AUTHOR ARCHIVES

Tammy Flanagan

Tammy Flanagan has spent 30 years helping federal employees take charge of their retirement by understanding their benefits. She runs her own consulting business at www.retirefederal.com and provides individual counseling as well as online training for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, Plan Your Federal Retirement and the Federal Long Term Care insurance Program. She also serves as the senior benefits director for the National Institute of Transition Planning Inc., which conducts federal retirement planning workshops and seminars.

For more retirement planning help, tune in to "For Your Benefit," presented by the National Institute of Transition Planning Inc. live on Federal News Radio on Mondays at 10 a.m. ET on WFED AM 1500 in the Washington-metro area. Archived shows are available on NITPInc.com.

Results 351-360 of 609

Best Dates to Retire 2012

May 13, 2011 How long will the pay freeze last? Will your retirement be computed on your highest three years of salary, or five? Will we see a cost-of-living adjustment for retirees in the near future? Will the formula change for computing the government's contribution to the Federal Employees Health Benefits program? So...

Retirement Checkup

April 29, 2011 This week, I took my car in for its 35,000 mile checkup, which included an oil change, tire rotation and safety check. While waiting for the service to be completed, I realized that taking care of my vehicle so it will last for many years is a lot like preparing...

Fast Facts on Long Term Care

April 15, 2011 You might not have noticed the beginning of the second-ever Federal Long-Term Care Insurance Program open season due to all the shutdown and furlough hype last week. But the open season did begin on April 4, and will run through June 24. This is an opportunity for current employees, along...

Pocket Change

April 8, 2011 Usually by this time of the year, I've written about the effects of annual changes in interest rates, Social Security figures and Thrift Savings Plan limits. For 2011, not much has changed, so I've been a little lazy about putting out the new numbers. Still, it's worth taking a look...

Cutting Benefits: Readers Bite Back

April 1, 2011 Last week, I wrote that I'd never seen so many proposals floating around that would affect the retirement security of employees in the 30 years I've been in the federal benefits world. Not surprisingly, readers had their opinions on plans to cut back benefits, and those views were not positive....

Are Cuts Coming?

March 25, 2011 Lately, it seems everybody has an idea for cutting federal retirement benefits in the name of balancing the budget. The Congressional Budget Office has weighed in following an earlier set of proposals from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Last week, a group of Republican senators got in...

For Richer or Poorer: Final Words

March 18, 2011 Evaluations and critiques are very useful tools to those of us who present information. I always appreciate constructive comments so I know where I've hit the mark and where I've fallen short in my presentation. (In that spirit, thanks for the math error correction last week!) For the past two...

For Richer or Poorer, Part Two

March 11, 2011 Last week, we looked at spousal survivor annuity options for those under the Civil Service Retirement System. This week, let's look at the situation for those more recently hired, who are covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System. The big difference for those under FERS is that they need to...

For Richer, For Poorer

March 4, 2011 I recently received an e-mail from a reader named Melanie. She and her husband are both federal employees, and they're planning to retire later this year. They want to know if it makes sense to provide each other with spousal survivor annuities, or if it would be better for each...

Redeposits for the Rehired

February 25, 2011 During the past two weeks, we've been looking at service credit issues, starting with military service credit and moving on to civilian nondeduction service. This week, in the final installment, let's look at redeposits, which come into play when you've had a break in federal service and you withdrew your...