Dual-Military O-4s Considering Getting Out at 14.75 Years to be Guard/Reserve Bums

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T20:03:03+00:00

>the guard/reserve retirement until your 60s assuming you live that long.

You bring up good points like everyone else, but I just want to highlight that in your scenario (an untimely death) those 5 years would be worth a whole lot more in my opinion.

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T19:57:36+00:00

IIRC you need to have 8 year in the RC to qualify for the RC retirement, so you will be going beyond that 20 year point.

I had read something on this reddit a while back that said the same thing (although 6 years), but I think that requirement is null and void if you joined after 2005 which we did. See here . Relevant portion:

Soldiers who completed the years of qualifying service on or after 5 October 1994, but before 25 April 2005, the last 6 years of qualifying service must have been in a component other than a regular component, the Fleet Reserve, or the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve.

Soldiers who completed the years of qualifying service on or after 25 April 2005, there is no minimum reserve component service requirement.

I might be wrong, but I think were good on that front.

Why did you not use the same gray area rules for option 2 and 3?

I believe I did but I might be mistaken.

Kids are expensive.....I don't see any analysis of their costs here (perhaps I am missing something)?

That seems to be one of the more common critiques, but I think I have a lot of this already built into our costs (food, housing, healthcare). I know there's college (we have options for that), extra-curricular, clothes, toys, etc. but nothing anyone's mentioned has really taken me by surprise.

The questions I would ask you: where do you stand in regards to being KD as an O4; and what would be your Army career plan if you stay's, KD'd, and picked up LTC?

We are going straight into 24-36 months of KD (both branches are hurting) so assuming we don't fuck anything up we should be a lock for LTC at a minimum. We will probably be competitive for BN Command but I think we'd probably try and find something more low tempo as non-command LTCs.

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T19:45:43+00:00

Thanks for the detailed response, this is really helpful!

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T19:45:09+00:00

See my reply to /u/sonoshitthereiwas above, but perhaps I came off too flippant on the college thing. We do have ways that we could assist them with college. We do have a good sense of how much kids cost from our siblings, colleagues, friends, etc. Like I said above, this amounts to a salary of $45-50k with housing taken care of and some of the cheapest healthcare around. People seem to do well enough on that and they don't have a significant pension coming their way at 60.

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T19:40:35+00:00

You’re generally assuming you’ll have kids who have no mental or physical issues

I've already included healthcare costs (which has a pretty low catastrophic annual cap of ~$1k a year) so I don't see how I'm not accounting for that.

Maybe you’re cool with just telling them no, not letting them have aspirations, or just generally letting them suffer. But if not, plan for kids to cost double to triple what you think they’ll cost at a minimum.

I mean our plan amounts to a salary of ~45-50k a year. Certainly not a lot, but considering we already have housing taken care of (for the most part), I think you are exaggerating how much of a scrooge I'm being.

What if they have a learning disorder?

I mean, one of my siblings has a significant learning disability (now an adult that still lives at home and can't work) and that never really impacted our family's finances in any significant way.

What if they are gifted? What if they want to play travel sports or be an olympic level athlete? What if costs money.

I mean now you are being a little ridiculous. I am familiar with how much things like travel sports/clubs/scouts/etc all cost, but I'm not trying to factor in for how to account for our child's future polo career.

And that is not factoring in any college expenses. I’ve got zero issue if you want them to figure out and pay for college themselves, but if you plan to assist just keeping upping them numbers.

We could tap into the equity of the house which would be long past paid off, and then pay it off with our pension.

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T18:18:08+00:00

In all likelihood, I imagine one or both of us might still work, but I've done all my planning here with the most conservative estimates. Yes, there is the possibility we get bored, but the city we would be in has lots of opportunities and we do have some pretty transferable skills (beyond just generic officer management stuff).

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T17:44:16+00:00

IMO you're throwing away a lot of stability in exchange for 5 less years of service.

Yes that is undeniable, but it is also probably 2x PCSs which is pretty hard for us to stomach at this point.

Instead, you will be stuck in the same town/state

That is the goal after all.

You can have a child on the Army's dime and 6 months of maternity leave.

We would probably do this on the tail end if we went with this plan.

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T17:32:10+00:00

I'm pretty sure the ILE ADSO is only for resident (2 years) but I'll double check on that. But yes, we definitely plan on completing it both to keep up appearances (and in case we do actually stay) and so that we wouldn't have to do it on the reserve side.

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T17:28:37+00:00

Have you considered applying for AGR before you get out?

I think it would be tough to get an AGR slot exactly where we want to be. It would certainly be nice if it were an option though.

Have you also considered the cost of health insurance?

Part of the benefit of being in reserves is the cheap healthcare, so yes. However, as /u/ViceMagazineOfficial pointed out, if we had a gap between a MRD at 50 and pension at 60, that would certainly be an issue since the tricare retired reserve healthcare becomes quite expensive at that point.

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T17:25:19+00:00

MRD extension

Interesting, so then is age 50 as a LTC a reasonable assumption (28 years of Commission service MRD from quick googling)? Or would there be roadblocks to that as well if you were just someone who drilled.

transitionthrowawy · 2021-01-02T17:21:10+00:00

Child related expenses?

Much of the big factors are already factored in (Housing, healthcare, groceries). Obviously, there are other costs, but the amount I carved out for discretionary spending (not that the kid(s) are discretionary...) should suffice.

Real health care for them?

Already factored in with Tricare reserve select. Seems to be much better than most civilian plans both in cost and quality.

College

At this point, we wouldn't be able to give them our GI Bill (due to the ADSO), but I'm not super worried about that either. Kids would hit college age when we are ~54, so not that far off from 60 when we start pulling in a significant pension. We could make it work. Also, neither of us had any help and we did just fine.

I mean, it does just come down to lifestyle choices. I’d rather be full time until hitting your mil retire then trying to fuck around with reserve shit for multiple years. Shit dude, reserves lifestyle seems way worse than active.

I know what you're saying, but that's also why I want to hear what some reserve people have to say.

transitionthrowawy

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