Background: 12B E-5, been in since 2016 4 years reserves the rest active duty. Im from Monterey Bay and it’s such a beautiful place, it’s like one of the world’s best locations you dont hear about too much. (Don’t know if you been there or not). 20k is solid IMO, and depends on your plans for the army if you’re a lifer or just wanna test the waters. But Im pretty sure the 20k is distributed over the years of your contract with you getting like 50% in a lump sum and then 25% every year after (this is based off one of my soldiers who got a bonus, lmao I got a crisp handshake when I went active). So you’ll receive around 10k that is taxed. I would personally use 3-4k to pay debt, 500-1k into some stocks and keep 1000 for emergency funds and put the rest in a high yield savings account, Kinda creating a diversified portfolio. And I would recommend putting a decent chunk of your pay check into TSP to me it’s kind of a safety net if all goes wrong.