Retired military

LLA77

LLA77

Dryer sheet wannabe
Joined
May 14, 2026
Messages
11
Location
Milwaukee
Hello everyone,

I recently joined the forum and wanted to introduce myself.

I’m 57 years old and recently retired after a 38-year military career. My wife and I live in Wisconsin, and we are in what I would describe as a “financially independent but still figuring out what comes next” phase of life.

We have no concerns about meeting our day-to-day expenses. Between pension income, other retirement-related income streams, and investments, our basic needs are covered. My wife still works, and I currently teach part-time online while exploring whether I want to pursue another full-time role in public service or simply enjoy a more flexible lifestyle.

I look forward to learning from the experience of others here and contributing where I can.
Thanks.
 
Welcome aboard. I look forward to hearing more about your experiences and plans.
 
We have a number of retired military members here (I'm one of them). It's a great way to spend the next part of your life. Please poke around the forums here and you'll find an amazing wealth of information about practically everything.
 
Welcome. Thought you might be a guy I know who retired Thursday after 38 years. Congratulations on a long and I’m guessing successful career. I served 23 active and DW served 21 active. She went government and is at 14 years so far. She is looking to retire in November on her 55th birthday. I putz’d around as a contractor for about 10 years and fully retired at 57. I would suggest not going back full time. But we are all different. The good news is you don’t have to. Get that VA package in so you get a rating.
 
Welcome LLA77. I’m a frequent visitor to this fantastic forum but rarely post.

I retired a few years ago after 30 years of active service. I am in a similar position financially. Very fortunate. A GS position happened to open up near where I retired to, and allows me to continue doing a narrowly focused aspect of what I did during active duty, without all the other “stuff”, which I’m sure you know what I mean. I thoroughly enjoy it.

Kids are fully launched, spouse is at the peak of her career in the civilian sector megacorp (she actually enjoys it) for a few more years, so we are using the time to pad the retirement accounts while purposefully enjoying life.

We intend to fully retire from paid work in the next 2-4 years.

Like Braumeister said, poke around. Lots of insightful input. I look forward to your contributions and the other comments from the great folks here.
 
Welcome and thank you for your Service. I'm an oldie around here (age that is-- 84) Enjoy retirement. You and your wife have earned it. Military life can be hard on all.
 
Welcome to the E-R forum, from someone in your immediate vicinity!
 
Thanks for joining us. Let us know if we can help in any way.

I appreciate your long c@reer in the military. Thanks for your service.
 
Welcome to the check of the month club. 21 plus years AD for me. I also taught part time while I was on AD back in the day and in about 18 months I will get another small pension from the state.
 
G POP said:
Welcome. Thought you might be a guy I know who retired Thursday after 38 years. Congratulations on a long and I’m guessing successful career. I served 23 active and DW served 21 active. She went government and is at 14 years so far. She is looking to retire in November on her 55th birthday. I putz’d around as a contractor for about 10 years and fully retired at 57. I would suggest not going back full time. But we are all different. The good news is you don’t have to. Get that VA package in so you get a rating.
Click to expand...
Not the guy you know…I retired last march, and have not done anything for the year.
 
Welcome to the forum and thank you for your service! I am looking forward to hearing more from you.
 
Welcome to the forum. Look forward to hearing more from you, also.
 
Our own Nords actually wrote the book on military retirement if it could be of any help to you.

www.early-retirement.org

Nords

www.early-retirement.org www.early-retirement.org

militaryfinancialindependence.com

Military Financial Independence

Financial independence for military service members, veterans, and families.
militaryfinancialindependence.com militaryfinancialindependence.com
 
LLA77 said:
... and I currently teach part-time online while exploring whether I want to pursue another full-time role in public service or simply enjoy a more flexible lifestyle.
Click to expand...
Welcome, @LLA77, and I get that question a lot.

Work whenever (and as long as) you find it challenging & fulfilling, but keep in mind that your 50s & 60s are likely to be the best years of your life for pursuing your interests.

After those go-go years you'll start encountering slow-go years. Use your life energy thoughtfully!

(For those military families who are newer members here, look for The Military Guide at a U.S. military base library or your local public library. Try before you buy.)
 
Welcome to the forum—and congratulations on retirement! Like you, I’m currently living the “fully retired” lifestyle and truly enjoy it, though I do miss the social dynamic/camaraderie I had in uniform from time to time. Probably need to lean in harder and be better at the hobby-development journey!
 
av8er said:
Welcome to the forum—and congratulations on retirement! Like you, I’m currently living the “fully retired” lifestyle and truly enjoy it, though I do miss the social dynamic/camaraderie I had in uniform from time to time. Probably need to lean in harder and be better at the hobby-development journey!
Click to expand...
Regarding your screen name: Harriers just hit sun down for the USMC.
 
Thanks everyone. I think my biggest “research project” and what led me to find this site…Roth Conversion understanding and strategies. I’m 57 and have 300+ in traditional tsp. My wife is 48 and has over 700k in traditional tsp. With my pension and wife’s income…we are at the upper limits of income for the 22% bracket.

So I need to get smart on this stuff, and decide if we should trickle the conversions to stay in the 22% bracket or if it’s better long term to convert more now, knowing it will push us into the 24% bracket. We have a separate brokerage account…so I see us on the edge of 22% / 24% in perpetuity.
 
LLA77 said:
So I need to get smart on this stuff, and decide if we should trickle the conversions to stay in the 22% bracket or if it’s better long term to convert more now, knowing it will push us into the 24% bracket. We have a separate brokerage account…so I see us on the edge of 22% / 24% in perpetuity.
Click to expand...
You’ll want to crunch the numbers, either on a calculator like Boldin or with a military-familiar financial advisor (see specific recommendations at the end of this post), but you might decide that the savings are a wash.

With Tricare, you don’t have to worry about your adjusted gross income for premium tax credits of the Affordable Care Act.

If neither of you (nor kids) are in college, then you don’t have to care about income levels for college tax credits.

However if a surviving spouse inherited a traditional retirement account (regardless of whether RMDs had started), they’d be paying income taxes on the withdrawals in the Single filing status instead of Married Filing Jointly.

If you start converting retirement accounts (or withdrawing from them, especially RMDs) then you might be subject to IRMAA on your Medicare premiums. That two-year lookback starts at age 63.

Then by age 70 you’ll be receiving Social Security deposits. Those are quickly taxable, and they also add to your income risk of IRMAA for life.

You two are years away from RMDs, but an aggressive asset allocation in an account could double two or even three times before you reach your 70s and have to take RMDs. That first RMD is something around 4%-5%, which implies an account balance of about $2.2M-$2.8M. Yes you could use some of the RMD for a Qualified Charitable Distribution ($111K in 2026, and adjusted for inflation) but again, it might make sense to withdraw or convert as much as you can before you reach age 63.

There are some big-picture reasons to *not* do a Roth IRA conversion:
- When you are converting money you would give to charity anyway,
- Using money you would give to heirs who are in a low tax bracket,
- When you don't have taxable money you can use to pay the conversion taxes, and
- When you don't have much of a tax-deferred account (at RMD age).

Ed Slott gave a great talk on this topic at Bogleheads 2025, and he was speaking to the older crowd:
The younger people in the audience were skeptical, but the folks in their 60s & 70s were nodding right along with Ed. He’s a big fan of Roth IRA conversions in the 24% income-tax bracket, and he’s also an entertaining speaker.

When I retired from active duty in 2002, we spent another 16 years doing incremental Roth IRA conversion of our traditional accounts. By 2008, when my spouse retired awaiting pay (gray area) for her Reserve pension, we knew that we'd be in a higher income-tax bracket in 2022. We managed to finish our conversions in the 15%-22% MFJ income-tax brackets. Now we're in the 24% income-tax brackets (plus IRMAA as soon as we start SS) for the rest of our lives.

Again: do your math or hire a CFP, CPA, or EA from the Military Financial Advisors Association (with the MQFP certification) to charge you a flat fee to go over the calculations.
 
Nords said:
You’ll want to crunch the numbers, either on a calculator like Boldin or with a military-familiar financial advisor (see specific recommendations at the end of this post), but you might decide that the savings are a wash.

With Tricare, you don’t have to worry about your adjusted gross income for premium tax credits of the Affordable Care Act.

If neither of you (nor kids) are in college, then you don’t have to care about income levels for college tax credits.

However if a surviving spouse inherited a traditional retirement account (regardless of whether RMDs had started), they’d be paying income taxes on the withdrawals in the Single filing status instead of Married Filing Jointly.

If you start converting retirement accounts (or withdrawing from them, especially RMDs) then you might be subject to IRMAA on your Medicare premiums. That two-year lookback starts at age 63.

Then by age 70 you’ll be receiving Social Security deposits. Those are quickly taxable, and they also add to your income risk of IRMAA for life.

You two are years away from RMDs, but an aggressive asset allocation in an account could double two or even three times before you reach your 70s and have to take RMDs. That first RMD is something around 4%-5%, which implies an account balance of about $2.2M-$2.8M. Yes you could use some of the RMD for a Qualified Charitable Distribution ($111K in 2026, and adjusted for inflation) but again, it might make sense to withdraw or convert as much as you can before you reach age 63.

There are some big-picture reasons to *not* do a Roth IRA conversion:
- When you are converting money you would give to charity anyway,
- Using money you would give to heirs who are in a low tax bracket,
- When you don't have taxable money you can use to pay the conversion taxes, and
- When you don't have much of a tax-deferred account (at RMD age).

Ed Slott gave a great talk on this topic at Bogleheads 2025, and he was speaking to the older crowd:
The younger people in the audience were skeptical, but the folks in their 60s & 70s were nodding right along with Ed. He’s a big fan of Roth IRA conversions in the 24% income-tax bracket, and he’s also an entertaining speaker.

When I retired from active duty in 2002, we spent another 16 years doing incremental Roth IRA conversion of our traditional accounts. By 2008, when my spouse retired awaiting pay (gray area) for her Reserve pension, we knew that we'd be in a higher income-tax bracket in 2022. We managed to finish our conversions in the 15%-22% MFJ income-tax brackets. Now we're in the 24% income-tax brackets (plus IRMAA as soon as we start SS) for the rest of our lives.

Again: do your math or hire a CFP, CPA, or EA from the Military Financial Advisors Association (with the MQFP certification) to charge you a flat fee to go over the calculations.
Click to expand...
Thank you. Good stuff. I’ll watch the video (after coffee) and continue reading the forums. Also, thanks for the MFAA recommendation.
A good problem to have…but I think we are stuck in the 24% bracket with pension and our brokerage accounts. So my goal is really to minimize IIRMA/NIIT hits and to stay out of the 32% bracket…which should be pretty easy.

I got some reading to do! Again, thank you.
 
LLA77 said:
Hello everyone,

I recently joined the forum and wanted to introduce myself.

I’m 57 years old and recently retired after a 38-year military career. My wife and I live in Wisconsin, and we are in what I would describe as a “financially independent but still figuring out what comes next” phase of life.

We have no concerns about meeting our day-to-day expenses. Between pension income, other retirement-related income streams, and investments, our basic needs are covered. My wife still works, and I currently teach part-time online while exploring whether I want to pursue another full-time role in public service or simply enjoy a more flexible lifestyle.

I look forward to learning from the experience of others here and contributing where I can.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your lengthy service to this great country. My wife and I are both retired Navy with a combined service of 44 years!
 
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