retirement calculator

[epidural man]

Hey,

There used to be a website - Stay Navy - I can't find that anymore.

Does anyone have a good website that will help calculate if it is worth staying in the military or not?

I type in military retirement calculator and get the DFAS website that tells you HOW to calculate it...I get an Air Force website that has me input a ton of data that I have no idea what they are (dates and such) - but I can't find a useful website.

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[Shikima]

This work?

http://www.military.com/benefits/military-pay/computing-retired-military-pay.html

 

[epidural man]

No.

Stay Navy used to calculate a bunch of stuff - your retirement amount, healthcare costs or savings, how much you can make if you left - then figured if it was better to stay or go. It was pretty cool.

I can't find it - nor can I find anything like it.

 

[pgg]

The Navy calculator was not useful to me. It's aimed at the line, not us.

Here's my math behind stay or go:

Decide on a cash value for the retirement you'd get. Lots of ways to calculate this, but you can't make any meaningful comparisons to what you could do with a higher civilian salary if you don't figure out a reasonable cash value for the pension benefit.

I chose to use the cost of an inflation-indexed, single premium immediate annuity that would pay the same as the Navy retirement. At the time I did the math, I was due a $60,322/year pension. One of quotes I got was a $3676/year benefit per $100,000 premium, which gave me a cash value of $1.64 million for the "value" of the Navy retirement.

At that point, I needed to stay 8 years past my ADSO to get the retirement. If I left after my ADSO, I'd get $0. If I stayed for 8 more, Id get $1.64M. Therefore, for the extra 8 years, the Navy is effectively putting about $200K/year ($1.64M / 8) into a pre-tax defined benefit plan.

With a pair of 4-year MSP contracts in anesthesiology, assuming O5 rank for the bulk of those 8 years, my ordinary Navy pay is in the $250-275K/y range. Add the $200K/year pension investment on my behalf, and effectively the Navy is paying $450-475/y during those 8 years.

To beat that as a civilian, I'd have to earn at least $450-475/year (W-2 not 1099) and save $200K+. The tax differences between the two situations push the needed civilian salary a little higher.

Ultimately, I decided that the civilian lifestyle and job (in)security that accompanies many of the anesthesia jobs out there that pay $500K+ were not likely to be better than what I've got in the Navy, so I stayed.


Many caveats in the above
- it's purely financial math.
- but it's financial math with gaps - what's the value of earlier partnership in a civilian practice if you leave service X years earlier? not $0.
- tax differences are not straightforward, and may be large or small, but they do favor staying in the military.
- it ignores the professional risk/benefit to staying in the milmed system, which varies a lot by specialty, service, location, and other factors.
- deployments and PCS moves are hard to put a dollar value on.
- transferring Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits may add to the value of staying in.

 

[pgg]

I can't find it - nor can I find anything like it.

A couple years ago when I did the math above, a whole bunch of people asked me about my methods. We all agreed that the available online calculators sucked.

So, I toyed around with making my own online milmed retirement calculator. Here it is

http://pggweb.com/miltarypay.html


It is not "done" or fully debugged. I spent a couple days playing with it because it was an interesting and relevant problem to me at the time. Some people do crossword puzzles. I have other projects I'm working on these days, and I doubt I'll return to finish this calculator.

It should go without saying that there's no warranty or guarantee of accuracy. It uses the 2013 pay tables so it's a bit outdated. (It was hardwired to assume it was being run in 2013, but the "now" tag to the left of the 2013-14 line shouldn't make any difference.)

 

[j4pac]

A couple years ago when I did the math above, a whole bunch of people asked me about my methods. We all agreed that the available online calculators sucked.

So, I toyed around with making my own online milmed retirement calculator. Here it is

http://pggweb.com/miltarypay.html


It is not "done" or fully debugged. I spent a couple days playing with it because it was an interesting and relevant problem to me at the time. Some people do crossword puzzles. I have other projects I'm working on these days, and I doubt I'll return to finish this calculator.

It should go without saying that there's no warranty or guarantee of accuracy. It uses the 2013 pay tables so it's a bit outdated. (It was hardwired to assume it was being run in 2013, but the "now" tag to the left of the 2013-14 line shouldn't make any difference.)

You should at least get a NAM for that.

 

[epidural man]

A couple years ago when I did the math above, a whole bunch of people asked me about my methods. We all agreed that the available online calculators sucked.

So, I toyed around with making my own online milmed retirement calculator. Here it is

http://pggweb.com/miltarypay.html


It is not "done" or fully debugged. I spent a couple days playing with it because it was an interesting and relevant problem to me at the time. Some people do crossword puzzles. I have other projects I'm working on these days, and I doubt I'll return to finish this calculator.

It should go without saying that there's no warranty or guarantee of accuracy. It uses the 2013 pay tables so it's a bit outdated. (It was hardwired to assume it was being run in 2013, but the "now" tag to the left of the 2013-14 line shouldn't make any difference.)

this is a good start for me.

however, my retirement pay is reduced by about 40% for ex.

 

[pgg]

however, my retirement pay is reduced by about 40% for ex.

Ouch.

 

[Gerudo]

pgg,

Thanks for sharing that calculator. It answered a few questions I had about pay.

 

[Gastrapathy]

I know a guy who split at 18 so his ex wouldn't get half his pension. He said he lost the pension " in the fire"