Nords makes Forbes

[Nords]

My belated thanks, everyone! I’m still catching up from FinCon and the Military Influencer Conference.

Does anyone else have the sneaking feeling that a lot of readers could come away with "You can only do this if you have a military pension"?

Yep, mostly because this article barely skims the surface of the finances. I always try to emphasize the savings & investments, and every time the interviewer pulls the discussion back to the pension.

If it’s any consolation, I analyzed the last 17 years of retirement spending and determined that it could’ve been supported from our investments alone. I pulled most of the data from our old threads “How much did you spend last year?” like this one:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/how-much-did-you-spend-in-2010-a-53971.html#post1018499

Here’s the result:
https://the-military-guide.com/retirement-spending-smile/

At the rate he's going Nord's will soon be living off ad revenue.

I suspect the charities he supports will be getting a little bump since he donates any profits from his book to them.

Not quite. The-Military-Guide is owned by Ryan Guina of TheMilitaryWallet (and CashMoneyLife). He maintains TMG (and keeps all the revenue) while I supply most of the content. That way I don’t have to worry about maintaining the blog (especially during travel) and I get a free book ad with each blog post.

I sold the site in 2013. The buyer’s “price” was a large donation to a military-friendly charity. I continue to donate all of my writing revenue to charity. The Forbes ad revenue (and clicks) won’t give me more money, but I am seeing a spike in book sales. Those royalties will get donated.

Never been in service, so I wonder how many ex-GI with the same benefits of pension and healthcare fail to attain the same FI status.
I have been here long enough to know that Nords has been making efforts to educate other veterans about financial matters. As it did not apply to me as a civilian, I did not read the literature that he broadcasts, but when he was active here on this forum, he described seeing so many who were clueless.

There’s no data to analyze (let alone to support) for the answer, and DoD sure isn’t interested.

A sustained savings rate of 40% will generally reach FI in about 20 years, even without a military pension. Indeed, this conundrum is what led to us starting the book project about 14 years ago.

A 2004 survey noted that of the 15% of servicemembers who reached retirement, over 85% of them immediately started a bridge career. (In other words it’s unlikely that they were FI.) That means only about 2% of U.S. servicemembers reached FI during their military service. Or at least it means that they were unable/uninterested in working, and that survey data is probably contaminated by selection bias.

I’m sure that some vets who did not reach military retirement still went on to reach FI in other ways, but I doubt it was anywhere near the 2% figure mentioned above.

Having said that, every dual-military couple I’ve ever heard from (over 20 of them) who has achieved at least a Reserve pension has achieved FI.

 

[NW-Bound]

A 2004 survey noted that of the 15% of servicemembers who reached retirement, over 85% of them immediately started a bridge career. (In other words it’s unlikely that they were FI.) That means only about 2% of U.S. servicemembers reached FI during their military service. Or at least it means that they were unable/uninterested in working, and that survey data is probably contaminated by selection bias...

To completely stop working in one's mid 40s is quite unconventional. I suspect many continue to work because they feel they are too young to retire.

And then, even if they can live on just their pension and savings, most will think that by working they will have even more money for "stuff". It's a matter of priority, as always.

Having said that, every dual-military couple I’ve ever heard from (over 20 of them) who has achieved at least a Reserve pension has achieved FI.

This is more interesting. There's something here. Perhaps such a couple has a more mutual understanding and support for calling it quit. A civilian spouse may not understand why the ex-GI spouse would want to putz around at such a young age.

This can be the subject for a sociologist to study.

 

[deserat]

Having said that, every dual-military couple I’ve ever heard from (over 20 of them) who has achieved at least a Reserve pension has achieved FI.

Yes - I did it both married and divorced...it's the savings part - LBYM.....also looking at it in terms of different streams of income for retirement that are turned on at different times, making one's reliance on investments diminish over time....sort of. In any case, internalizing the ideas of self-discipline as externally applied by the military can truly make your life easier in the long run.

I am surprised at the 2% number...thought it would be higher.