"We're all here to talk about what we did this weekend right?" joked Kimberly Bottema, a financial counselor at Army Community Service, as she opened the class. "No, were here to talk about our TSP plans."
Fort Jackson's ACS hosted a Thrift Savings Plan class for Soldiers and civilians Jan. 27 to help attendees understand TSP accounts and help build a more robust retirement account.
The short one-hour class covered TSP basic, Lifecycle Funds and the differences between a tradition TSP account and Roth IRA.
Bottema has helped hundreds of Fort Jackson personnel understand their retirement accounts and how to grow retirement wealth by teaching account holders how to choose fund accounts. With more than 18 years of financial counseling experience under her belt and her own TSP account, she is able to give sage advice.
She started the class with the basics, understanding where retirement funds come from. Showing a triangle graphic, pension was listed at the bottom followed by social security and TSP located at the top. While many of the class attendees scoffed at the mention of social security, a comment was raised as to whether the benefit would be available in the future. Bottema quelled the fear and stated each person should prepare as early as possible for retirement and possible shortfalls in the economy.
"We are going to get it (social security)," she said. "We just don't know what we are going to get."
She explained to the class how to better prepare a retirement portfolio to better weather an economic storm through diversifying funds between high and low-risk products. By creating several revenue streams, should one stream be less than the others, the portfolio will likely remain stable and continue to grow in the future.
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