Federal Employees –
Check out this TSP retirement application. It graphs my account value for every day the market has been open, allows me to see how I
would have done in different funds, and provides a bunch of other information
all with zero data entry. It even takes my most recent contribution amounts and
my overall rate of return to project my retirement balance. Very cool application….it
reads my electronic TSP files and downloads the fund prices for every day the
market has been open so I don’t have to enter a single piece of data.
Might want to mention that this product is a commercial product which to use even for the first time with your account requires expenditure of money. ” The TSP Analyzer contains a full set of sample data so that prospective customers can review it with full functionality prior to deciding if they want to purchase. “
Small aside there doesn’t appear to be anything more than a generic statement about the protection of your personal data “Security–We recognize the importance of security as it relates to your Personally Identifiable Information (PII). The TSP Analyzer does not store or transmit any personal information from your participant statements.”
First I’ll point out this is my application. After looking around this website I got the sense this is where businesses and gov come together. I saw several other messages where businesses where introducing products. If this isn’t the case this thread is forum spamming and should be removed.
Regarding the expenditure of money;
All over our website you have to go to in order to download the product it informs you that is is not a free application. There is a link at the top with all the rest that says clearly says “Purchase”. Clicking on it shows a brief paragraph with the price in bold. I don’t think anything is hidden here. The sample data goes back over six years. That’s as much as possible since before that the participant statements were paper. I guess the bottom line is you can always create an Excel spreadsheets and type in your contributions, share prices for every day the market has been open for each fund, then write formulas to figure everything out considering any fund moves you might have made. I used to do this method because it bothered me that they don’t provide any tools that allow me to see my actual performance. It’s a very exhaustive process but certainly your choice. To me it was worth all the time it took to create this product, to you it might not be worth anything.
Regarding the sample data;
Our options were to either cripple the program so you couldn’t see certain functions or provide sample data with full functionality. We choose the sample data so you had no misgivings about what the product does and does not do.
Regarding Security. In the help section there is a paragraph about security;
The TSP Analyzer does not store, send, or retain information from participant TSP statements. The application does not pose a risk to your participant data. However, to use the application you must download your personal TSP statements and store them somewhere accessible to the application. The format of these statements has changed numerous times and may contain any or all of the following; name, date of birth, address, SSN, and TSP account number. You should exercise caution with having these files on your computer just as you would any other personal information. If you feel your computer security may not be sufficient to protect these statements a good safety measure might be to store them onto a thumb drive or a CD. The application can read them from either location and the CD or thumb drive could be removed when not in use.
As with any company you can never be sure they are doing the honorable thing regarding your personal information and no amount of extra wording on the part of a company should make you feel any more secure. If you are concerned about security there is a way to run it on an ‘offline’ computer.
But, all in all, I get the sense this thread is inappropriate and should be removed.
Mark,
I’m glad you pointed out it is your application. I’ve been doing the same thing since the TSP inception, though I use a cut and paste (of on line content) method vs entering individual data points and haven’t found it burdensome (though I only look every other week). I would like to point out your messages have the ‘look and feel’ of spam by announcing the way you did. The opening line implies the app is something you found rather than something you produced. Granted, you didn’t hide who is marketing the product, but the way you wrote on the forum did raise some doubts in my mind.
It looks like a decent product for those who don’t or can’t set up their own calculations and I agree, the TSP site ought to have a similar tool available to al participants.
Good luck,
Pat
Based on some feedback here and elsewhere we’ve modified the application. It will now read and display your information for free up until the end of 2008. The pricing method has also been changed to lower the initial cost.
Mark
http://www.TheTSPAnalyzer.com