What does it really look like to work with a financial planning team that knows your federal benefits inside and out and shows up for you year after year?
In this episode, John and Tommy take you behind the scenes of Mason & Associates’ Strategic Planning Meeting Season (SPM), where they conduct over 400 client meetings in just six weeks. They share real conversations, real actions, and the process that makes it all work, from assisting clients with Social Security and Medicare applications to managing unexpected tax letters and backpay from government benefits.
You’ll hear how they personalize every meeting, balance technical expertise with true human connection, and why this season reminds them (and their clients) what great financial planning really feels like.
Listen to the full episode here:
What you will learn:
- What Strategic Planning Meeting Season looks like and how it came to be. (01:33)
- How the team handles 400+ meetings in six weeks. (05:52)
- Why every meeting includes real-time action steps and follow-up. (11:00)
- Examples of life events clients are experiencing (from Social Security filings to estate planning). (18:46)
- Why tax return reviews are a core part of planning. (33:33)
- What the team is seeing with proposed changes to federal benefits. (38:48)
- How Mason & Associates shows up for clients through life’s highs and lows. (47:39)
Ideas worth sharing:
- “At the end of the day, financial planning is about actions and distilling an hour meeting down into 5 to 10 bullet points.” – Mason & Associates
- “The agenda, the prep, the delivery, and then the recap—that collective process adds tremendous value.” – Mason & Associates
- “When you give yourself a certain amount of time, it is very true that you can get things done in that amount of time. It’ll take however long you give it.” – Mason & Associates
Resources from this episode:
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Read the Transcript Below:
Congratulations for taking ownership of your financial plan by tuning into the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast, hosted by Mason & Associates, financial advisors with over three decades of experience serving you.
John Mason: Welcome to the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast. I’m John Mason, certified financial planner. In this episode, Tommy and I are providing a behind the scenes look or an inside preview into what strategic planning meeting season actually looks like. The goal of this episode is to share with you the conversations that we’re having with real clients in 2025, and to help you understand what one should expect when meeting with a financial planning team.
Spoiler alert, the conversations do not revolve all around investment performance. We’ve discussed strategic planning meeting season in the past, but in this episode, we’re gonna share specific conversations from 2025 that we’re having with real clients today. We’ll briefly discuss the process around strategic planning meeting season because ultimately having a process is the first step in providing value to clients.
Unlike many content creators, we’re financial planners first, and we do this second, and each episode, we share real life experiences from decades of helping federal employees navigate the complexities of their benefits package and all areas of their financial plan. Tommy, welcome to the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast.
Tommy Blackburn: John, as always, it’s great to be here. We are about halfway, maybe a little bit more than halfway through our strategic planning meeting season. And it, yeah, it feels, it almost feels like it’s over, even though we still have a couple more weeks to go. It’s been a blast. Things are going well here.
Meeting with those clients is always just, is so fulfilling and gratifying and I think as we’ve all talked, the more we work with clients, as that relationship builds over time, it really becomes meeting with a friend. Still a lot of value, financial planning advice that’s happening in those meetings, but it’s just great to get to meet with friends and talk about their plan, what’s going on in their lives, just update for each other and feel the mutual care that I know we all feel from clients when we meet with them.
John Mason: It’s amazing how, I think even after week one I was like, whew, we’re almost through it. Like we’re almost done. And it’s a six week season for our audience, so we’ll do somewhere around 400 client meetings in six weeks. And I mean, it’s not for the faint of heart, right? Like it’s a pretty intense season and it’s after week one when you have those first 17 meetings, you’re like, okay, I can do this.
And then week two, then week three, I think we’re on week four now, five and six are a piece of cake. We’re tired. We haven’t worked out as much. We’re probably not eating as well as we did before this season kicked off, Tommy. But I know, I feel really good about the value we’re adding. I feel really good about the conversations we’re having with clients and just as a human, sometimes I forget how much I enjoy the financial planning relationship that we do have with clients because so much of what we do every day is running the business and then of course there’s the client meetings and that’s a whole separate kind of train of thought and line of thinking that we have to go down. And what’s clear to me is that you and I just really enjoy meeting with clients.
And although we have responsibilities that are outside of client specific tasks or duties, it’s very important that we still meet with clients too.
Tommy Blackburn: I completely agree. And yeah, strategic planning meeting season really drives that home, I think, as you get to make sure you have that minimum annual touch with clients.
And it’s just a, it’s fun and a lot of work goes into getting ready and executing this whole process. And it is certainly work, but it’s a lot of fun in the meeting. And I think part of it too is, you and I and all the advisors here have a decent bit of experience, credentials, knowledge. We work together as a team, so you kinda get to a point where you’ve got the technical stuff down and sometimes we do have to slow down and really think through maybe a complex issue that a client has, but a lot of times we can just give the advice. We’ve already done some prep, right, leading up to the meeting. And then, so we’re ready to give the advice and it’s what we also talk about the niche focus, where we get to be very present in the human relationship part of it because we know the benefits package.
We know what’s going on. We’ve already planned, the advice is ready to go, but let’s just focus on the human interaction here. So it’s just so much fun.
John Mason: It really is, and I think for our audience, if they haven’t listened, Tommy, to maybe some of the other episodes where we’ve talked about strategic planning meeting season or SPM season for short, it starts in January.
So I’ll just give a high-level overview of that process. Starts in January with a physical letter that we send out. We basically let all of our clients know this is when we’re doing the surge, this is when we’re doing the season, this is when we wanna meet with everybody, then in February we send out the communication and the info on how to schedule.
And most clients are really good about scheduling that appointment quickly. There’ll be about a third or 20% of clients that require a phone call to get on the books, and we’ll get those folks scheduled as well. And then after that happens is really when we transition into preparation. We start, we go through like a hundred point checklist.
We start populating agendas. Those agendas fire 14 days in advance of the meeting. So if somebody’s meeting with us on April 15th, on April 1st, an agenda is going out with additional document request, topics on our mind. We’re actually trying to get some information from clients too, Tommy. It’s like, what do you wanna talk about? What’s important to you? What’s changed in your life?
And some of the questions on the agenda are open-ended ’cause we just wanna see where they’re heading, where they are right now in 2025. And that agenda has been a really valuable addition that we did probably three or four years ago.
Tommy Blackburn: I agree. I love the agenda and one way to say it, the soliciting from them of what’s on your mind ahead of the meeting.
To me, it’s extremely valuable and I think it’s valuable for them too, for clients to see, here’s what we’re thinking about right now, what we think we’ll talk about. But 100% what’s on your mind is most important. And when we started meeting, I think all of us asked that question as well. It’s kind of, “Hey, we’ve got the agenda. We can begin working down it. You put a lot of great information on here for us to talk about before we go there, what else is hot on your mind today in case it’s not on this agenda?” And that’s what it’s all about. It just, we often, in these podcasts, John, say, your plan, your goals, it’s the same thing, right?
Your agenda, what’s on your mind. It’s all about what’s important to the client at this moment.
John Mason: It’s amazing how they can respond to something 14 days in advance and how what’s hot on their mind may not be what was hot on their mind 14 days ago. So I wrote that down, Tommy, as well as is anything hot on your mind that you want to talk about today?
And sometimes you just click the red X and close the agenda and you’re like, “Well, this is useless. Everything I prepared for,” not really everything, but all the notes, all the preparation, we’re just going to deviate because this appointment is all about what they want to accomplish. I think that’s very important.
Typically, hour-long meeting. 60 minute long meeting most of the time via Zoom. We do believe Zoom is a better educational experience. It’s not that we don’t like our clients and don’t like hugs and handshakes, but at the end of the day we do find tremendous value and one, the convenience of meeting virtually, but two, the sharing of the screen, the facilitating of sharing information, clients at their house with their passwords.
Tommy Blackburn: Actions. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
John Mason: Action meetings.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah. That’s really cool. Yeah, you’ve probably, I know you have, we probably all have, but some example of actions, and maybe we’re gonna get into this in the podcast later, but the other day I helped a client cash in their series of I bonds. We had time.
So it was, “Hey, let’s go to TreasuryDirect together. I’ll just walk you through it while we’re here and I can even document this. I’m saving, here’s the receipt of when we did it, which also shows the interest income, which now I’m updating your tax projection to reflect that interest income and see if anything needs to be adjusted from a tax planning perspective now that we did that.” And I know we’re helping clients either get into Social Security to pull a statement or get some information or file for social security or file for Medicare. So this doesn’t happen in every one of our strategic planning meetings, but as appropriate, depending on the client situation, that’s certainly a nice thing about these virtual meetings is being able to take a lot of actions, adjusting, withholding by going into services online or DFAS or wherever it may be.
And everybody walks away from those meetings, like, what a valuable meeting. I mean, we got things done in that meeting, so I think it’s fun for everybody.
John Mason: Rebalances of TSP or 401k, estimated tax payments are another, I’ve helped a couple clients submit the Medicare reimbursement for their $800 since they’re 65 and enrolled in FEHB and Medicare Part B and it’s, we’re not like, we’re pretty savvy, audience. Like we’re pretty good on a computer. Like I know Alt tab, right? And like some, it’s amazing how I sound old and how the younger generation doesn’t know how to use the computer as well as we do in some cases. But we know all the shortcuts and the ways to get through the different websites pretty quickly.
And clients, it’s almost like clients are just more happy sometimes watching us click through websites and our ability to just switch between screens so fast. They’re like, “That would’ve taken me hours.” And we were able to do it in 10 minutes. So there is a lot of value and just being able to be the easy button for clients.
How do we wrap up that meeting? We wrap it up typically within 24 to 48 hours. We will send a nice summary email that says something along these lines, “Thank you for a great meeting.” There’s always something fun to talk about. Like we have one client who’s gonna, hike a big mountain and it’s like, “I can’t wait to hear about the training and the actual trip when we get together next year.” Here’s the things that you need to do. Here’s the things that we need to do. Here’s the, maybe the things we agreed on if we’re making a material change. And then I know, I don’t think, Tommy, you do this, but I like a to-be-determined category as well, where it’s like, we’ve discussed social security, but we don’t really know what we’re gonna do yet.
So TBD, when we’re claiming social or TBD, maybe we’ll harvest gains or we’ll do a Roth conversion at the end of the year. So I like that because it’s like, we talked about it, but we’re gonna have a final kind of conclusion on this at some point. That’s not today.
Tommy Blackburn: I go, I don’t do that a lot. I certainly make in our notes everything that’s been talked about.
And we also have note takers in the meeting to fill in anything we’re missing there. But sometimes, John, I do occasionally use that, to-be-determined or what we agree to. But what I always like to do is just say, here’s what we certainly agree to any actions that need to be taken.
Regardless, I’ve notated everything. So we’ll come back to it if we say we need it to be determined.
John Mason: Ultimately, one of the most valuable parts of a strategic planning meeting is not demonstrating that we’re intelligent, right? Like it’s nice for our clients to know that we’re intelligent people and we can provide good advice, but that summary email, in my opinion, is such a big part of the meeting. Obviously, you need the warm fuzzies, you need the confidence, and we’ll talk a little bit more about that, that the interaction provides. But at the end of the day, financial planning is about actions and distilling an hour meeting down into five to 10 bullet points is very powerful, and I think one of the most valuable things that we do.
And we didn’t do that before, that was not something that maybe you did at your prior firm, but when we really started doing our strategic planning meeting season, incorporating those summary emails, I think was, all of that, the agenda, the prep, the delivery, and then the recap, that collective process adds tremendous value.
Tommy Blackburn: There’s quite a sprint. After a meeting closes, and at least for me, and how I usually do this, I think probably we all try to do this because we have many of these meetings in a day, you know, five. And so you’re quickly trying to get ready, make sure that you’re into the next meeting. So you have a small window between meetings and it’s actually amazing how efficient we can be when we want to.
When you give yourself a certain amount of time, it is very true that you can get things done in that amount of time. It’ll take however long you give it. So typically, we’re done with the meeting. Had a great time. Quickly, we’ve distilled down here, here are the takeaways. Get that out to the client.
And then we’re generating tasks inside our system. So we’re notating everything and going through like, “Hey, we need to get this required distribution out.” We’re doing a qualified charitable distribution or Roth conversion. So we start putting things inside of our,what’s called a client relationship management system.
So tasks, we start putting ’em out there. So a lot of work all of a sudden starts getting kicked off. A lot of it doesn’t have to be done immediately, but it’s all getting put in there with the date that we need to readdress this, which could honestly be months away. It could be in the fall that we’re coming back to something, but those tasks get generated, email goes out, and then we circle up to the next meeting.
So it’s a fun, efficient, and we like to usually get those things done to right after a meeting if we can, just because when thing, when something’s fresh on your mind, I mean, you can move quickly and make sure you capture it all versus coming back a day later and trying to remember like, here’s what my notes said and I think […] I these things.
But, it just, it takes you longer when you’ve let time elapse. So we’re very quickly capturing everything in there and it’s impress–it’s cool. It’s honestly cool sometimes to just step back and reflect of everything that can get done very efficiently and all the value in those tasks that come out of it.
John Mason: Well, thank goodness for note takers. Not necessarily human note takers, although I take, audiences’ probably seen, I write down on my notepad a lot. That’s kind of how I remember things. But physical notes that we take by hand, then those are later transcribed into the database as well as the summary email.
But there’s such a sense of freedom, Tommy, now that we have some note takers that come in and we get a transcription or can rewatch the meeting too. I know when we were able to implement that, the mad dash or the rush or like, I’m gonna forget something. Like have I ever had to rewatch a meeting before a summary email?
Absolutely. Like I’m human, right? and it’s nice to be able to watch it at one and a half times speed and just like jog your memory really fast on all the things you’ve talked about. So we love having that and I think it’s added a lot of value. What’s your, we didn’t prep this, audience. So today is May 8th, 2025.
We’re gluttons for punishment ’cause we’re in week four of strategic planning meeting season. And in between meetings we’re recording a podcast for you. So we hope you appreciate it. Tommy, what’s your least favorite part about strategic planning meeting season?
Tommy Blackburn: My least favorite part of it. So you’ve hit on we really enjoy the meeting with clients and conducting the meeting, adding the advice in the meeting.
It’s probably, hopefully, I’m not gonna get in trouble for this. I think it’s the work outside of the meetings that goes on. So there’s, as we said, this process, there’s a bit of lead up work to it. I don’t necessarily, you know, it’s necessary, but I don’t necessarily love that part of it, of having to go through some of the prep to get ready, as well as even, yeah, some of that work that comes out of it where it’s like, it would be nice if I could, if we could just go to the next meeting, not have to do anything afterwards, but that’s not realistic. So some of the work that happens outside of the meeting, I guess, it would generally be my least favorite part of it, but it’s all necessary and how you get to that value and evolving with time. Technology is becoming better, as we just mentioned, with note takers and different systems we have in place to make it easier.
And hopefully, as the firm continues to grow, like we think it will grow, that will hopefully continue to take away some of those things we maybe don’t enjoy doing in preparation as much.
John Mason: Well, I echo my favorite part is the actual meeting. And I vacillate in my head between do I like the pre-meeting the least or the post-meeting the least.
And sometimes the pre-meetings’ nice because you just put some headphones in and you just like grind out seven, 10 preparations in a day and you get really fast at it and you just know what you’re looking for and then there’s the post meeting, which is like, “Man, our note taker already took the notes, do I really need to make those notes.”
Or like, “Do I really need to go in there and kick off that task?” So I think I actually struggle the most with the post meeting. But if I had to weigh like what was more important, the pre or the post, the post, I think, is more important in some ways because that’s where the client leaves with the value.
But then again, if you don’t do a good job on the pre-meeting the client like, and you’ve got egg on your face and you walk up and you’re not prepared and the client’s like, “We pay you a lot of money and you showed up unprepared for this meeting, that’s not exactly professional.” So, I guess my takeaway is. We’re not allowed to have a least favorite part, even though we do, because all three parts are very integral. The beginning, the middle, and the end are all necessary to achieve greatness. Naturally, as humans, we’re gonna struggle with some part of that process, and so it was just kind of fun to think about.
And Tommy, I want to call out our operations team. We’ve got Bobby Mason, AC, Kelsey, your executive assistant, Ms. Jordan, who has done a wonderful job. When we surge, they surge, and they’re fielding clients. They’re make–or fielding calls. They’re making sure clients are taken care of.
They’re facilitating all of the wonderful ideas that we came up with. Open a new account, do this transfer. We couldn’t do it without them. So ultimately, we provide the advice, but our team helps us execute and like we said earlier, the execution is so important. So long intro, but I think that was fun.
Hopefully, the audience liked it. Let’s just talk quickly about, you mentioned closing I Bonds. That’s a conversation that we’ve had in 25. Can you elaborate? Why are we doing that this year? What’s the conversation you’ve been having with folks?
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah, so I bonds are, have two components to it. One is a fixed rate that’s for the life of the bond that you hold it.
And then there’s the variable rate that’s tied to inflation. When we originally got excited about I bonds, I think it was probably back in like the end of 21 and into 22 when inflation was really kicking off and consequently I bonds were earning 7%, then 9%, and then they kind of came back down to seven and they, so they were at attractive rates for a while.
However, when those ones that were issued at that time, they had a fixed rate of zero. So all you were getting was that variable rate. Well, what’s happened is inflation, while still, I think still elevated, it’s not accelerating at the pace that it was when those were first issued. So the variable rate is down to like maybe 2%, give or take, fluctuating around there and there’s a fixed rate now that seems to be at one, a little over one. So if you go to Treasury Direct, you’ll see like, “Oh, they’re paying like three and a half, 4%. That seems pretty good.”
It’s like, well that’s new I bonds. If you go look at your I bonds that were issued in the past, it’s 1% less, or a little bit more than 1%.
And then we think about, well, hey, we’ve got CDs, money markets, bank, other cash vehicles out there are doing better than those I bonds are at this point. And so it’s just a conversation of, “Hey, this was great,” when it happened and when we did it, it’s kind of began to outlive its usefulness. We can continue.
I don’t usually feel passionate like, “Hey client, you’ve got to get outta these now.” But it’s just, “Hey, I’m not as excited about these as I used to be. I think you can do better in a bank account, if you like.” And most clients usually agree or there’s some goal in life that’s come up where instead of taking a distribution now the I Bonds, can come out and help fulfill that goal. So that’s, I think, the kind of the premise of that conversation,
John Mason: Agreed. Conversations I’ve had around it have been similar. You’re replacing a bathroom, you’re going on vacation. That’s a good use of the I bonds right now to do that. Secondly was the interest rate is not that competitive. Third, I don’t care how high the interest rate was on I bonds, it maybe was like one of the coolest things that we help clients do for a little bit of money.
That created angst actually because the Treasury Direct website’s not great. And then learning how to navigate it isn’t a wonderful experience. And then if you don’t navigate far enough into the system, it just shows that you bought a $10,000 bond and it doesn’t show any growth. You’ve gotta click like seven times to find out that you actually made money. So clients are like, “Why did I even do this? This website stinks.” Most people are very appreciative. I’m just saying that they certainly have outlived their usefulness at this point. And then the other negatives of, it’s another account, it doesn’t feed into our software.
It’s not easy to access. All of those reasons, I feel like Shark Tank, and for all of those reasons I’m out. We’re not doing it anymore. Audience, if you’ve closed an I bond in 2025 or 2024, the US Treasury stopped sending out 1099s and that, I think that was pre-Doge, where they just decided they weren’t going to send out paper 1099.
So if you did close at 1099, you have to physically, right, Tommy, login to treasurydirect.gov and download those. So if you did it, schedule a reminder, make sure you download those next year.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah. Which is why clients that we’re helping with, at least if I’m doing it in the meeting, PDFing, here’s, ’cause it tells you when you cash ’em in, here’s the interest amount.
And then clients that are doing it on their own, which many are. Just say, “Hey, if you can either send me that PDF so I can track it or just tell me what you got because I know what you put in. So the difference is our interest income piece. We definitely want to capture that in your tax projection as well as make sure we capture it when we report,” which have caught that on some clients’ tax returns as I think you have, John, as well.
So some who started cashing ’em in last year looking for it on this year’s tax return and going like, “Hey, didn’t you say you did this? ‘Cause I don’t see the interest being reported.” And they’re like, “Oh shoot, I forgot.” And it’s because they didn’t get that mail, 1099. Like you said, I love too, the simplify life.
That’s certainly part of that conversation too. It’s like these, it made sense when they were earning a better interest rate. It’s just another thing to keep up with right now. And honestly, John, I don’t know about you, but some clients they’re like, “I forgot I even had it. Like I don’t know how you remember that I have it.” And it’s like, “Well, we track a balance sheet for you as part of what we do and why we do it.” So I keep looking at it like, “Do you still have these? ‘Cause if not…” So just funny, and further solidify your point of simplification. Just make everything easier to keep up with.
John Mason: One other question that we tend to ask the audience, Tommy or, not the audience, our clients when we’re meeting with them is, what’s hot on your mind? Step one. Number two is how are you doing? How are your parents doing? How are your kids doing? And it’s amazing how often those conversations could take up 15 to 20 minutes of a financial plan, whether it’s a parent or a sibling who’s going through a long-term care event. And we’re discussing, I mean, we’re not insensitive, but we’re like, “Okay, that’s a big medical deduction. “Have we thought about Roth conversions or something?” We’re always trying to help, we’re always trying to provide guidance. Have we thought about elevating you to co-trustee or power of attorney, or whatever the conversation is.
And then I’ve had a couple conversations this year with clients whose children are entering a phase of life where they wanna buy a house, but they’re entering a time in life where real estate is historically expensive and interest rates are historically normal and that combination provides a pretty expensive house payment. So we’re walking through like websites, like CapCenter and interest rates and conversations like even if they can afford the house, can they afford two or 3% of that house’s value every year in maintenance cost? Because on a $500,000 house, you’re going to spend 10 grand a year in maintenance.
Maybe not every year, but if you look at the average, it’s gonna cost you at least 10 grand a year on average to maintain that house. So it’s just, it’s amazing how our clients are financially good. They’re successful, they’re ready to retire. It doesn’t mean they don’t have concerns, but it’s also very rewarding and assuring for them, Tommy, when we can help them help their children or help them help their parents,
Tommy Blackburn: All of those are great. And you’re right, we try to be tactful and light about it. We all are always trying to help and some of its experience, you mentioned helping your parents. I know sometimes now I’m having conversations with folks who are like, “Hey, yeah, we had documents done from mom and dad, only mom has left.”
Or something along those lines. And it’s like, “Well you might wanna brush them off and I’m happy to take a look while I’m not an attorney, just so that we can make sure that this is gonna go how you think it will go.” Because unfortunately, we’ve also seen the cases where you thought it was gonna go a certain way and it was a lot more complicated than it needed to be IRAs or hung up in trust and it’s creating just tax and administrative issues and maybe that’s the right answer, but let’s at least be intentional.
I know I’ve helped a client where we were not involved with mom and dad’s situation and by the time they became a client, so like a newer client, we hadn’t really got a chance to prod too much into the extended family. And yeah, it’s just been a very complicated situation now because the way they thought it was set up is not, so we’ll ask those kind of questions to try to help it. It is always, for the best, but it’s cool, I guess, the way the different areas that we go.
And I think what’s helpful too, John, or neat that we do is try to distill things down. And bring them up when the time is appropriate, right? So sometimes, like now’s the time to focus on estate planning based on what’s happening in your life. Or maybe, now’s the time to talk about cash flow.
Some clients I’ve had this year, we’re approaching Medicare, and as we’re talking about things like Roth conversions, like here’s how Medicare is gonna work and why we wanna only do this amount because Medicare is income tested and there’s five or six brackets, and so here’s what we’re trying to manage around not only the income tax bracket, but the Medicare bracket you’re gonna be in.
And a lot of clients, like, “I had no idea that this is how any of this worked. And I’m just so thankful that you guys know it and that you’re planning around it and aware of it.” And it’s like, “Yeah, and I didn’t share it with you previously because it was information you didn’t need at the time. But now two years out, it’s about time for us to be talking about these things.”
John Mason: It’s amazing, right? Audience, we’re looking literally two years in advance. 63 year olds were talking about Medicare, and that’s intentional. And I’ve had a whole tranche of clients, or a whole slew of clients that are turning 65 in the next 12 to 18 months. And frankly, if I have to talk about Medicare again, I am pretty much over the Medicare conversation.
I don’t want to have it again. But the next, I’m sure I have at least 17 more of them between now and the end of May. It’ll be like the first time. I’m not thrilled that I have to talk about A, B, and D and all these things again, but for the client, it’s gonna be the first time that they’ve heard it, which means we need to be able to show up as we present that information.
And last night, my last appointment of the day, Tommy, was a good client who you and I have met with, and husband turned 65 next year. We’re talking about IRMA, we’re talking about appeals, and most people don’t realize that when you appeal, you’re gonna have to appeal twice. There’s, at least a lot of our clients end up appealing for multiple years.
And at the end of the conversation, she was like, “How do people do this without people like you?” And I said, “I don’t know.” And all I can think of, a couple stories. One is when you’re busy, one of the best ways that you can use your money, I hate the word busy, but when you have other, when you have a lot of obligations, one of the best ways that you can use your money is to free up time.
Exchange your money for time or exchange your money for resources and knowledge, and that’s what clients are doing when they pay us because they don’t want to go down the rabbit hole. They don’t wanna do all the research, and then when they retire, they have more time. But do you wanna be traveling and vacationing and having fun or do you wanna do this research?
Most people are wanting to outsource the thinking, not the decision making. I had to outsource the other day, a new outlet from my well pump, so I can water my grass. I know I can put a new outlet in. I literally just do not have the time between a sick child and strategic planning meeting season to go put an outlet in.
I just don’t have the time in my day. So yes, outsourcing is great. Exchanging your money for time or knowledge or resources is helpful. And we mentioned, Tommy, that we wanna share conversations that we’re having and yes, audience, we’re bragging about us a little bit, but another client I met with yesterday, her husband recently passed away.
And we’re going through that experience, which is hard. We have to show up on a human level. And then as crazy as it sounds, Tommy, it’s like, “Okay, well we’ve met you here on the emotional side of things. Your husband was alive for three months this year and you’re still married, filing jointly. So now we need to get together at the end of the year and talk about what that means because next year you’re single.”
Those are hard conversations. And we ended that with an email that said, “Thank you for showing up and being so gracious and kind and meeting me where I am.” But then she also, as we were leaving the call, she was like, “I tell everybody that I have a guy. And everybody’s like, ‘I need a guy.’” And that’s, you’re gonna go through these life events and as I reflect back, Tommy, on the strategic planning meeting season, things like, “How do people do this without you? I have a guy, I have a girl, I have a team.” Just the thank you, the appreciation. “Thank you for helping me decipher deferred resignation offers and VERA offers.”
That’s been the most rewarding part of the experience is the gratitude and being able to physically see how we’re changing people’s life. And like we said in the intro, we’re not changing people’s life through stellar investment performance. We’re changing people’s life through all of these types of conversations.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah. Yeah, well said. I mean, it’s through having a plan, it’s through being your partner, being able to make adjustments. There’s always events, and we’ve certainly seem to have our share of ’em this year, but as you and I reflect on our career of over 15 years, there’s always events, there’s always things happening and things we need to adjust for, and times that we can tune it out and just stick to the plan. The care that clients show to us is gratifying. I think that’s a common theme that I at least hear, and I’m sure we all do, of just like, “How are y’all doing?” And, “We’re so thankful for y’all and hope you’re doing okay as a firm.”
And it’s like, “Yeah, we’re doing great,” but appreciate the thoughtfulness, the mutual care there. And what’s also in many, there’s many forms of this, but I’m thinking of folks who are retiring right now. That has been so gratifying to see, ’cause the common theme there is, “I have such a peace of mind that we have y’all’s firm in place and I can see the plan that y’all put in place. So I feel great about it. Whatever’s happening in these markets, I am, I have a peace of mind and I’m just so thankful that you all are here to guide me, and my plan is not changing.” Thankfully, one newer client, when we met coming into the year, they were 90% stock. So it’s like just a little tidbit of their story.
And of course we adjusted ’em down, since they’re retiring this summer, to 60% stock, 40% bonds, and with everything that’s happened, they’re like, “Oh my God, I’m so glad that one, we met y’all and I have a peace of mind and talk about like a good timing to dial down the risk.” And it’s like, “Yeah, I mean, I have no idea where the market was gonna go then. I don’t know now, but that’s the appropriate place for you to be where you are in your plan.” And it’s kind of just always nice to see it work. It’s like, “Yeah, we’re both super happy that you’re no longer a hundred percent stock when we go to these wild markets,” but the big theme is peace of mind.
Yeah. It’s just a great peace of mind. It’s a partnership. It’s a powerful relationship.
John Mason: So, Tommy, this strategic planning meeting season’s been unique as well because we’ve been talking about the deferred resignation programs, the VERAs, the VCIPs, potential RIFs, and we’ve had intro calls from new clients, new client prospects, or new potential clients.
So we’re fielding those on Mondays. We’re talking with clients actively about the deferred resignation program and other offers. We actually saw the other day DRP VERA is paired together, which was a nice potential offering for some folks out there. So we’re intimately familiar with these rules. That certainly added a curve ball or a wrinkle to the year.
What I found most fascinating is how many of our clients did not take the DRP and how many are not leaving early out of a sense of obligation or out of a sense of willing, wanting to leave on their terms, on a high note, leave their agency in a good position rather than effectively going on terminal leave for six to nine months.
It’s just been really neat to be able to have those conversations, provide advice, show them their financial plan, and then watch the decisions that people are going to make and ultimately, we don’t make decisions for folks, we just educate them on the options and then we get to like sit back and watch the show, kind of.
Tommy Blackburn: Watch you make a great decision. I mean, we’ve been firm believers in that for a long time. Our job, if we give you good information, you’ll make a good decision. And it’s not even that there’s only one right decision here. It could be, “I’m ready to retire and you’ve educated me on how the DRP and VERA and my plan’s gonna work. So I’m doing it.” Or, “It could have been great. I know I’m in the driver’s seat. I’ve still got a mission to fulfill at work. I’m not ready. So I’m gonna keep working, but I know how this is gonna look if for some reason it’s forced upon me or it changes.”
I was thinking anecdotally, John, one client that was just kind of, to me, funny how this happened. So all of this is happening and they were of the mindset, which is empowering, I think, or I respect it of, “I’m not ready to go, got the mission.” Then they went on their anniversary trip and some tropical laid back place and came back and said, “Yeah, I took the DRP. I decided that this is what I want in life and I’m ready to retire.”
And I was like, “Well, that’s cool too, because we said you were ready and so that’s great. I’m excited about this next thing.” So it’s funny they got a little bit of a different perspective there, when they got away.
John Mason: Wow, that’s a good story. So a couple other things, Tommy, that we’ve been uncovering during strategic planning meeting season. I just wanted to highlight quickly on my mind and maybe if you have any bullet points, we’re always reviewing tax returns. One, for accuracy, but two, to make sure that our advice is reflected correctly. And we find stuff every year where Roth conversions are reported as normal distributions, which leads to no 8606.
We constantly see, at least I do, missed long-term care deductions in Virginia. Because the amount of people who are self preparing is high. And if clients do not take the time to pretend they’re going to itemize on federal, then those long-term care premiums don’t get added in and then they don’t get added to the state.
So long-term care deductions missed IRS 2210s, missed IRS 8606s. Conversions reported as transfers or rollovers instead of taxable distributions. Surprisingly, I’m not seeing any […] Oh yeah, QCD is missed, which is surprisingly no military deductions being missed. That’s been good.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah, so typically once it’s in a system one year, it kind of clues you in to look for it in future years. But the QCDs are, I just, sometimes we throw acronyms out, so want to clarify, that’s qualified charitable distributions, tax free distributions from an IRA to a charity such as a church or a nonprofit cause.
You have to be 70 and a half or older. It’s a great tax. It’s most, one of the most tax efficient ways to give, but smilar to like, so you don’t get anything on long-term care premiums. You paid like a tax form to tell you to deduct it. You just have to know. Same thing with these QCDs, you’re just gonna get a normal 1099R showing a distribution.
You have to know to say that this was a charitable distribution to report it correctly on the tax return. So certain, same thing with a Roth conversion just shows up as a distribution. You have to know that this was a conversion to report it properly. So yeah, we catch all those things. I mentioned on a prior episode, still amazed, one of the tax returns I reviewed that was professionally prepared missed a pension that had been in existence.
So I don’t even know. That’s one thing when it’s like, “Okay, the pension was new this year, but when it was on there last year, I don’t have a clue how we missed it.” But I guess the main theme is we absolutely review the documents we get. Now, right now, during this season, as documents are coming in, I am telling some clients of, “Hey, I haven’t had a chance to look at that yet.”
I will when my schedule opens back up and everybody understands that because two, usually, they’ll say like, “This was my fault, Tommy, because I should have hand this to you months ago like you requested. And so I was late getting it to you. And it’s understandable, your schedule’s full right now.”
But we review what comes in, whether it’s tax returns, estate documents, investment statements, you name it, we are digesting it. We’ll come back with anything we notice that needs any observations that need to be shared.
John Mason: Thank you for also hitting on charitable giving. I thought that was a good point that you threw in there with the QCDs and donor advised funds are still a topic of conversation.
This year is a little bit unique, Tommy, with tax planning in that we don’t really know what we’re working with yet. We’re in 2025, as of five eight right now. May 8th, TCJA is still set to expire. We do not know what the tax code’s going to look like yet in 2026. So it’s been a little bit of an interesting conversation around what if social security became tax free or what are the brackets going to look like?
There’s no action yet, but we fully anticipate an episode in action based on whatever law or budget reconciliation process happens. When we have details, we’ll share ’em with the audience. We’ll share ’em with clients. But charitable giving has been one of the things where it’s like, let’s just kind of put a pause on donor advised funds right now, or like gifting highly appreciated securities until we know what we’re working with. So that’s always a big thing. From a tax perspective, I know you do this too, is we’re looking at 2025 and 2026 at the same time as often as possible. So that way if we’re making tax withholding adjustments for this year, I’m at least trying, and I know you do, trying to see like, are the changes I’m making this year also good for next year?
And if a withholding change, for example, is good for next year, but leaves us a little short still this year, I’ll still make that change, and then just ask the client to do a one-time estimated tax payment. It’s like, how do I get, what’s the least amount of work possible for both me and the client to get where we need to go, rather than always chasing our tail every year.
So that’s been something fun. Specifically unique to this. This strategic planning meeting season, audience, you probably heard, we physically help people, apply for Social security and Medicare. Well, there’s an entire population of our client base whose social security change this year with the wonderful Social Security Fairness Act that came out, that eliminated windfall elimination provision and government pension offset.
So we have GPO, CSRS people going back and getting major benefits. We’ve had to have conversations around something that literally didn’t exist until three or four months ago, and helping people apply, understanding like what do we do with that? And then there’s the back pay considerations, with double payments effectively happening and incorporating that into the tax plan and looking forward to what it looks like next year. What a weird year. What a weird year it’s been from a tax planning perspective,
Tommy Blackburn: It’s always something. Yeah. This year has got its uniqueness, but there’s certainly always something and whether or not withholding will, you’ll have it if you’re falling under the Social Security Fairness Act. It seems like if you were collecting and you already had them withholding, they’ll withhold on the retroactive payments if that applies to you.
If you weren’t having with anything withheld, I don’t believe they’re gonna withhold on anything retroactive unless you tell them. I just think an anecdotally, a funny thing a client, I guess you say a young CSRS client of ours had to be like towards the tail end of it. As I was going through this again with them, retired NASA, formally subject to GPO.
It’s like so now you’re gonna get half of your wife’s social security when she files and she hasn’t filed yet. So we have to wait for that. And at that point, yours will be freed up. You’ll get half, subject to whatever age we’re taking it for you. But this wasn’t the case. Now it is. That’s great.
But the funniest thing that the client says is like, “You sure I get half of hers, even though I never paid anything into it?” It’s like, well that’s one of the things we’ve talked about with this whole quote unquote fairness act. But yes, you get half of her benefit now.
John Mason: It’s a good story, Tommy, and it also, I wrote down Trust in Mason, and what I was thinking there is we’ve helped these clients, specifically the GPO clients, apply for spousal benefits. And we’ve had a number of applications be rejected from the Social Security Administration. They’re like, “You don’t qualify for benefits.” And we’re like, “Yeah, we know we didn’t apply for our benefits. We applied for spousal benefits.” And then they go back in and they apply the next day after being declined. And then they get a, “Welcome, thank you. Please come down to the office and show us your marriage certificate so we can provide you your spousal benefits.” So it’s not, the Social Security Administration has done a wonderful job, in my opinion, figuring out how to do all of this in the midst of all the chaos.
But it’s not perfect. And if you are a GPO person who’s no longer a GPO person who’s been rejected for something, chances are, or there is a potential that that rejection was wrong. And that’s one value that we provide is helping decipher some of these really complicated government letters.
For example, Tommy, yesterday, this is from a VA disability perspective, a client went up from a 50% rating to a 70%. So her monthly pension went from 1300 to 2000 from VA disability. And it was back paid to January of 2024. And the letter was like, “Paid, 1300, amount withheld, 600. New benefit, 2000,” or something.
And the client was thrown for a loop. They were like, “What do you mean withheld? Like, am I not gonna get it?” I’m like, I don’t know why it says amount withheld. It should say amount not paid, right? Or amount we shortage you and the government, the VAs, they have, they’re notorious for sending out cryptic letters that don’t make sense to a lot of people unless you’ve lived in this and can quickly digest it. So just fun story.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I’m even thinking it’s not even just a, it’s certainly is the government, many times where it’s cryptic and confusing what we’re reading and trying to decipher. But it’s not just that. I had a client with, who’s done some non-profit work and was rolling over their 403B and then, so that’s the like non-profit 401k equivalent.
And after we rolled it over there sending me statements, they’re like, “This thing seems to say that I’ve still got money over there, that they didn’t roll because it was held for future hardship distributions or something.” I’m like, “That doesn’t make any sense.” So anyway, I go through it and I was able to decipher, it’s like this is just an oddity of their system where they were saying you would’ve been eligible for a hardship distribution, but they rolled all the money over because you were eligible for a normal rollover.
But yes, sometimes these things are just very confusing and probably helpful to have folks who know this world and see these letters. Same thing with estate documents, right? Where it’s just we can, we know what to look for most of the time to help you decipher and understand what’s happening there.
John Mason: For sure. I guess quick, Tommy, on investment performance, investments are a tool. They’re necessary. We have to have them to achieve some of the goals that we’re trying to achieve in retirement. So yes, we cover investment performance, audience. On average, it’s probably about five minutes of the overall conversation.
How did we do last year? How are we doing this year? Generally speaking, the sentiment is very, maybe very is too strong. The sentiment is negative. We don’t have a lot of clients right now who are like itching to buy things or itching to spend a lot of money with the situation that’s going on in the country right now, people are nervous.
So we’re holding our money a little bit closer to the vest than we have previously. Clients are very happy to see the performance numbers because the news is scary, but when you break down what a 60-40 portfolio is actually done in 2025, it’s not half bad. And so that’s been kind of fun to see clients be like, “Oh, I haven’t logged in yet and I was just really scared to. And you mean I’m only down X or I’m actually up Y.” And we’re like, “Yeah, it’s actually been not horrible for you this year.” So I think investment performance has been a small part of the conversation for me, but one of the things people have liked to hear about. It’s how we were able to add value through some pretty timely rebalances that we did in January and April.
So just showing clients that in the midst of chaos, we’re still following our process, which is to rebalance at certain thresholds and rebalance on a quarterly basis when we can, and by following that process, Tommy, we’ve added some value this year.
Tommy Blackburn: It certainly appears to be that way, at least from the short term rearview mirror. We, only time will tell for sure. But yes, and the cool thing, and we’re both saying it the same way is it’s like, “Hey, I don’t have a crystal ball, but we have a disciplined approach and philosophy we follow.” And one of the pieces of that is rebalancing. And it caused us to do these things at these moments of time.
And right now it appears to have added value to your plan. And then let’s also zoom out and let’s look longer term and think about, you know, we’ve been through inflation, we’ve been through wars, we’ve been through COVID, and if we have this long of a history, we can see that investing is working when you give it enough time.
So it is fun to talk about the approach, but a lot of the times it’s just, yeah, the performance, it’s not so much about performance, it’s just that, “Okay. I’m relieved. Like you guys are on top of it, you’re doing things that I would hope you’re doing. Or even if I wasn’t aware, I’m just happy to hear that’s happening and I’m in good shape. Like you guys keep telling me the plan is good.” So that’s about the extent of those conversations typically.
John Mason: I guess one other thing we’ve been talking about is creating a login for irs.gov portal. That’s something I’ve been trying to mention with a lot of folks, Tommy. And, I think the portal, one of the coolest things is being able to create that identity theft protection pen.
Which I, maybe that’s a good, it’s like a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a little bit inconvenient if you forgot you have one.
Tommy Blackburn: That’s the main issue. It’s almost like freezing your credit. And something else we were talking about, oh yeah. Like potentially trying to lock down your phone where you can disable like sim card porting and lock your number from being imported.
All like cool, proactive things to do that philosophically I agree with, but there’s like caveats, right? We have to remember to go unfreeze our credit. We have to remember when we file our tax return to use that identity pen or we’re gonna get a reject. And by the way, the pen changes every calendar year.
So if you did this last year, don’t use that pen. Even if you thought it was for this upcoming year, you gotta go grab the newest one. So, good stuff. But always just like a little bit of little asterisks to remember things about.
John Mason: So I guess break from the conversation on strategic planning meeting season.
Hopefully, the audience enjoyed kind of hearing or maybe having a sneak peek or inside look into the conversations we’re having. Let’s just quickly, Tommy, acknowledge the fact that we’ve seen some proposals. So again, audience, day’s May 8th, this is gonna release in June or July, this episode. So we’re fully aware that things could change by the time we release this.
But Tommy, we’ve seen some pretty big proposals that would change federal employee benefits for folks. And one such proposal would be increasing the first contribution from 0.8% for like old federal employees up to the new level of 4.4, which there’s a whole tranche of federal employees who are already paying that contribution rate too.
So that’s one proposed change, and I don’t know that there’s any value in commenting on that other than saying zooming out from a retirement planning perspective, that’s a really good use of your money to solidify your pension. So are we upset for you that the contribution may change? Yes. That stinks. It is a really good use of your money and having a pension is better than not having one. And if this is a way that we can shore that up, then it’s insulting and it’s frustrating, but it’s not a bad thing and it’s still a really good return on your investment dollar. What are the other proposals we’ve seen?
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah, just going back to the 4.4 for a second. Yes. It’s like it’s not as good as it was yesterday when you were paying 0.8. That was awesome. But 4.4 still seems incredibly reasonable for, and valuable, to your point, for what you’re getting out of it, particularly in comparison to people in other walks of life.
And I was thinking back to example, I think we talked on a previous podcast where client retired, got the booklet and I was looking through it and it was essentially you put 25,000 into your pension and you’re gonna get 65,000 in year one. So in less than six months, you got your money back. So you’re still gonna get it back very quickly, even at a 4.4% that you have to contribute.
And this appears to have all be tied up in the tax bill that’s gonna come, right? So we’re hoping to have some tax clarity on income tax planning soon-ish, we hope. And in addition, somehow federal benefits are getting wrapped up in this bill as this big beautiful bill as they’re framing it. So we’ve got the contributions, medical premiums.
FEHB premiums was like a potential, but it seems like that kind of got watered down to where they more or less just want to verify that you are indeed eligible. Kind of almost sounds like doing an audit of the system. Nowhere it talks about switching to a voucher system that appears to be off the table.
Another one, particularly for our early retirees, John, right, is the supplement, and some potential changes there.
John Mason: Yeah, so the way the first supplement, our understanding of how this has been proposed is that we would eliminate the first supplement for normal FERs, and we would keep the FER supplement for law enforcement, air traffic controllers, or people who have a mandatory retirement age, typically around 57.
So FER supplement would stay there. That’s also called the Social Security Annuity supplement. People call it a variety of different things, but for most folks, it’s a five-year gap that helps you have an additional pension from 57 until 62 when you would otherwise be eligible for social security.
The proposal as it’s written, our understanding would eliminate that for new retirees not existing. I’ll be interested to see what that looks like, Tommy, and there’s no reason to really speculate yet, but it’s been on the chopping block my entire career, which is almost 15 years now. So will I be surprised if it goes away?
Yes, because we’ve been talking about it for 15 years. Will I be surprised if it goes away? No, because we’ve been talking about it for 15 years. So it’ll just be interesting to see how immediate, and also how it impacts people who are going out on DRPs and et cetera. It just feels like, personally, the supplement change should not go into effect until at least 2026 with all the VERAs and the VCIPs and the DRPs this year.
It just would feel insulting for it to happen this year and or phased in would seem better, or at least delayed a year or two.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah, particularly people who are imminently planning on it. That’s the issue, I think, that we see where if you’ve drawn up a plan and to have no grace period of adjusting your plan essentially for that seems a little harsh.
I also, I don’t know the numbers off top of my head, but I don’t know that it’s the biggest bang for the government’s buck either to get rid of it, I guess is trying to normalize it more towards the private sector of just saying it’s nice benefits and we need to shore up the system costing too much, et cetera.
But it doesn’t seem like you get the biggest bang for your buck there. The other one is moving from the high three to a high five, which seems to be standard in many other pension systems. So that is, kind of comes back to that 4.4, I think what I kind of, my general feelings on that one of, yes, moving to a high five is not as good as being in a high three, but it’s still pretty good.
And it feels more normal to some other pension systems out there. So, and that one would over time, certainly, ’cause it would essentially lower the amount of the pension. So save some money there. It doesn’t, yeah, sure, you’d prefer to not see it happen, but it doesn’t feel unreasonable, particularly if it’s kind of–over time phased in. If it’s not just an immediate with this is what we’re switching to
John Mason: We’re not federal employees, obviously, Tommy. So it’s easier for us to say, like, to be unbiased or to remove ourself from the situation and say like, “Okay, what do the numbers say?” But as I think about it, the first supplement going away is really, should be the most inconsequential change here, right?
Like, that should be the least impactful change. Now it’s insulting and people are probably like, “What are you saying?” But that’s a maximum five-year benefit. Maximum. A high five is a lifetime of benefit change. If we don’t have a solid pension system and we’re broke and not, and we do away with colas or we have to reduce benefits, like things that would impact somebody over 30 or 40 years, those are the changes I’m worried about.
I’m not worried about like if you needed the supplement to retire at 57, maybe arguably you weren’t ready to retire anyhow. And it’s only five years. That’s not, that doesn’t derail one’s financial plan. But if we went in into right capital and we abolished the cola on our first pensions, material impact.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah, absolutely. I think, to your point, and so that’s, I feel the same, but I think that’s where I also even wonder with like the proposal, it’s like, why is this the focus? Because again, you’re gonna get more bang as a government by changing the lifetime benefits, not the one that only lasts five years.
John Mason: That’s right. Well, Tommy, I think we’ve covered everything that was on our list for today. Any closing thoughts on your end?
Tommy Blackburn: No, we covered what was on the list and more. And it’s just always fun. It’s fun getting the layer in the client stories and kind of relive these memories we’re making right now.
Hope that it’s impactful for our audience and get you kind of an inside look as to how processes and advice and value and just the breadth of the relationship that we have with our clients. And that it’s helpful that there’s takeaways that you can use in your own plan. And if nothing else, gives you some insight into what being a client of ours looks like. And John, it’s always a blast getting to do this with you.
John Mason: Yeah, man, I had a lot of fun today on this episode, and my big takeaway is that we have fun when we do these meetings and when we say to clients like, “Hey, we’re gonna have a lot of fun today,” or, “When you retire, we’re gonna have so much fun doing your tax plan.”
Maybe we’re nerds, maybe we’re not, you audience, you can decide. But it’s sincere when we say we’re going to have a lot of fun. And although our clients aren’t many of them down in the numbers like we are, Tommy, I think most of our clients have a lot of fun meeting with us. And I would just say to the audience, like, if you have a relationship with somebody or some firm and it doesn’t feel fun, and it doesn’t feel productive and it doesn’t feel like you’re getting the bang for your buck, you’re probably not.
We could help. There are other qualified firms out there that could help too, but you should feel a certain way when you’re done meeting with your financial planner, and we could throw out all kinds of adjectives, Tommy, but at the end of the day, I think you know, as a human, whether or not you have a good feel, whether you feel safe, whether you feel connected, whether you feel confident.
So hopefully, audience, you feel a little bit more that way after listening to our podcast. Hopefully, our clients listening, we know you feel that way, and we’re so thankful for you. Folks, thank you for being a part of another episode of the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast.
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Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast. Remember this, we’re financial planners first, we do this second. And as always, we hope you leave this episode and every episode feeling educated and empowered to make positive changes in your financial plan.
Tommy, thanks again for being with me on another episode.
Tommy Blackburn: Thank you, sir.
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