The January returns for the Thrift Savings Plan are in. Before you think back to the roller coaster December in the stock market and decide you can’t look, take a deep breath and remember, you’re investing long-term here.

The C fund, which tracks the S&P 500, was down 5.98 percent in January. Yes, that’s a decent-sized hit—if you’re cashing out soon. And if you’re cashing out soon, you wouldn’t want to be too heavily in the C fund anyway. You would likely be more interested in the G fund, which brings you the return of Treasury bills. The G fund gained a third of one percent in January, which is right in line with the returns during last year.

The S fund (down a bit over six percent) and the I fund (down about 8.5 percent) also got dinged by the volatility of the market in January. The Lifecycle funds fell from about one percent to over five last month.

Fortunately, it appears that the message about moving money from fund to fund is getting through. Tom Trabucco, TSP's director of external affairs, told me this afternoon that on the day of biggest turmoil, only 40,000 TSP participants moved money out of the equity funds and into the “safer” G and F funds. I thought that was a lot; but Tom reminded me that the TSP has over four million participants. So one percent of people doing the wrong thing actually isn’t too bad.

Try to think of it this way: Each dollar’s worth of the C fund that you bought in December cost you only 94 cents during the month of January (on average). Using the same thinking, you’re getting an eight percent discount on the I fund; the S is six percent off; and the L funds are all on sale too. Think of it as a January White Sale for your TSP account. Or the Six Percent Solution to grow your TSP account even faster than last month.

Rose (frose@federalnewsradio.com) is the co-host of “Your Turn with Mike Causey” on Federal News Radio AM 1050, which can be heard each Wednesday at 10a.m. EST. Hear archived programs on FederalNewsRadio.com.