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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HB who wrote (33252)	10/2/1998 5:16:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 132070

HB - thanks for the thoughtful response. It looks like you have a lot more flexibility in your 401K than my husband has in his retirement plan (FERS). He is a GS14, and he puts in the max every bi-week. I am looking at his most recent pay statement, and he contributes $139 every bi-week to his FERS tax-deferred plan (- - that is in addition to the 80% retirement of $22.31 and Social Security of $470.87, in case you were wondering.) I think Uncle Sam matches 50% of the FERS. I tried to talk him into putting all of the FERS into the C fund, which is basically, as I understand it, an S&P 500 fund, because he is just 40 years old and can't retire until he is 65, but, he wouldn't. He does put 70% into C, 10% into G (money market) and 20% into F (bonds). Every time the stock market goes down I get glared at, particularly since I cashed out my stocks, and put my cash into a money market that pays a little better than 5%. But, FERS only has open season twice a year, so he can only reallocate his assets then. Even if the stock market tanked in October, he couldn't get out of it, and if he got out of it in November, and it rallied in January, he couldn't get into. So, we have to make our decisions based on history, and live with them.