The Federal Employee Advocates Team

Vince Bono is the founder of Federal Employee Advocates, and is a leading expert in matters that could impact federal employees both legally and financially. Vince graduated from Seton Hall Law School where he specialized in Financial & Labor Law and immediately began to help federal employees traverse through their confusing maze of benefits. Every month through Federal Employee Advocates, Vince shows over 1,000,000 federal employees how to save money and better plan for their retirement. As an aside, in 1982 Vince wrote the CBS TV Movie of the Week “The Toughest Man in the World” as a favor to his friend Lawrence Tureaud, who many of you might know by his nick name “Mr.T." Having the entrepreneurial spirit in 1991 Vince, tired of paying long distance phone bills that exceeded $5000 per month, started a long distance telephone company to compete with AT&T called Vista International Communications. In 1997 Vince sold Vista to an AT&T subsidiary. His phone bill is now under $100 a month. He calls it “Poetic Justice."

When is the best time to start collecting Social Security?

CSRS (Civil Service Retirement System) and FERS (Federal Employees Retirement System) retirees are eligible to collect Social Security under certain circumstances. While FERS retirees receive Social Security benefits, CSRS retirees may receive benefits if they worked 40 quarters, 10 years in the private sector. CSRS retiree benefits can be subject to reduction by either GPO … Read more

The 4 most common questions federal employees ask about FEGLI

The Federal Employee Group Life Insurance program is the largest group life insurance program in the world, covering over 4 million federal employees, retirees, and their family members. Quite a few of those covered employees don’t truly understand what they have in coverage and what their options are. They signed up for whatever options sounded … Read more

The Best States “Tax-Wise” For A Federal Employee To Retire

Most pre-retirement planning meetings we have with Federal Employees primarily focus on deciding at what age to retire or what the approximate expected income will be. These are critical questions to discuss prior to approaching your retirement. Yet, there is another question that should be part of the planning process: Where to retire? There are … Read more