The Foreign Service Journal, April 2021

76 APRIL 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL RETIREMENT SUPPLEMENT on retiree issues. A larger collection of fact sheets, guides and videos is on the AFSA Retirement Services webpage at www.afsa. org/retirement-services. 11. Age Milestones. Are you approach- ing age 62 and need to decide when to file for Social Security? Are you approaching 65 and need to decide whether to sign up for Medicare Part B (note that there are stiff financial penalties for signing up late)? Are you approaching 72 and need to figure out what to do about required mini- mum distributions (RMDs) from your investments? AFSA’s Retirement Services webpage has information on all these topics, including videos of presentations at AFSA by experts on Social Security, Medicare Part B and TSP. 12. AFSA Membership. The final poten- tial pitfall is letting your AFSA member- ship lapse. Membership qualifies you to be assisted by AFSA’s Retirement Benefits Counselor Dolores Brown (brown@afsa. org) if you have questions or concerns about retirement benefits. Your dues help AFSA defend both the active-duty Foreign Service and the earned retirement ben- efits of Foreign Service annuitants. If your membership depends on you writing a check each year, please switch frompaper billing to paying dues via annu- ity deduction. Switching will ensure that your membership does not inadvertently lapse due to lost or unnoticedmail. Con- tact member@afsa.org tomake the switch. If you have colleagues who are not AFSA members, please urge them to join. Whether they elected not to join at the start of their career or resigned years ago for some transient reason, AFSA needs them now to boost our strength. The benefits of membership are detailed at www.afsa.org/membership, which includes a link to join online. n