Reply to Active Military Driving $80K+ cars?

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Active Military Driving $80K+ cars?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well we have a DoD budget of over $700 Billion a year so that explains a lot of it.   [b]An O6 Captain(18 years service)  in the Navy grosses $138k plus  a housing allowance with great heath/dental benefits.  And the 4 years at the Academy counts towards service.  [/b]After 20 years of service they will get a pension and can get a job in the private sector.

In The DC metro area you see the expensive cars driven by officer families.  Not the case with enlisted personnel.  You do your 20 years in the officer cadre and then move to the private sector.  You never  accrued educational  debt so  it is easier to spend on quality cars.  Plus with a generous  pension,  they do not have to  save/invest as ordinary citizens.  I'm the son of a retired Navy Captain.[/quote]

Are there really that many people that become an O6 after just 14 years of service, after being in the academy for 4 years?   That's a 36 year old Captain!
My Dh is a retired Marine officer, and most people we knew, after 14 years of actual service were a couple years into being an 04.   My Dh retired 10 years ago, have things really changed that much?[/quote]

An O4 w/20 would still get like 115k a year in pay, plus they will also get over 40k a year in Base Allocated Housing here. [/quote]

So a person in their early 40s with a college degree that has worked for the same employer for 20 years is making $165/year in the DC area.   Is that really considered high income?[/quote]

It's not the same--the officer's pay is equivalent to way more than 165k in the private sector. That's because the Base Allocated Housing is nontaxable, plus most military do not pay state income tax b/c of where their home of record is.  And there are additional tax breaks for military.

Plus there is the pension and ohter benefits.

And then you add in the fact many have spouses that work, and the spouse does not pay state income tax either because they can claim the same home of record. [/quote]

Not my experience that "most do not pay state income tax."  For most of my Dh's career we lived in our home state of record.
Still what exactly is "way more than $165k" and is it a high income for someone with a degree and 20 years of experience with the same employer?[/quote]

Then you did it wrong. A stent in Alaska is really the key to maximizing state income tax benefits [/quote]

Very few (if any) opportunities for a Marine officer to get stationed in Alaska, especially with my Dh's MOS.  Our state of record was CA, where there were many billets he could be placed (and was placed.) [/quote]

Marines is kind of an exception because so many are in CA and North Carolina. More active duty army (and air force) are stationed in Texas than anywhere else, and that's a state w/no income tax.  Huge number of air force and navy in Florida, too.[/quote]

Right, but the pp (you?)  were telling that we "did it wrong" by not doing a "stent in Alaska."  I'm telling you that is very unlikley there was any opportunity for us to "do it right" in Alaska.  Maybe there could be a B-billet as the active duty staff at a reserve unit or some recruiting station?   Maybe?   But there'd be very few opportunities for that and chances of those very specific billets being available at the same time my Dh was due to PCS is miniscule.  
A lot of posters here seem to know military members who got lucky with everything going a certain way as far as billets/duty stations available, but not every military member lucks out like that.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics