New retirement plan empowers service members to make investment choices

Shayna Blumenthal MBA, MS I generally waiver between thinking this is a good idea and the opposite. However, I think an unintended up side exists. When I joined the Air Force (1982) enlisted service members were very poorly compensated. Not only could I not afford to invest, the investment avenues available were priced way to high to allow me to even consider starting. I retired with very little investment knowledge and found myself racing to catch up on knowledge that my commissioned counterparts already had. I have subsequently done pretty well, but I believe this program will allow members at all levels an opportunity to learn investment strategies and provide much needed education.

My question is do soldiers understand the overall program and the risk/reward associated with each investment vehicle. I highly recommend moving money from the equities to government bonds a couple years before retiring to ensure a loss is not occurred due to the stock market.

TradeStation offers free trade for active duty. I trade my IRA account and max my TSP each year. Then I pay $50 application fee and borrow out 50% TSP to trade options, and pay back myself at 2.25%,