adding to TSP after Retirement

[brehm1]

Several postings here have said that once a Federal Employee Retires he can no longer add to his TSP. I recently took a retirement class and was told you can create a traditional IRA after retirement, add money to it, and roll over to the TSP. Is that not correct. Only problem with creating a new IRA on the outside is the limits based on income.

[crondanet5]

I suspect the standard rules for any IRA/401k apply here. First, you would need employment income from which money could be contributed to a new IRA/401k. Then you would have to change employers to roll your new IRA/401k into your existing TSP account. I would personally not recommend it. If you roll the "new" IRA/401k from the employer sponsored program into a brokerage account you can take advantage of ETFs and individual stocks. Wouldn't you have liked to own a thousand shares of Netflix purchased 1 January in a tax deferred status? Can't currently do that in the TSP. But you could have done it in a self directed rollover IRA/401k.

[hugehail]

I suspect the standard rules for any IRA/401k apply here. First, you would need employment income from which money could be contributed to a new IRA/401k. Then you would have to change employers to roll your new IRA/401k into your existing TSP account. I would personally not recommend it. If you roll the "new" IRA/401k from the employer sponsored program into a brokerage account you can take advantage of ETFs and individual stocks. Wouldn't you have liked to own a thousand shares of Netflix purchased 1 January in a tax deferred status? Can't currently do that in the TSP. But you could have done it in a self directed rollover IRA/401k.

Instead of rolling your IRA into your TSP account when you retire, why not create or maintain a IRA brokerage account, and then when you retire, just roll your TSP into this account? Then you can trade on this account and hopefully make a few percent a year. While I will not be high risk in this scenario, I would definitely try to take advantage of any 2008/09 type crashes to make good money even in retirement.