So what do you do all day in early retirement? For starters, you can volunteer at the brand-new USS ARIZONA Memorial Visitor's Center. Spouse wangled a hardhat tour of the museums as they get ready for their 7 December opening on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. USS ARIZONA Memorial and Battleship ...
Let's wrap up the "Six months before retirement" series of posts with a few odds & ends on how to spend your last days around the office. Various groups at your command will want to say their goodbyes separately from your retirement ceremony. This usually involves a lunch or even a dinner party. Since they're ...
You've been waiting years for this exit interview! It's finally time to tell your chain of command exactly what you think of them!! All of your weapons are ready to fire, the missiles are ready for launch, and you have tons of bombs to drop. You've been holding back far too long and the military can't possibly ...
Next time you're chatting with a bunch of veterans, ask them how their discharge physicals went-- and listen to their groans of pain. But seriously, take a few minutes to ask these people what they wish they'd done differently during their physicals. Heed their advice and don't repeat their oversights! The basic ...
It shouldn't be so complicated in a paperless electronic military, but after you leave you're going to need a number of different pieces of paper for your own personal records. You'll have to keep track of some of them for the rest of your life, and they're almost impossible to correct or replace after you leave the ...
Ideally by six months before retirement the big decisions have been made. The rest is "just" a matter of executing your plans and handling the surprises. Before you start into your checklist details, take a moment to review your progress. By now you and your family have discussed the complicated issues. While there ...
The first part of this post discussed when to file your retirement request and the big-picture items to consider for your finances, departure date, and medical/dental checks. It also discussed how to spread the news among co-workers, friends, & family. Neither one of these posts is a detailed checklist-- your ...
I'd like to dedicate this post to Tomcat98 from Early-Retirement.org, a good friend who's let his service know that they'll only be enjoying his services for another 11+ months. He's been planning this one for a long time, folks, and he has all sorts of ideas on what he's going to do all day. Enjoy yourself, ...
"Your assignment officer wants to send us to... Hawaii?!?" When we arrived here over 20 years ago, Hawaii seemed like a consolation prize for military who couldn't get orders to San Diego. Spouse and I spent our first eight years at duty stations on the East Coast and in Europe. Graduate school in Monterey, CA ...
The last post described the Trinity Study and explained the idea of a "safe withdrawal rate" to maximize the success of a retirement portfolio. A 4% SWR is a starting point, one put forward over a decade ago and appearing in print most frequently. It's straightforward, it has a high success rate, and it adjusts for ...
The short answer: your retirement savings portfolio needs to be about 25 times the size of your net annual retirement spending. If you want to spend $40,000/year in retirement and you don't have any pension or other income, then you're going to need a million bucks in the bank. If you have a military pension, ...
We're military veterans, not financial advisors. We're trying to share what we've learned and to pay it forward – but you have to make your own decisions.
What worked for us will probably work for you, but unfortunately, we can’t guarantee it. Let us know if something’s not working for you, and we’ll try to figure out a better way... Continue Reading...
Doug Nordman