The military will give you up to 5% more pay for contributing to TSP! Are you willing to switch to the new TSP savings plan?

I have never been one for the stock market and such investment plans. Instead I've invested in land, gold and silver. I was involved in such a plan once with an employer I worked for, until the plan went south and I was left with out. I guess for a young guy starting out, with no choice, the 5%, if automatically taken out wouldn't be missed. One thing to remember no matter what you do, it takes discipline to save.

If you can put the 5% in for an immediate 100% return every payday, there is no other deal like it on the planet. If you can do 10%, even better. 5% that you never see usually isn't as bad as the naysayers assert. Look at it this way. If you do 5% for 20-30 years, your money at 60 with the annuity will be vastly more than the 40-60% Done right, it will be 100%. You just don't get it at 45 or whatever. I did the equivalent on the civil service side and wound up retiring to get a pay raise. Not a bad place to be.

The disciplined saver could really make out with this plan, but extremely hard for the family that has a tight budget and is living paycheck to paycheck. The perceived savings for the government are tremendous though. I am still on the fence about this one and would not personally switch my retirement if I were in a position to do so.