The Department of Defense officials announced that service members can begin to sign up for the Thrift Savings Plan beginning October 9, 2001. The Thrift Savings Plan is a retirement and investment plan that has been available to civilian government workers since 1987. Congress extended the plan to include service members in 2000. This plan is optional and service members have to sign up for it. It is in addition to the service members’s regular retirement. Service members can contribute up to 7 percent of their basic pay to the plan. However, unlike civilian government workers in which the government matches their contributions, service members contributions to the plan will not be matched by the government.

Unlike government civilian employees in the program, service members must choose how they want their money invested. Right now, there are three funds to choose from. The funds available are G fund, which invest in special government bonds, C fund, which is tied to the stock market and the F fund, which invests in commercial bonds.

I feel this is an excellent program and can help many service members with their retirement saving plans. The only draw back is that the service member’s contributions are not matched. However, even with this draw back, it is still a good opportunity for many service member’s to start a retirement saving plan in addition to their regular retirement.