Active Military Driving $80K+ cars?

[Anonymous]

Active military driving $80,000+ cars ?

That's nothing. Yesterday I saw several active military driving $10 million tanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Military discounts for trucks and SUVs can be pretty huge.

Depends on the model and how well you can negotiate. For my SUV I got a better price negotiating vs. the military discount. The only good discounts are home depot, lowes and disney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Active military driving $80,000+ cars ?

That's nothing. Yesterday I saw several active military driving $10 million tanks.

There are some on base but they are usually high up or have spouses making a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op checking back in. FWIW the three families I am referring to have 2, 3 and 3 kids respectively, and the parents are around 40yrs old. So I assume they are higher ranking officers with years of military experience. One sometimes comes to school in what appears to be a flight suit type uniform.

One has a spouse that is a teacher, another has a HR type role for a Fed agency, the third I have no idea. I genuinely have no clue what officers make, I clearly don't know their family or personal financial situation. And those details are none of my business. It just surprised me to see the only military parents in my kids classes all driving such expensive vehicles. I didn't know if they got free or subsidized housing, which would be huge. Or that maybe officer can make more than I would have guessed. The only ~$40yo parents (not young people or singles) we know with multiple kids that drive $100K cars are lawyers or doctors So our perspective is clearly bias.

They are higher ranking officers or retirees who have good jobs afterward. They get paid less than civilian and given a housing allowance. It actually sucks as they only include salary for retirement so it really hurts vs. helps. Enlisted don't make very much.

I drive a $50K car. What is the big deal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op checking back in. FWIW the three families I am referring to have 2, 3 and 3 kids respectively, and the parents are around 40yrs old. So I assume they are higher ranking officers with years of military experience. One sometimes comes to school in what appears to be a flight suit type uniform.

One has a spouse that is a teacher, another has a HR type role for a Fed agency, the third I have no idea. I genuinely have no clue what officers make, I clearly don't know their family or personal financial situation. And those details are none of my business. It just surprised me to see the only military parents in my kids classes all driving such expensive vehicles. I didn't know if they got free or subsidized housing, which would be huge. Or that maybe officer can make more than I would have guessed. The only ~$40yo parents (not young people or singles) we know with multiple kids that drive $100K cars are lawyers or doctors So our perspective is clearly bias.

If they are in a flight suit they are higher level officers and probably doing very well. They also probably get special duty pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The pay is more than you think and the benefits off-set expenses

Our family take home pay after taxes and TSP is $20K/month. One military and one civilian with similar take home pay.

We have lower expenses with miitary benefits
- subsidized day care (only $500/kid when we used it)
- student loan forgiveness ($100K of student loans forgiven)
- Defined benefit retirement with no employee contribution (will be about $90K/year)
-GI Bill transfer to dependants for college expenses and instate tuition

We drive nicer cars, but so not pay private school tuition - opted for the expensive house in a good school cluster

A lot of these perks are newer as my spouse never got loan forgiveness, defined benefit or GI bill. He had a different kind of education plan and could have paid into the GI bill but couldn't afford it at the time.

Getting a subsidized day care spot is very difficult depending on your job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Running joke in military circles actually. Many, many have cars above means.

This OP. It's not new.

[Anonymous]

These people have a chosen a career which may mean dying for others, including you, and you are perturbed they aren’t driving a Ford Fiesta?
Huh.

[Anonymous]

It’s people not good with their money. My husband is former military and sometimes
you’d get a signing bonus to extend your service for another 3 or 6 years or whatever. You could get a chunk of change and then guys would waste it on one nice car or a boat or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op checking back in. FWIW the three families I am referring to have 2, 3 and 3 kids respectively, and the parents are around 40yrs old. So I assume they are higher ranking officers with years of military experience. One sometimes comes to school in what appears to be a flight suit type uniform.

One has a spouse that is a teacher, another has a HR type role for a Fed agency, the third I have no idea. I genuinely have no clue what officers make, I clearly don't know their family or personal financial situation. And those details are none of my business. It just surprised me to see the only military parents in my kids classes all driving such expensive vehicles. I didn't know if they got free or subsidized housing, which would be huge. Or that maybe officer can make more than I would have guessed. The only ~$40yo parents (not young people or singles) we know with multiple kids that drive $100K cars are lawyers or doctors So our perspective is clearly bias.

If they are in a flight suit they are higher level officers and probably doing very well. They also probably get special duty pay.

? My cousin got his wings as a second lieutenant

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These people have a chosen a career which may mean dying for others, including you, and you are perturbed they aren’t driving a Ford Fiesta?
Huh.

Tell me more about the casualty rate for military lawyers

[Anonymous]

OP, you know sooo little about Washington. Family Money matters more than anything else.

[Anonymous]

Lots of people treat Catholic school as a cheap private even if they're not Catholic.

A military family using Catholic school can live in a cheap area with bad public schools and get their entire housing cost covered by BAH.

Imagine what kind of car you could drive if you didn't have to pay a dime for housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pay is more than you think and the benefits off-set expenses

Our family take home pay after taxes and TSP is $20K/month. One military and one civilian with similar take home pay.

We have lower expenses with miitary benefits
- subsidized day care (only $500/kid when we used it)
- student loan forgiveness ($100K of student loans forgiven)
- Defined benefit retirement with no employee contribution (will be about $90K/year)
-GI Bill transfer to dependants for college expenses and instate tuition

We drive nicer cars, but so not pay private school tuition - opted for the expensive house in a good school cluster

A lot of these perks are newer as my spouse never got loan forgiveness, defined benefit or GI bill. He had a different kind of education plan and could have paid into the GI bill but couldn't afford it at the time.

Getting a subsidized day care spot is very difficult depending on your job.

I accepted my commission in 2004, tranferred my GI Bill in 2010, and loans were forgiven in 2018. I never had an issue getting dod day care - all three of my kids attended

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pay is more than you think and the benefits off-set expenses

Our family take home pay after taxes and TSP is $20K/month. One military and one civilian with similar take home pay.

We have lower expenses with miitary benefits
- subsidized day care (only $500/kid when we used it)
- student loan forgiveness ($100K of student loans forgiven)
- Defined benefit retirement with no employee contribution (will be about $90K/year)
-GI Bill transfer to dependants for college expenses and instate tuition

We drive nicer cars, but so not pay private school tuition - opted for the expensive house in a good school cluster

A lot of these perks are newer as my spouse never got loan forgiveness, defined benefit or GI bill. He had a different kind of education plan and could have paid into the GI bill but couldn't afford it at the time.

Getting a subsidized day care spot is very difficult depending on your job.

I accepted my commission in 2004, tranferred my GI Bill in 2010, and loans were forgiven in 2018. I never had an issue getting dod day care - all three of my kids attended

You were fortunate. And, newer to the military.