For federal employees
Your federal benefits are worth more than you think. Many people leave some of it behind.
FERS, TSP, survivor election, FEHB, the special retirement supplement. The rules interact, and the interactions are where the money is. Our founder has worked with federal employees for nearly twenty years.
Your agency explains the rules. Nobody explains the decision.
Federal benefits are unusually generous and unusually complicated. HR can tell you what the survivor election is. HR cannot tell you which one is right for your household, or what it costs you over thirty years, or how it interacts with the life insurance you already have.
- Nobody at the agency can tell you which survivor election is right for your household.
- Your TSP is in the funds you picked when you were hired, and you haven't looked since.
- You've heard you should do Roth conversions but not when, or how much.
- The retirement date you pick changes your annuity, and you don't know by how much.
None of these are hard once someone sits down and models them. They are only hard because nobody has.
Where you are
What matters now depends on how much runway you have.
An employee fifteen years out and an employee eight months out have almost nothing in common. Pick the one that fits and we'll show you what we'd actually work on.
Getting the contribution rate, the fund selection, and the Roth-versus-traditional decision right while time is still your biggest asset.
What we'd work on
- Capture the full agency match, then decide where the next dollar goes
- Choose between the Roth TSP and traditional TSP deliberately, not by default
- Set an allocation you won't have to think about every quarter
- Understand what FERS actually promises you, and what it doesn't
Where to start
A full day of retirement-benefit training is more than you need right now. Thirty minutes gets you a contribution and allocation plan you can set and revisit in a few years.
Thirty minutes with one of our federal benefits specialists, who works with federal employees full time. No cost, and no obligation.
The work
What a federal planning engagement covers.
FERS annuity modeling
Your annuity changes with your retirement date, your high-3, and your years of creditable service. We model several dates side by side so the choice is arithmetic instead of instinct.
Survivor benefit analysis
The election is generally permanent and it controls whether your spouse keeps FEHB. We run it against your household's actual income needs and existing coverage.
TSP allocation and rollover analysis
What to hold inside the TSP while you're working, and whether to keep it, roll it, or split it once you separate. The TSP has real advantages; leaving is not automatic.
The special retirement supplement
If you're eligible, the supplement bridges you to Social Security, and the earnings test can claw it back. We plan the gap years around it.
Roth conversion windows
The years between retirement and required distributions are often the lowest-tax years you will ever have. We model how much to convert, and when.
FEHB, FEGLI, and the deadlines
Continuation rules have eligibility windows that close. We confirm yours before they do, and compare FEGLI against alternatives where it makes sense.
Why us for this
This is a specialty, not a service line.
Christian D’Urso, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, has worked with federal employees in the Portland area for close to twenty years. We keep current on the rules because they change, and so you don’t have to.
The quarterly workshop
A full session on federal retirement benefits.
We run these in Portland every quarter. It is training, not a sales presentation: the annuity, the TSP, survivor elections, insurance continuation, and how the pieces fit together. There is no cost.
Seats are limited and sessions fill ahead of time, so we confirm every registration. If you are within a few months of retirement, book a consult instead. You likely need decisions faster than the next session.
Federal questions
Answers before you commit to anything.
TradeWinds is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by any federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management, or the Thrift Savings Plan.
No. The workshops are one way in, not the only way. If you're within a few years of retirement, already know your benefits well, or simply want a specific question answered, book the 30-minute benefits review instead. Workshop seats are limited, so we point people toward whichever makes more sense for their timeline.
It covers whatever is most pressing for your stage: contribution and allocation decisions early in a career, retirement-date and annuity modeling in the middle, and survivor election, FEHB continuation, and TSP income decisions as you approach eligibility. It is a working session, not a sales presentation.
We can advise on TSP allocation while you are still in federal service, and we manage assets held in the TSP for clients through a third-party connection that lets us implement an allocation inside the plan without you moving the account. Once you separate, a rollover becomes one of several options we would model with you rather than assume.
It depends on whether your tax rate in retirement will be higher or lower than it is today, which depends on your FERS annuity, Social Security timing, and what other income you expect. Federal employees with a pension frequently retire into a higher bracket than they expect, which argues for Roth contributions earlier in a career. This is a modeling question, not a rule of thumb.
At retirement you elect a survivor annuity for your spouse, which reduces your own annuity in exchange for continuing payments after your death. The election is generally irrevocable, and it also determines whether your spouse keeps FEHB health coverage. Because it is permanent and it is tied to health insurance, it deserves an analysis against your household's actual needs rather than a default choice.
The readiness assessment · free · 3 minutes
Nine questions before you book anything.
This is the same calibration we walk through with prospective clients. Nine questions, one to ten, across every part of a retirement plan. Nobody scores green on all nine — the useful part is finding out which of the reds you did not know about.
- 01
Your score, free
All 9 accelerators scored and color-coded the moment you finish. No email needed to see it.
- 02
The written breakdown
What each score actually implies and the order to work through them, in exchange for a name and an email.
- 03
Then a conversation, if you want one
Bring the scorecard. An advisor will have seen it before you sit down.
Bring one question. We'll answer it properly.
Thirty minutes, no cost, no presentation. If a workshop makes more sense for where you are, we will tell you that and get you a seat.