My spouse and I are both active duty military and will have pensions. For active duty pensions, he is retirement eligible in 3 years and me in 6 years. Our pensions together should be approximately $9,000-10,000/month. (I’ll retire as O-5 with 29 years and he’ll retire as O-6 with around 21 years, maybe a year or two longer.)
We are moving back to the NCR this summer. Our housing allowance is a little over $6000/month tax-free between the 2 of us in addition to our paychecks. We have 4 kids. Three will be in elementary/middle school and one baby. We have been looking at housing/daycare/nanny/au pair/before & after care options. It’s likely we will be in the NCR for 3 years.
For those of you that have retired and/or have kids that are older, do you wish you had spent money now if you know you’ll be financially secure later? Or saved a more?
We are trying to decide between spending our entire housing allowance on either reducing our commutes (not entirely possible since we will be stationed at least 30 minutes apart), nicer house, or using it in another manner to make life easier (like a nanny vs. driving to daycare.)
I’ve spent my whole life saving and living beneath my means and it’s hard to spend on luxuries. However, I also don’t want to save money now and then wish I had taken advantage of things that would make my life easier. I guess it boils down to it’s really hard to pay a nanny $20/hr or $5500 on rent. That just seems insane.
Any advice?
We are moving back to the NCR this summer. Our housing allowance is a little over $6000/month tax-free between the 2 of us in addition to our paychecks. We have 4 kids. Three will be in elementary/middle school and one baby. We have been looking at housing/daycare/nanny/au pair/before & after care options. It’s likely we will be in the NCR for 3 years.
For those of you that have retired and/or have kids that are older, do you wish you had spent money now if you know you’ll be financially secure later? Or saved a more?
We are trying to decide between spending our entire housing allowance on either reducing our commutes (not entirely possible since we will be stationed at least 30 minutes apart), nicer house, or using it in another manner to make life easier (like a nanny vs. driving to daycare.)
I’ve spent my whole life saving and living beneath my means and it’s hard to spend on luxuries. However, I also don’t want to save money now and then wish I had taken advantage of things that would make my life easier. I guess it boils down to it’s really hard to pay a nanny $20/hr or $5500 on rent. That just seems insane.
Any advice?