Benchmark Financial Group Blog

We often say that the three-tiered retirement plan offered to federal employees rivals, or even beats, those offered within the private sector. But that doesn’t mean you should just assume that your retirement will be simple and easy. We still must pay close attention to the decisions we make along the way, so that we are more likely to retire as...

You might remember that when your parents or grandparents retired, they stopped working, and then enjoyed maybe five or ten years of retirement. In some cases members of this generation did need nursing home care at some point, but often those were seen as more of a luxury than a necessity. In either case, long-term care didn’t crimp budgets as...

You probably know that you need life insurance to protect your family, and provide necessary financial assets in the event of your passing. But there are many different types of life insurance, geared toward different needs. So as you compare policies, here are just a couple of primary ideas to keep in mind. Life insurance can provide for a...

As a federal employee, you enjoy one of the best retirement benefit systems around. But there will still be aspects of planning that are just as confusing and difficult as they are for everyone else. One of the biggest decisions you will make involves timing… When exactly can you stop working, and ease into the next phase of your life? Obviously,...

They say that practice makes perfect, and that we should do something over and over again until we get it just right. But of course, that rule simply cannot apply to everything in life. You’ll only retire once, so you can’t just keep starting over and fixing mistakes that you make along the way! But you can achieve a similar result by talking...