Military Retirement and Budget Planning
Do you have a good financial forecast for life after military retirement? I can't take credit for creating this Excel document, as I downloaded it from (I think) a MCCS or Military One Source financial planning page years ago. I tried to go back and find it before I retired, but couldn't...I'm thinking it was removed.
Anyhow...several years ahead of our own departure from the formation, I sat down and started playing with numbers on this very simple spreadsheet. I started with my own expected military monthly pension amount, based on different ranks, because you never really know when the military will decide to stop promoting you (while you can make some good guesses) and you may or may not just decide one day that it's time to leave it to younger folks to carry the torch. Either way, start with the take-home of whatever rank you think you'll be and go from there. Don't forget about federal taxes, though...that's one of two guarantees in life (the other being a furnace/pine box).
The most generic of expenses that apply to us all are on the sheet already, but download a copy, and you can make it your own, adding or getting rid of others as you see fit.
I would say to start with ONLY that base pay, and then, make additional sheets that factor in any additional compensation (VA, etc.) or income from any new career adventure that you think you'll take on.
After you make a few of these, you'll have a pretty broad spectrum of data that captures, on one end, the bare minimum amount that you'll be bringing in. On the other far end of the spectrum, you'll have your best-case scenario, factoring in the maximum amount of compensation and/or additional income from new lines of work.
That's all for this one. If you found this a help or a hindrance, or just have some critique to add, I'd love to hear back from you. Best of luck on the adventure. Cheers.
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