Your Thrift Savings Plan: By the Numbers

2012 was a banner year for the Thrift Savings Plan. Funds across the board saw marked improvements.

Kim Weaver is the Director of External Affairs the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. She told Chris Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER program that the 2012 returns aren’t something you should wave a stick at.

But before we get into the funds performance let’s look at what each fund represents.

• I-Fund: International Stocks
• S-Fund: Small and Mid-Size Stocks
• C-Fund: Tracks S&P 500
• F-Fund: Fixed Income, Bonds
• G-Fund: Treasury Funds, Never has a bad day. Doesn’t grow much, but is very safe.
• L-Funds: Lifecycle funds. Geared towards when you will be retiring. The funds become more conservative as you progress through your career.

Roth Fund: You have the same five funds you would normally have with the TSP. But instead of investing pre-taxed money and then having it taxed when you take out the money, you invested taxed money, so that when you take out the money and you are over 59.5 it is tax free, said Weaver. Right now there is only about 7-10% participation in the roth option.

Debit Ceiling: Since the G-Fund is funded by Treasury Bonds people are always concerned when the government reaches the debit ceiling. But they shouldn’t be worried because we have a make whole provision.