This post is dedicated — and highly relevant — to the United States uniformed services.
(The Fourth of July was two weeks ago.  Better late than never!)


Servicemembers have two powerful tools for retirement preparation: the US Military Pension and the Thrift Savings Plan.

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The Pension

Members of the US uniformed services are eligible to receive a pension in retirement after 20 years of service.  For members who entered active duty after September 8th 1980, their pension pay is equal to:

At 20 years, the pension is 50% of the three-year average highest base pay; at 30 years, it's 75%; at 40 years, 100%.  At 19.5 years of service?  0%.  The system used to max out at 75%, but the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act removed this cap.  To protect retired servicemembers from inflation, the dollar value of the pension is subject to Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLAs) that are tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Pension-paying positions are getting harder to find these days, so having one is a major benefit. Imagine: if you maintained a 50%+ savings rate prior to retirement, the pension alone could 100% cover your expenses!  Additional income from the money you saved and invested would be icing on a rather incredible guaranteed early retirement cake.  Social Security should also kick in somewhere between 62 and 70, further sweetening the deal.

Is it possible to save 50% as a servicemember?  Honestly, I have absolutely no idea.  Servicemembers do have financial challenges such as frequent, unexpected relocations and deployments.  But how about 40% or 30%?  Even at those rates, the math works out very much in your favor.

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The Thrift Savings Plan

There's more, and this applies even to those who don't stay in the service for 20+ years.

The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is a defined contribution plan, the uniformed services' equivalent of the 401(k).  I've written an overview of the TSP's benefits, terms and conditions and added it to the Investment Plans section of the site.

All servicemembers are eligible to participate.  The terms of this plan are incredibly good, offering a selection of high-quality investment options at a shockingly low 0.025% expense ratio (all-in annual fee).

Like an IRA, the TSP comes in both Traditional (contributions made with pre-tax dollars) and Roth (contributions made with post-tax dollars) versions; money invested in either version is never subject to tax on capital gains or dividends.

After leaving the service, money in the TSP can be left alone or rolled over into a (Roth) IRA.  If rolled over, the TSP principal will be available for tax- and penalty-free withdrawal to help cover expenses until the TSP investment earnings become available at age 59.5 and Social Security kicks in at age 62-70.

See the Thrift Savings Plan overview for more information.

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Are you eligible or the TSP, and if so, do you contribute to it?

What are the financial challenges of being a servicemember?  What sorts of savings rates are feasible?

For those who are interested in such things, I performed major updates on my Biography, which now includes a sketch of my current budget and financial situation.  To facilitate a series of reader case studies (that I am extremely excited about), I've also added a Contact page.

The Post-It note above my computer monitor reads 'CONTENT FIRST', but sometimes...

My Financial Independence-related blog roll has also been added to the right sidebar.  Note the distinct lack of jumping, talking, flashing, or exploding advertisements.

I'm still working on learning the intricacies of Google Custom Search, and it currently only halfway does what I want it to do.  Once I figure it out, I'll post a brief guide to my Blogging Tools page.  In the meantime, here's a nicely-organized Table of Contents which also contains a list of the posts that are still on the old assembly line.

[X1] Open Clip Art: Gear — http://openclipart.org/detail/169903/gear-by-hank0071

While some might claim that they're 'eating for the flavor', at the end of the day... we're all eating for the calories.  It's our never-ending quest for calories that keeps even the most frugal of us coming back to the kitchen and the grocery store.

Our senses of touch and sight allow us to evaluate our food in terms of how much space it takes up and how much it weighs.  We're unable to gauge caloric content so easily.

Take this quarter-cup of extra-virgin olive oil:


How many calories do you think this contains?  One hundred calories?  Two hundred?

500 calories.

(this is easily verified: 1/4 cup = 60 milliliters, vegetable oil has a density of ~0.92 grams per milliliter [1], and lipids have an energy density of around nine food calories per gram)

Extra virgin olive oil is expensive, right?

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This information has gone stale!

Fortunately, alternative means have become available for automating your Craigslist searching.

Check out the Craigslist channel on IFTTT: https://ifttt.com/craigslist

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If your Craigslist hunting strategy involves hitting 'refresh' a whole bunch of times, there is a Better Way.

Not everyone knows about List Alert: http://www.list-alert.com/.

This needs to change.

Setting up a Craigslist alert to find me a bread machine in the East Bay is as easy as:


After hitting 'Search', you can type your email into the box and hit 'Create Alert'.  You'll have to confirm your email address to start things up.  Creating an account is optional, but it gives you the ability to quickly and easily create and edit alerts from http://www.list-alert.com/search/my_searches.cfm.

I created this alert at the beginning of the week.  Taken yesterday evening:

Bread-y success!

I haven't turned the alert off yet, so they keep coming in:


If you're an EBay user, you can do something very similar by saving a search and selecting 'sign up for emails'.

Happy robo-baking!

(or happy... whatever it is you do on Craigslist)

Over a century ago, stage magician Nevil Maskelyne wrote in The Magic Circular (1):

"It is an experience common to all men to find that, on any special occasion, such as the production of a magical effect for the first time in public, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Whether we must attribute this to the malignity of matter or to the total depravity of inanimate things, whether the exciting cause is hurry, worry, or what not, the fact remains."

The cargo ship Ital Florida runs into some... issues in June 2007 (X1)