Year by year to twenty
Most pay questions get answered at a moment: what do I earn now, what will my pension be. Neither tells you the shape of the years in between — and the shape is where the decisions are.
This is arithmetic, not financial advice.
Nobody involved in this site is a certified financial planner, an accountant or a tax adviser, and none of what follows is a recommendation. What this page does is take figures you supply and add them up across twenty years, then tell you what the result shows. It does not know your full situation, it does not model your taxes, and it will not tell you what to do with the answer.
For advice from someone qualified to give it, and at no cost to you: Military OneSource provides free sessions with accredited financial counsellors, and your installation has a personal financial manager. Both are free, both are confidential, and both are better placed than any website to answer "what should I do".
This needs your grade and pay entry base date to price anything.
Set them on the profile page and the whole ledger fills in.
Year by year
| Year | Grade | Floor | Untaxed | Take-home | Spending | Surplus | Household |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12027 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 22028 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 32029 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 42030 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 52031 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 62032 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 72033 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 82034 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 92035 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 102036 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 112037 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 122038 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 132039 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 142040 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 152041 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 162042 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 172043 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 182044 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 192045 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
| 202046 | — | $5,723 | $5,723 | $5,723 | $0 | $5,723 | No dependents |
- No grade is set, so base pay cannot be priced.
Life events
Marriage, children, promotions and moves all change the money, and they change it on a date. Add the ones you expect and the ledger re-runs.
The one decision waiting at the end
Everything above is a rate. The Survivor Benefit Plan election is a single irreversible choice on a date, and twenty years of the events you recorded above are what decide it.
Deadline: Before your first entitlement to retired pay.
- You have recorded no spouse and no dependent children, so there is currently no eligible beneficiary. This changes the moment either arrives — and if that happens after you retire, the clock is one year from the event.
- Warning: IRREVERSIBLE — The election must be made BEFORE your first entitlement to retired pay — not thirty days after retirement, and not during out-processing whenever it happens to come up.
- Warning: IRREVERSIBLE — With no spouse at retirement there is no spouse concurrence to obtain. If you marry afterwards, you have one year from the marriage to elect spouse coverage — and that window is easy to miss because nothing prompts it.
- Warning: IRREVERSIBLE — You may withdraw between the 25th and 36th month of receiving retired pay, with spouse concurrence. No premium already paid is refunded. Outside that window the election stands for life.
- Premiums stop after 360 payments and at age 70, whichever is later, and coverage continues at no further cost.
- Whether to elect depends on your survivor's own income, other life insurance, health and how much risk your household can carry. That is a financial judgement — take it to an accredited financial counsellor, which is free through Military OneSource, and to your retirement services office.
Your figures
What this assumes, and what it cannot do
- No effective tax rate was entered, so no tax is deducted below and the take-home figures are GROSS. This site does not hold federal brackets, filing status or state treatment and will not guess at them — the rate from last year's return is the closest honest input.
- 20 of 20 years could not be priced from the pay tables, so their base pay reads as zero. Check that a grade is set and that a table is loaded for those years.
- Every figure is in today's dollars. No annual pay raise and no inflation are applied — a raise you have not been given is a forecast, and this is arithmetic.
- Base pay is taxable. The housing and subsistence allowances are not.
- The floor is base pay plus both allowances. Bonuses, special pay and a spouse's income sit above it because they can stop.
- Retirement contributions are shown as money in, not as a balance. No investment return is applied — this ledger does not forecast markets.
Things that are true of the pay system
These are facts about how military compensation works, not suggestions about what to do with yours. The difference matters and it is why they are phrased this way.
A third of your pay is untaxed
The housing and subsistence allowances are not taxable income. That makes the salary a civilian job would need to offer to match meaningfully higher than the gross on your pay statement. The ledger computes that figure, because it is the number a job offer should be compared against and it appears on no document you are given.
Pay rises without a promotion
Base pay steps up at time-in-service boundaries — over two years, over three, over four, then every two — whether or not you are promoted. A flat stretch on the ledger between steps is the table working, not an error.
The dependent rate is a rate, not a headcount
The housing allowance pays one rate to anyone with a dependent. Marrying moves you onto it. A first child moves you onto it if you were single. A second child adds nothing, and neither does a third. Costs rise; the allowance does not follow.
Moving changes your allowance both ways
The rate follows the duty location, not your choice of where to live. A move to a cheaper area cuts what lands in the account. Rate protection keeps your own allowance from being cut while you stay in the same place and grade, but it does not survive a move.
Nothing before twenty years pays a pension
Under either retirement system, active-duty retired pay begins at twenty years of service. The retirement account is different — under the Blended Retirement System it is yours once vested, whenever you leave. A ledger that stops at year nineteen shows income, not retirement.
A budget built on conditional pay breaks
Bonuses, special and incentive pay, and a spouse's income are real, and each can stop. That is why the ledger reports the guaranteed floor separately — not because the rest does not count, but because the floor is what is left when one of them does stop.
Where to get advice from someone qualified
- Military OneSource: free sessions with accredited financial counsellors, for you and your spouse, confidential and not reported to your command.
- Your installation's personal financial manager, through the family readiness or airman and family readiness centre. Free.
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — servicemember tools: the regulator's own material, including on the Military Lending Act.
- Thrift Savings Plan: the authority on contribution limits, the match, and vesting.
Estimates only. Not financial, legal, tax or investment advice. Rates are held for the years shown and change every January; figures are in today's dollars with no raise or inflation applied.