before 59½, or inside your TSP, without a plan, and it can sting. Charles and Marcus explain why these two are mentioned in the same breath: the 10% early-withdrawal penalty when you withhold tax under 59½, why an in-plan TSP conversion avoids the penalty but won't withhold your taxes, and why you need cash outside the account to pay the bill. Walked through with two real stories — "Jack" and "Jill" — plus the measured-step approach and the Roth 5-year clock. Chapters: 0:00 Before 59½ or Inside the TSP 1:30 The 10% Penalty 2:20 Inside the TSP: No Withholding 3:47 Why a "Distribution" 5:46 Jack's Story 8:35 Jill's Story 13:30 Start Small 14:56 Ask About the 5-Year Clock Watch Roth Conversion Timing Mistakes Some Federal Employees Make with Tax Brackets: https://youtu.be/Ql-ZHqbEtm0CTA: Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://apply.cdfinancial.org/6a694299bad1c9a176cdc79f/ Disclaimer: Educational only; not tax advice. Consult a qualified tax professional before a Roth conversion. Advisory services through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial (CA); insurance through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC. Support the show

July 28, 2026Episode 253 min

The Stock Risk That Quietly Wrecks Retirement Portfolios

In this short video, Charles explains single stock risk, why "they're in different sectors" isn't the protection people think it is, and the concentration approach he prefers instead. If your portfolio holds just three, four, or five individual stocks, you may be carrying more risk than you realize. Four can perform beautifully — and one bad position can pull your whole year down. How many individual stocks are in your portfolio right now? Drop the number below 👇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━START HERE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Apply for a Retirement Consultation:https://perspectivefunnel.co/682642d22275ec003bfa6626/691df07396253e003c42b434/?ps_hello=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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- What single stock risk actually means for a retirement portfolio- How one position down 35–40% can erase four winners- Why spreading across sectors with only five stocks may not be enough- Heavy concentration: when there aren't enough positions to lift the losers- Why index funds like the TSP's C Fund appeal to so many federal employees- The middle ground Charles prefers — concentrated, but not too concentrated━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 What Single Stock Risk Really Is0:30 When One Stock Drags Everything Down0:46 Why "Different Sectors" Isn't Enough1:29 The Concentrated-But-Not-Too-Concentrated Alternative2:13 Heavy Concentration, Explained2:30 Index Funds & the TSP C Fund3:10 Watch Next: Market Corrections Reveal Who Has a Real Plan━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHO WE ARE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, investments, 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 or sell any security, fund, or strategy. Views expressed are the opinion of the speaker. Diversification and asset allocation do not guarantee a profit or protect against loss. All investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results.#Investing #TSP #FederalRetirement #Diversification #RetirementPlanning #CDFinancialSupport the show

July 22, 202615 min

FERS Annuitant vs. Annuity: The Difference Federal Employees Get Wrong

"I already have an annuity" — Charles hears it weekly, and it's often a misconception. Being a FERS annuitant (a pension you earned) and owning an annuity (a financial tool you choose) sound identical and mean completely different things. Charles and Marcus clear it up — including why a survivor benefit lowers your pension, how a fixed indexed annuity works, and why it isn't right for every dollar. Chapters: 0:00 Annuity vs. Annuitant — Not the Same 1:50 What a FERS Annuitant Is 3:00 Why a Survivor Benefit Lowers Your Payment 5:36 What an Annuity Actually Is 6:23 The Foundation Analogy 8:02 Why People Compare It to the G Fund 10:52 How a Fixed Index Annuity Works 12:53 Should Everyone Own One? 14:00 Earned vs. Chosen 15:00 Watch Next CTA: Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://perspectivefunnel.co/682642d22275ec003bfa6626/691df07396253e003c42b434/?ps_hello= Disclaimer: Educational only; not advice and not a recommendation to buy any annuity. Features/fees/surrender vary; guarantees rest on the issuer's claims-paying ability. Advisory services through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial (CA); insurance through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC. Support the show

July 21, 2026Episode 245 min

The TSP Roth Conversion Catch Nobody Warns You About

Roth conversions before 59½ and Roth conversions inside your TSP get mentioned in the same breath for one reason: they share the same drawback. Withhold taxes on a conversion before 59½, and the government treats it as an early withdrawal — adding a 10% penalty on top. Inside the TSP, they won't let you withhold at all. Either way, you need a plan for the tax money.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━START HERE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Apply for a Retirement Consultation:https://perspectivefunnel.co/682642d22275ec003bfa6626/691df07396253e003c42b434/?ps_hello=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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- Why withholding taxes on a Roth conversion before 59½ triggers a 10% early-withdrawal penalty- How a 31% tax cost can quietly become 41%- Why the TSP won't let you withhold taxes on an in-plan conversion- Why you need cash OUTSIDE the account to pay the April tax bill- Smart places that tax money can come from — and the capital-gains trap to check first━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━TIMESTAMPS (after the intro is trimmed — confirm on final cut)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 Roth Conversions Before 59½ or Inside the TSP0:05 The $50K Example (and the Tax Bill)1:05 The 10% Early-Withdrawal Penalty1:57 How 31% Becomes 41%2:25 Inside the TSP: They Won't Withhold at All2:45 The April Tax Bill You Must Plan For3:55 Where the Tax Money Comes From4:50 Check for Capital Gains First5:05 Watch Next: Roth Conversions & Tax BracketsNeed help? Text 949-359-5100 with your first and last name and your email.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHO WE ARE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, taxes, Roth, 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. Tax rates and penalty rules depend on your individual situation; the percentages used are illustrative examples. Always consult a qualified tax professional before doing a Roth conversion.#RothConversion #TSP #FederalRetirement #TaxPlanning #FERS #CDFinancialSupport the show

July 16, 2026Episode 11129 min

Federal Retirement Acronyms Explained: FERS, CSRS, TSP, FEHB, SRS & More

Spend enough time around federal retirement and the acronyms start flying — and it starts to feel too late to ask what they mean. Charles and Marcus decode the alphabet soup in plain English: FERS (and RAE/FRAE), CSRS and CSRS Offset, TSP, FEHB, FSA, FEGLI, MRA, VSIP/VERA/DRP, SRS, SCD, OPM, ORA, AUO/LEAP, the SF forms, and CSA. Grab the free Acronyms Cheat Sheet in the description.Fill out the form and download the cheat sheet here: https://perspectivefunnel.co/682642d22275ec003bfa6626/6a445b182446fd510fd3af9b/Chapters:0:00 The Acronyms You're Afraid to Ask About2:03 FERS (RAE / FRAE)4:24 CSRS & CSRS Offset5:37 TSP6:23 FEHB & Open Season8:53 FSA10:04 FEGLI11:25 MRA12:44 VSIP, VERA & DRP14:24 SRS18:00 SCD, OPM & ORA23:06 AUO & LEAP25:00 SF Forms27:30 CSA + Free Cheat SheetCTA: Apply for a Retirement Consultation: https://perspectivefunnel.co/682642d22275ec003bfa6626/691df07396253e003c42b434/?ps_hello=Disclaimer: Educational only; not advice. Verify with OPM/TSP.gov. Advisory services through CD Financial LLC dba CD Financial (CA); insurance through CD Financial & Insurance Services LLC.Support the show

July 15, 2026Episode 233 min

FERS Annuitant vs. Annuity: Federal Employees Get These Two Confused

"I've got an annuity… or do I have an annuity? Wait, I'm a federal annuitant — what does that even mean?" Did you think being a FERS annuitant and having an annuity were the same thing? Drop a Y or N below 👇START HERE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Apply for a Retirement Consultation:https://perspectivefunnel.co/682642d22275ec003bfa6626/691df07396253e003c42b434/?ps_hello=Get the Digital Federal Retirement Guidebook:https://cdfinancial.org/being-a-federal-employee-book/Take the Checklist Challenge:https://cdfinancial.org/checklist-challenge/Subscribe for Weekly Federal Retirement Planning Content:https://cdfinancial.com/newsletterComment Below:Annuitant vs. Annuity — Two Completely Different Things━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━IN THIS VIDEO YOU CAN LEARN━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━- What it means to be a FERS "annuitant" — the lifetime pension you earned- Why a survivor benefit election lowers that lifetime payment- What an actual annuity is (a fixed indexed annuity) and how it differs- How index "floors" and annual lock-ins are designed to work- Why some retirees choose an annuity for part of their portfolio- Earned vs. chosen: the key difference in one sentence━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━FEDERAL RETIREMENT RESOURCES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━OPM — FERS Information: https://www.opm.gov/retirement-center/fers-information/Thrift Savings Plan (Official): https://www.tsp.gov/TIMESTAMPS0:00 FERS Annuitant vs. Annuity Explained0:32 What It Means to Be a Federal Annuitant0:54 How Survivor Benefits Affect Your FERS Annuity1:22 Years of Service, High-3 Salary, and Your Pension1:46 What Is a Fixed Indexed Annuity?2:11 Index Crediting, Withdrawals, and Surrender Periods2:41 Why Retirees Compare Annuities, Bonds, and the G Fund3:07 FERS Pension vs. Fixed Indexed Annuity3:31 Federal Retirement Planning Next Steps━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHO WE ARE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CD Financial helps federal employees and retirees make smarter retirement decisions around FERS, TSP, FEHB, Medicare, survivor benefits, and retirement income planning. Our mission: help federal employees retire with more clarity, confidence, and peace of mind — 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 video is for educational purposes only and is not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and is not a recommendation to buy any annuity or insurance product. Annuity features, floors, caps, withdrawal provisions, fees, and surrender periods vary by product and issuer; guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability of the issuer. Always review the contract and consult qualified professionals before acting.Opinions expressed are solely those of CD Financial. Information is derived from sources believed reliable but not guaranteed as to accuracy or completeness.#FederalRetirement #FERS #Annuity #FERSPension #RetirementPlanning #CDFinancialSupport the show