Pajaro

So Spang says $3400 and Aviano says $2100. I presented all the different prices to Ramstein, but they continued to say that they can get the ticket for $950. I emailed Aviano's quote to them, and it came from a TMO civilian they respected, so Ramstein gave him a call to see why he was so confused. He convinced Ramstein that $2100 is the right number, because it should be a price available at any time, not just in the next few days. I consider this a win, but am concerned that Ramstein doesn't understand the basics of PSC ticket pricing. Anyway, lesson learned; trust, but verify. Thanks for the help Aviano TMO! edited to thank FinanceGuy for the GSA pricing link. My airport is so small that it doesn't have a city pair, but just knowing the website exists is a very good tool to have.

I'm missing something on a Circuitous Travel Request and could use some advice. I'm an exchange officer in the middle of nowhere in Europe soon to PSC to a minor AETC base. I want to do Circuitous Travel through Venice, Italy. I submitted my request through Ramstein TMO (SATO, actually) to find out the official travel cost from my base in the middle of nowhere to the minor AETC base. That's what the USAF would pay if I did the direct route. They say it's $950 per person for all of FY2014. It doesn't matter what date. I thought that was a little low, so I called Keesler (my most previous US base) to verify that they say the same price. Not even close. They say the official travel price for the same route is $2100 per person. So, I called Ellsworth SATO to get a neutral party's figure. I've never been to Ellsworth, but I figure they have no reason to screw me. They say...wait for it....$3400 per person! WTF! They also say it's absolutely date-dependent (directly contradicting Ramstein SATO). Evidently having the contractor calculate the official travel cost is more of an art than a science. Either: 1) Ramstein SATO is super efficient and gets special official travel rates 2) Ramstein SATO is trying to screw me for some reason 3) Keesler (admittedly not SATO, but Wingate, I think) and Ellsworth (SATO) don't know how to figure out prices from Europe. My plan is to wait until Monday and see what Aviano says. Maybe another USAFE base will be able to confirm the Ramstein number. Any thoughts on this? I really thought there was some big DoD travel database that listed the price between bases. I'm not at a US base, so I understand that my case is a little weird, but shouldn't two SATO offices have the exact same data to reference?

Here´s the reply from my congressman. He´s an Army Guard Lt Col and he voted for the budget, but I´m happy with the answer that he´s co-sponsoring an amendment to undo the COLA change: Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns with the recent budget deal and military retirement. It is good to hear from you. As you know, Chairman Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray negotiated a budget agreement to replace the automatic, across-the-board cuts of sequestration with targeted reductions in other areas. The agreement included a provision to reduce by one percent the cost-of-living adjustment for military retirees under the age of 62. It should come as no surprise that I did not agree with everything in this deal. If it had been my decision, I would not have included this COLA provision. Unfortunately, this was a take-it-or-leave-it offer, which is why I am a cosponsor of a bill that would repeal this provision and offset the increase in spending by eliminating a loophole that allows illegal immigrants to receive a tax credit. I believe there is a better way to reform military compensation and am glad these changes do not go into effect until 2016, giving Congress and the military community time to address this issue along with broader compensation reforms. However, doing so would not be possible without moving away from governing by crisis, providing much-needed certainty, and getting back to regular order, and that is what the Ryan-Murray budget allows. Putting Congress back in control of America's purse strings ensures that we will be able to take care of the men and women in our armed forces Thank you again for contacting me. Please continue to keep me informed of the issues that are important to you and be sure to visit my website, www.womack.house.gov , for more information and to sign up for my newsletter. Sincerely, Congressman Steve Womack Member of Congress

You could put it all into a Penfed CD (I haven't checked in a few days, but they have (had?) a 5-year 3.04% CD. If you need the money, you can break the CD and you pay 1 or 2 years of interest (I forget which). However, per PenFed's policy, the penalty will not eat into the principal. Your $63k would be $73,328 in 5 years at that rate. The worst case is that you break the CD and walk away with $63k. If you go this route, I recommend several $5k CDs. That way, if you need $20k, you could break 4 CDs and keep the rest earning interest.

Good work. That's actually pretty close to what I had at that age 4 years ago (the market has had 4 great years in a row). How many years do you have in the USAF? Absolutely. This is great advice.

I can never make the quote function work (yea, sorry for a Cyber guy), but my info here is all answers to some of the earlier questions: 1) Champ, I bought a new Mustang with a loan from Bank of America when I was a 2nd Lt. I had to sell when I moved to Keflavik and lost half the value. Lesson learned. All my other cars have been used and paid for in cash (with the exception of a 0% for 12 months loan that I had to jump on and pay off in full after 11.5 months while I let my cash earn interest in a CD). I've never had any other debt. 1a) When I'm CONUS, I pay for absolutely everything with a credit card for the cash back and for AMEX warranty protection. However, I have always paid off my cards in full every month. I paid for my most recent used car at a dealership completely with a credit card and got $185 cash back. Normally, dealerships won't let you do that, but I was in my hometown for only a couple of days between OCONUS assignments specifically to buy a car and ship it the next day. The dealership wouldn't take a personal check and USAA doesn't have any branches close to my hometown (so no way to get a cashiers check). Anyway, they didn't like it, but it really worked out for me. 1b) I have about a dozen different credit cards that I use depending on what I'm buying to get the best cash back. I use PenFed Visa for all Foreign Transactions because there's no foreign transaction fee. I use my Chase AARP Visa (you don't have to be any specific age to join AARP, but I'm 37 and joined for the credit card) for all travel because I get 3% cash back. By no means are credit card tricks going to make me rich, but it's free money so I take it. 2) Day Man, I agree that I need to diversify more. Other than my TSP 2040 index, I have no small cap or international exposure. Thanks for the push. I'll look into that in the next few days. 3) I got married (for the only time) as a 32-year old Major and we have one child (1 year old).

Six months after I got my commission I started investing with First Command (USPA & IRA back then). That's my biggest mistake. I had life insurance and overpriced Fidelity funds with them. It took me a few years to completely divest from them. Anyway, it taught me to really read about investments before buying. Six months after I got my commission I started investing with First Command (USPA & IRA back then). That's my biggest mistake. I had life insurance and overpriced Fidelity funds with them. It took me a few years to completely divest from them. Anyway, it taught me to really read about investments before buying.

This is a topic that folks are hesitant to discuss in person, so I thought it would be good for this forum. I've been pretty disciplined during my USAF career about saving and investing, but I'm not sure how I'm doing as compared to my peers. I'm just trying to get a feel if I'm doing OK as compared to other officers, or if I need to rethink what I'm doing and get more creative about saving. My net worth is roughly $703,000 broken down into: Cash: $10,000 I Bonds: $21,000 CDs: $60,000 (PenFed Credit Union now has some nice 5-year CDs at 3.04%) TSP 2040 Fund: $199,000 My Roth IRA: $95,000 (all in USAA's S&P 500 index) Wife's Roth IRA: $38,000 (all in USAA's S&P 500 index) Taxable Index Funds: $282,000 (all in USAA's S&P 500 index) My goal is to reach $1 million by the time I hit the 20-year point. All of this money has come from my USAF compensation, not from inheritance, second jobs, etc. I've never owned a house. My wife has never had a paying job while we've been married and brought no financial assets or debts to the marriage. I attended a private university and started my career around $30,000 in debt. I'm a Cyber Ops Lt Col with 15.5 years of service, so I never got flight pay. However, I've spent much of my career OCONUS, and have received $136,000 in COLA and language pay. So, I'd be interested to know how you're doing so I can figure out if I'm missing anything. Thanks, Pajaro

It looks like there is a catch up at age 62, so although a kick in the balls, it´s not as bad as it could be. Anyway, this plan simply makes my blood boil. Here´s the text from the bill: “(D) REVISED ADJUSTMENT UPON REACHING AGE 62.—When a member or former member whose retired pay has been subject to adjustment under this paragraph becomes 62 years of age, the Secretary of Defense shall recompute the retired pay of the member or former member, to be effective on the date of the next adjustment of retired pay under this subsection, so as to be the amount equal to the amount of retired pay to which the member or former member would be entitled on that date if increases in the retired pay of the member or former member had been computed as provided in paragraph (2) or as specified in section 1410 of this title, as applicable, rather than this paragraph. The entire bill is at: http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20131209/AMNT-113-HJRes59sa-1R.xml#toc-H8C039B43CF3F48C0A8BF11CD9720FF81 For reference, here´s paragraph (2) from Title 10, section 1401 (this is the paragraph (2) referenced in the amendment in the proposed bill) (2) Percentage increase.— Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, the Secretary shall increase the retired pay of each member and former member by the percent (adjusted to the nearest one-tenth of 1 percent) by which— (A) the price index for the base quarter of that year, exceeds (B) the base index. . I also want to note that this has very little effect on 3 and 4 star generals who retire very close to age 62 and won´t receive many years of the reduced COLA penalty. It punishes only the cogs in the machine. edited for clarity

If you like your military retirement plan, you can keep your military retirement plan. Oh, wait....

ThreeHoler, your chart is pretty close, but it the new plan calls for the COLA to be reduced for retirees only until age 62. After that the COLA goes back to the full rate. My math shows that a Lt Col who retires in 2018 with 20 years service (me, for example) will lose $372000 in lifetime pension payments by age 85 with the new system. I've already written my congressman to urge voting this down because it is a huge amount of money to wring out of retirees.

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2013/11/13/air-force-to-look-closer-at-nuke-leader-candidates "As a result of our recent relief of one of our nuclear commanders we have changed our hiring process," he said, referring to Carey. "We will now do a prescreening that is a little more intensive than we've done before." He said the Air Force previously did this kind of screening only after a candidate had been nominated. The review will include a Google search, a simple task that hadn't been done before. "What pops up when you type somebody's name into Google?" Welsh said. "It might be worth knowing that before you nominate somebody for a key job. Some of this is common sense." What the heck have OSI and the security clearance investigators been doing all these years? If we learn something new from Google that wasn´t caught by OSI, then OSI is doing something wrong.

JFTR U5310: 1. UB is authorized NTE 2,000 pounds (or the administrative weight limit shown in APP W, whichever is less) for active duty members with command sponsored family member(s). It looks like APP W does not have any European locations, so I think you are safe with 2000 lbs for your UB. Also per U5310, Max HHG for an O-4 with dependents is 17000lbs, but that includes the UB.

This could work. I'm not sure if my host country has a military courier or if I would even trust it, but it's a good place to start. Thanks for the idea.

I'm trying to find an AFI or DoDI that covers postal benefits, but am not having any luck. I'm an exchange officer stationed in Europe 3 hours from the nearest APO and 7 hours from the nearest US base. Back in the day the USAF had a contract with DHL to deliver mail from the closest US base to my location once per week. Due to budget issues that went away but was replaced with a monthly TDY mail run. That soon changed to a quarterly TDY. That then changed to a quarterly mileage only TDY. That turned into nothing and I have no support at all. I now pay about $120 out of pocket and miss a day of work each time I want to check the mail. I wouldn't care about missing work, but I'm an exchange officer doing a job for a foreign government, so I can't really miss a day of work each week to check the mail. Since I'm so far from the BX/Commissary, I really rely on the APO to help me keep costs down as prices on the economy are much higher than the US. I have other solutions for letter mail, but auto parts, clothes, pharmacy items, etc are pretty pricey. So, here's my questions: 1) Any idea which AFI or DoDI even covers postal benefits? 2) Does anyone know if EOs in Asia or the Americas currently get postal TDYs? 3) Am I missing an obvious solution? Thanks, Pajaro