What if your federal pension is small and you’re not relying on it—should you still elect survivor benefits? In this episode, John and Tommy respond to a listener’s detailed YouTube question about pensions, TSP, and survivor benefits when service time is short and other retirement savings are strong. They break down the real value of keeping survivor benefits, even when your pension isn’t your main income stream.
You’ll learn why declining survivor benefits could backfire, how TSP and IRAs factor into the equation, and what you need to keep Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) for your spouse. If you’ve ever wondered whether the fees in TSP are worth the trade-offs of an IRA, or if survivor benefits follow your TSP rollover, this episode brings clarity to a complex retirement puzzle.
Listen to the full episode here:
What you will learn:
- Would you still want to have survivor benefits if your pension is small? (4:00)
- Are TSP and survivor benefits linked? (7:30)
- Does a little extra income really make a difference? (15:15)
- Should you consider rolling your TSP into an IRA? (16:20)
- Is it more beneficial to pay $10,000 from your post-tax checking account or from another source? (25:50)
Ideas Worth Sharing:
- “We have to have a survivor benefit to keep Federal Employee Health Benefits for our spouse that we’re also protecting.” – Mason & Associates
- “If you don’t follow the process, you’re in trouble; if you follow the process, you’re delayed. So, you just have to follow the process.” – Mason & Associates
- “It can make sense to move your money out of TSP if you’re doing it for the right reasons.” – Mason & Associates
Resources from this episode:
- Mason & Associates: LinkedIn
- Tommy Blackburn: LinkedIn
- John Mason: LinkedIn
- Federal Employees – DO NOT Decline Survivor Benefits!
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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: Hello, I’m John Mason. Welcome to the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast. In this episode, Tommy and I are going to answer a question that came directly to us into our inbox from MasonFP@masonllc.net. So in this episode, we’re answering a viewer question. This is going to be a shorter episode and a shorter conversation between me and Tommy, where we address the question specifically and like always provide some additional insight and maybe even some clarity on what conversations we’ve had with clients in the past.
Spoiler alert: Yes, you guessed it. This episode does have to do with two popular topics: Thrift Savings Plan and survivor benefit decision at retirement. Folks, unlike many content creators out there, we’re financial planners first, and we do this second, and each episode we share real life experiences from decades of helping federal employees like you navigate the complexities of their benefits package and all areas of their financial plan.
Tommy, welcome to our second episode of May 8th, 2025 on the Federal Employee Financial Planning Podcast.
Tommy Blackburn: Thank you, sir. It is always a pleasure to be here. Looking forward to unpacking this and giving our thoughts in general education on it and to the audience, this is great. It was really exciting.
Please send, we love these questions are coming in, so please continue to do this. Send these in so that we can address them in future episodes.
John Mason: That’s right. So if you do have a question on any of the YouTube content that we’ve produced or any of our financial planning podcast or any questions in general about FERS, TSP, FEGLI, general financial planning and tax planning, you can send those questions to us directly at Mason FP like Mason Financial Planning @MasonLLC.net.
So audience, bear with me as I read this question, and maybe in post-production we’ll actually be able to share it on the screen as well, so I’ll try to summarize the question and then we’ll try to share it on the screen.
“I just watched your YouTube video, ‘Federal Employees Do Not Decline Survivor Benefits.’” We’ll link that in the description below.
“In the video, the assumption is that the pension is large, but what if you had a limited number of years of service, say less than 20, and you separated from the government 20 years ago, and now have had a 401k plan for 20 years. So you have a TSP and a 401k. For the sake of argument, what if you had a $15,000 a year expected pension and this money is just gravy and is not something you’re relying on?”
So as we unpack that first paragraph, Tommy, here’s what I’m gathering from the situation. This person was possibly CSRS or possibly FERS. So if they were CSRS, they just had a windfall with not being subject to windfall elimination provision.
If they were FERS, it sounds like they separated and didn’t qualify for an immediate unreduced retirement, so they went on that strategy where they were going to claim either at 20 years in 60 or five years in age 62. Is that what you gather from that question?
Tommy Blackburn: That is what I’m gathering, which is an important piece of the puzzle here, at least to kind of get our fact pattern straight.
John Mason: It’s an important piece because specifically in this question. What we gather is that this couple, ’cause they wouldn’t be here declining survivor benefits if they weren’t a couple, is that they’re also not eligible for federal employee health benefits.
Tommy Blackburn: Yes, exactly. And that was an important piece of this question or a starting point to cover, right? And the reason John and I are working our way to this FEHB, the health benefits part of the question is we have to have a survivor benefit in order to keep federal employee health benefits for our spouse that we’re also protecting. However, it would appear based on this fact pattern that FEHB is not on the table, right?
Because we didn’t retire within an immediate, well, we had to defer it. So since we didn’t carry it into retirement immediately, we don’t get it. So the survivor benefit’s not gonna protect it for anybody. So we can kind of set FEHB as a concern aside, but we wanted to discuss it so that our audience also knows in general.
Normally, this survivor benefit question, part of it is we have to have one to keep FEHB assuming we’re eligible. So it is important, just we wanna make sure everybody knows that.
John Mason: That’s a great point, Tommy, and I just pulled up the RI92-19, and the title of that form is the application for a Deferred or a Postponed Retirement.
So it sounds like this individual is eligible for a deferred or a postponed. My understanding is you still do this on a paper form, although there could be an electronic system in the future, and the RI92-19 specifically says to submit the form within 60 days of advance of your pension beginning.
And what’s a little bit interesting about that, just to provide some context for this question, is you would think, Tommy, I should apply six months in advance. Well, if you do, they’re just gonna throw it back, is my experience. They’re just gonna say, “Thank you for being early, but we didn’t want you to do that. So you’re gonna have to start over.”
Then what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna apply within 60 days and they’re gonna say, “Oh, I’m sorry, We just don’t have nearly enough time to begin your benefits on time.” So then it’s gonna take six months for them to actually pay you back to when you became eligible.
So we see one or two of these every year, Tommy, these 92-19s going out, and it’s kind of a humorous situation because if you don’t follow the process, you’re in trouble. And if you follow the process, you’re delayed. So you just have to follow the process.
Tommy Blackburn: What do they say? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, essentially.
John Mason: That’s right. That’s exactly right. Okay, so let’s move on to paragraph two here. and if I didn’t say it already, the question said, let’s assume the pension’s $15,000 a year and it’s not something you’re relying on.
Second paragraph: “I believe, and this may have been in your video as well, or at least implied in the video, that the survivor benefit election that you make on your first pension or CSRS is also or somehow inherited by the Thrift Savings Plan. If so, then of course it would be crazy to decline survivor benefits unless you can select a different survivor benefit option for TSP. But if you rolled your TSP into an IRA is the answer still, ‘Do not decline Survivor benefits for the pension?’ Perhaps an even bigger question is should you even consider rolling your TSP into an IRA given the low TSP fees? Anyway, I thought these would be interesting topics to pursue further. Maybe you already have these in another video. Thank you.
So Tommy, let’s go to paragraph two here. The survivor Benefit Decision and TSP, are they linked or not linked?
Tommy Blackburn: They’re not linked. Yeah. So, just to cut to the chase there they are separate decisions there. So on the TSP and retirement accounts in general, we’re referring to beneficiary designations, and that is independent, does not need to match who you name for a survivor benefit on your pension. Typically, it would be the same, the beneficiary of both, but whether we take survivor benefits on our FERS or CSRS pension does not impact what’s going to happen at with TSP at our death.
John Mason: I agree with you everything you’re saying. Second part of that question is if you rolled your TSP to an IRA, should you decline survivor benefits or is that still the answer? You know what, what I think about this question is the viewer or the listener has made a decision that husband and wife or spouse and spouse have made a decision that they’re financially successful and they can retire, and that if we have a $15,000 pension, that my spouse doesn’t need 50% of that to continue for their life and to be okay.
The other assets are a consideration though. So the act of moving TSP to an IRA itself does not really impact the survivor benefit decision, but your decisions in all aspects of your financial plan should impact your survivor benefit decision. So did you do a bad job or a less than stellar job saving liquid cash? Maybe that’s even a bigger reason to take survivor benefits on FERS. Do you have a VA disability that spouse and spouse count on? Well, that’s not gonna pass to their surviving spouse. That’s another consideration towards taking survivor benefits. Do you and spouse and spouse have the same identical social security benefits? And one of those is going to go away when one of you predeceases?
Tommy Blackburn: Do you have a social? Yeah. What is the social security strategy is the question.
John Mason: Exactly. Did you make a bad investment? Do we have a life insurance policy that’s term that’s going to expire?
We often said in our seminar, Tommy, for years, that your decisions either compliment or they conflict and this, I think, is a classic example of looking at a $15,000 pension and doing two things wrong with it. One, not zooming out and looking at it in the context of the entire plan. And number two, the big issue I have with this question is kind of sticking our nose up at, is that the right term, or not being impressed by, or looking down upon a measly old $15,000 pension. Like that’s somehow not valuable.
Tommy Blackburn: Exactly. I think that’s the crux of part of the question for us, yes, is what’s the value of a measly 15,000 a year as well as are we actually putting all the pieces together to the puzzle, to get to the best answer, to compliment each other, as you say.
John Mason: So, $15,000 a year, audience and person who asks the question, is a very lucrative pension, in fact, because most people don’t have pensions at all. Is it a $50,000 pension? No. Is it $150,000 pension? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. So 15,000 divided by 12 is a big number.
That’s $1,250 a month. So what does that do for you? Well, that’s probably about my grocery bill and groceries are a thorn in everybody’s side right now, and if you’re like, “Oh, it only pays for groceries.” That’s a thousand dollars of groceries every month. It pays for that person’s health insurance premium.
If they’re on the Affordable Care Act, it pays a big chunk of that health insurance premium. It buys eggs, it buys gas, it buys Medicare.
Tommy Blackburn: It’s conflicting, like you say, right? Because on the one hand, it’s like the measly 15,000, like is it really worth protecting, but apparently it’s worth something because I don’t wanna see it get any smaller by being a survivor benefit pen, having that on it.
So some conflicting, we would say, in our opinion, these are some conflicting thoughts and going to seeing it get smaller. We’re talking about receiving 90% instead of the full hundred. So instead of the measly 15,000, we apologize for the audience member who sent this in. You didn’t say measly.
We’re, taking, what do they call it? Author’s Liberty or something along those lines. So we’re kind of running with it. You maybe didn’t mean it that way, but the measly 15,000 becomes the measly 13,500. So that’s not a substantial difference, and it’s not even gonna be that big because the full 15,000 was taxable and the survivor benefit is a pre-tax. So instead of 13,500, maybe we’re getting somewhere between 14,000 and 14,500. So it’s not even that full 1500 reduction to provide it. And as John was saying, yeah, the measly 15,000, well, in order to replicate that from an investment asset and have a sustainable distribution rate, we’re looking at $375,000 to replicate that measly 15,000.
So that’s where we zoom out to and say this is an asset worth protecting, and you can do it, tax preferred and pretty cost efficient there with that 10% survivor benefit plan reduction.
John Mason: Well, Tommy, I appreciate that context and I also appreciate you saying like we’re taking some author’s liberty here and we’re also being a little, maybe extreme or excitable as we answer this question because we are so passionate. They didn’t say measly, they said gravy, right? And I think just from, in our experience, what we hear when we see that type of question or hear that type of question is, we just don’t think it’s that high or we don’t think it’s that significant, when in fact, it’s worth $375,000 that you have, that your neighbor doesn’t, or tying it to an expense. It’s like, okay, so you never have to pay property taxes or homeowner’s insurance ever again. Compared you to somebody that doesn’t have that, it’s like you don’t have $1,250 in bills that everybody else in America has.
So it is extremely valuable. Hopefully, the person who asked the question doesn’t feel upset with us or insulted by how we’re answering it, but it’s a huge asset. Maybe it’s not as huge as some other ones, but it’s a sizable asset. We would have you take survivor benefits on that pension.
Again, we don’t know, Tommy, all aspects of their financial plan. We just know that most people and the person who asked the question also said, “I wouldn’t decline survivor benefits on TSP.” Is kind of what they said in the question. So if we wouldn’t light TSP on fire at our death, I don’t think that we would necessarily wanna light this FERS pension on fire at our death either.
So both are equally valuable and both provide, I guess for this person to think about as well, the emotional stability or assurance you have from having additional guaranteed income gives you a lot of flexibility in retirement that somebody that doesn’t have that. Even if it’s just $1,250 a month, that stability frees up your other investments to do other things for you, which is quite nice.
Tommy Blackburn: And even for the survivor, maybe to switch it, as we think about that too, I mean, we’re talking about $7,500 a year to the survivor. Still very valuable. $7,500 of bills. We’re not gonna, the survivor’s not gonna have, maybe this helps with that social security decision. It’s certainly part of your life insurance to ensuring that asset.
It’s valuable. And so while the numbers may not seem as massive or the magnitude of the numbers may make you feel kind of somewhat dismissive of it, we should look at it from the bigger picture and we should look at it mathematically and objectively. And when we look at it that way, it’s the same answer.
John Mason: I agree. It’s a $10,000 pension and a hundred thousand dollars pension. The math is the same.
Tommy Blackburn: Exactly.
John Mason: It just feels less consequential or like less, like you could make a bad decision when it’s a smaller number, but the math is the same. So the final question was perhaps an even bigger question.
“Should you even consider rolling your TSP into an IRA given the very low TSP fees?” We did a podcast episode where we did TSP advantages and disadvantages. That’s a really good one. Maybe if we’re on our A game, we can link that in the description below. My answer to that is maybe TSP has very low fees, but they are not necessarily the lowest fee provider anymore.
In fact, TSP fees could be like 0.02%, 0.03%, so it’s not free, but they’re low. There are S&P 500 index funds out there that are quoted to have zero fees. So we do think it’s possible, Tommy, that this person could achieve similar fees that they have inside TSP, outside of TSP.
Tommy Blackburn: Absolutely. And just to the episode that you may be thinking of, it looks like episode 68 was TSP pros and cons.
And we also did, we’ve probably done even more than I’m seeing as I glance, but, episode nine and 10, TSP accumulation and TSP at retirement, or 59 and a half. So we’ve hit it a couple places. We certainly, I think, talked about fees and to your point, like, as an investment vehicle, it is tax efficient and we appreciate that or fee efficient and.
You can do the same though in an IRA we can get, and probably some funds we can get even potentially cheaper than we’re getting in TSP. So from just the investment vehicle, that’s not enough of a selling point. We should certainly be mindful of the fees we’re paying and the fees we may pay when we go somewhere else.
But for us, like when a client decides to work with us and move their TSP over, it’s going to be more expensive than the TSP, but it’s not necessarily because of the funds and the ETFs, the investment vehicles we’re using. It’s our fee. It’s the fee to have us as in a relationship, as your advisor, as your partner.
And when we can distinguish that, I mean that’s, is there value in that fee? So hopefully, I’m answering the question that fees, it really should be independent, right? We can get just as cost effective outside of TSP.
John Mason: I like what you said there, Tommy, and you kind of made a distinction of two distinct options if you were to roll your TSP to an IRA.
I guess there’s three options. One, you’re rolling it to something where you’re self-directing it, whether that’s Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, et cetera. So apples to apples, that comes down to your service provider of choice. Do you like the multifactor authentication at Schwab or TSP? Do you like the fact that at Schwab you can specify state tax withholding on distributions, but you can at TSP?
Do you like the fact that at Axos Advisor Services, where we custody, that you can do Roth conversions where you can’t do end plan Roth conversions yet inside of TSP? Do you like that the beneficiary designations at custodians allow you to establish per stirpes or standard, where TSP is much more rigid, and frankly, I don’t really like what they’ve done with the beneficiary designations in TSP.
Essentially what it says is if you have two primary and two contingents and one primary dies, all of your money goes to the surviving primary. You can’t per stirpes it down to that child’s child or your grandchild, you can’t follow it down. So I don’t love TSP for a variety of reasons.
You can’t do qualified charitable distributions. So investments are investments, but like where are you getting the best service provider? And I think we can all argue right now that TSP is playing catch up in that regard.
Tommy Blackburn: I think that’s, most folks would agree with it. They do some things good. So we don’t wanna bash it and we think we’ve covered it in other episodes, but there’s certainly some shortcomings there.
One thing I kept wanting to mention was, you mentioned the state tax withholding, which is very true that we can’t do that at TSP, but even the federal withholding can be a nuisance there, right? If we’re for, there’s weird caveats as to what we’re allowed and not allowed to do, but generally, they’re gonna force 20%.
So most likely you don’t need 20% withheld, or maybe you do, but it’s nice to be able to like dial in your withholding versus having it being forced withheld. And yeah, you could say, “Hey, well, whatever, I’ll get it back on the tax return.” But what if I needed to net a certain amount from TSP? And they’re gonna withhold 20%.
So now I’m having to take a larger distribution, which is creating more taxable income. So it does matter.
John Mason: It does matter. So that was option one, which is like self-directed versus self-directed. Option two would be moving it to, we’ll do it in a real financial planning firm who’s adding value.
Is it worth paying somebody to manage your money? Is it worth paying a financial planner? The answer is possibly, yes, if they’re doing really good things for you, if they’re helping you through all aspects of your financial plan, there’s value to that. The Vanguard study that we’ve talked about numerous times on this podcast has indicated that by following a process, rebalancing, making sure cash is invested, not freaking out during volatile times, that financial planners or advisors can add value on the investment management side too. Is this listener or person who asked the question, are they jumping in and outta g fund? Are they market timing? Are they rebalancing when they’re supposed to? This is very difficult for somebody to give themself a grade on their own investment management because we naturally always believe that we made the right things or made the right decision.
So option two would be transferring your money out to an IRA that also has low investment management fees, but has maybe advisor fees attached to it. Yes, if you’re looking for that relationship, it could certainly be valuable, Tommy, for this person to transfer. Option three, which is something we’ve picked on in other episodes, would be transferring TSP, let’s just say to an annuity or to an asset gatherer or to a mutual fund or a product sales person where they’re pitching you on why this investment is sexier or we’ll do something different for you than thrift savings plan. That’s something where we wanna put a pause, we wanna put up our stoppers and say, “Okay, does anybody really beat the market? Is there any investment that can really get stock market returns without stock market risk?”
We wanna just step back and think, okay, why are we transferring to this particular product and is this just a really good sales person or are they gonna be able to provide value over my life? I guess one final thought as it relates to TSP and maybe this listener was considering a annuity out of the TSP income, single premium immediate annuity.
You can get it as good or better annuity rates outside of TSP, at least last time we looked, then you can annuitizing within the thrift savings plan, sowhat does our compliance attorney say to us? TLDR. What’s that top line?
Tommy Blackburn: Too long read, didn’t read.
John Mason: Yeah. So TLDR too long didn’t read. Yes. It could make sense to move your money out of TSP if you’re doing it for the right reasons.
Tommy Blackburn: If it’s part of that coordinated plan, which of course comes back to, what are we doing with the pension and the survivor benefit on it. I wanna mention, John, I always think it’s just good armament for people to have when they think about TSP, ’cause not everybody’s like us. So, yeah, I don’t think that every other financial professional out there should be trusted. I definitely think clearly that we should be, but keep in mind, if you don’t move everything out of TSP, it remains open, which means you can come back as long as you can roll it back in, as long as you kept the account open, as long as you didn’t lock yourself into something like certain annuities where there may be no do-overs.
So understand what you’re doing on the other side, but you can leave yourself flexibility, right? Of just, “I don’t have to close TSP, I can leave a little bit back. So if for whatever reason I found out that TSP was my happy place, I can go back.”
John Mason: That’s such a wonderful point. Transferring TSP in 2025 is so much better and easier than it was in 2010 when I began my career, because it was like you get two withdrawals and then you had to close TSP.
You have one partial and one full, and that was it. Now for the bulk of our clients, we’ll move the bulk of Thrift Savings Plan. We’ll leave 10 to 25,000 behind, and if for whatever reason they see our statement and they see advisor fees every quarter, and if at any point we’re not providing value that’s equal to or in excess of that fee, we will gladly help our clients transfer that money right back to Thrift Savings Plan through a TSP 60. We’ll do the online form, we’ll populate the forms from Axos. We want our clients to be happy.
It’s very rare that, I would say that, you know, for this person, just to consider the value that a real financial planning team can provide, and is paying, ooh, this is fun. Let’s say that the fee’s $10,000 to a planner. So he could pay X, Y, Z planner 10,000, or he could pay us 10,000. He has two options. He can pay that out of his checking account, or he can pay it out of his IRA.
Tommy Blackburn: Which one’s better?
John Mason: Which one’s better? Well, why don’t you share with the audience, would you rather pay 10,000 from your post-tax checking account, or would you rather pay it from another source?
Tommy Blackburn: If you can pay it from your IRA, that’s the way you want to do it, because you think about it, money’s gone in, it hasn’t been taxed, and our fee comes out as a tax free distribution. Now there are limits.
We can’t, and if there are also after tax assets or we can’t like attach all the fees to this, the IRS is aware of what you’re doing, that’s bad. But if it’s just an IRA or the portion that we bill on that IRA, that is the most tax efficient way to pay, because again, you needed to pay, in this example, $10,000.
Well, if it’s us, 10,000, doesn’t matter whether it came from an IRA or it came from your checking account. We’re indifferent. But to you it would’ve, it really only cost you, well, the alternative is if you paid it out of your bank account, it probably cost you 13,000, ’cause you had to earn 13, 15,000 pay taxed in net 10 to then turn it around to us.
Or the other one, you put 10 in that was never taxed and it came out tax free. So it was a true 10 to you. You are much better off paying pre-tax with pre-tax assets, better. Yeah. Saves you money.
John Mason: That’s a good story. And we’re not opposed to the, you know, charge somebody a fee on their checking account or credit card, but ultimately we are primarily asset under management charging our clients and clients seem to like it. It seems to work well for us, and there’s tax advantages to it if you do it the right way. One last thought on should you move money out of TSP, this person’s probably not military, but there are military members who have contributed to TSP who have post-tax, or what do they call them, Tommy.
They don’t call it post-tax. They call it, yes, TXP exempt contributions. So post-tax money that went in when they were in a war zone or in the bad land somewhere. Well, in order to get that money converted to Roth tax free as of May 8th, 2025, the only way to get that money into a Roth is to do a TSP transfer out to an IRA to get that amount converted to Roth where it grows tax free for the rest of your life.
Like we said in a previous episode that we recorded today, “How do people do this without you?: Is one of the common question or thankful compliments that we get from clients. “How do they do it without you?” And the other one that we said on the last episode was, “I have a guy, I have a team. I know I have somebody that I can turn to.” And so the question back to this audience, person or listener would be, “Do you have a guide? Do you have a girl? Do you have a team? Do you have somebody you can trust when stuff throws your curve ball?” And if you don’t think you need one, does your spouse need one?
And maybe it does make sense to figure out a way to establish a relationship with a qualified firm, either for yourself, while you’re both alive or for your surviving spouse later.
Tommy Blackburn: I think, John, if hopefully it’s a good timing for one of our sayings. We’ve got a lot of good ones that are sometimes, you know, good to bring out. To your point, do you need somebody? You need a team? I think the saying is, you only live, retire, and die one time. Typically, you only do one time. We do it hundreds of times.
John Mason: That’s absolutely right.
Tommy Blackburn: Yeah. Do you want to go alone or do you want to have the ex, the experience on your side?
John Mason: Well, Tommy, I think we’ve done a good job answering this question. Like, big shout out to the viewer. Thank you. That was an awesome question.
Tommy Blackburn: Yes, I agree. Thank you. And to please, the rest of the audience, we really enjoy it. So please send us, send us questions if you have them that we can work with.
John Mason: That’s right. MasonFP Like Mason Financial Planning @masonllc.net. MasonFP@masonllc.net.
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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 in every episode, feeling educated and empowered to make positive changes in your financial plan.
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