u/Catchphrase9724

The title is a bit misleading but I felt like I needed to stay and do a full 20 years in the Army to reach my goals.

Currently 2.5 years in as a SPC(P) and about to make points for promotion. I’ve been debating for a long time about staying in. Ive literally been running numbers and scenarios everyday for like the last year and a half about it. I decided to do some more scenarios again today and see if it’s possible for me to retire at 45 after ETSing from the following options: Just a 4 year contract, 4 years and a 2 year extension, or 4 years and another reenlistment. After today’s planning I think I’m finally comfortable with a decision.

Current NW (20M) across a brokerage, TSP, Roth IRA, HYSA, and Checking: $55K

I’ll be 21.5 at the end of my contract and should be at about $40K-$45K in my brokerage, $40K in TSP, and $20K in Roth IRA. I’m maxing my Roth IRA every year and contribute 38% to TSP along with $1000 a month to a brokerage which will be $1250 a month after my promotion. I plan to go to school to become a Rad Tech on the GI Bill. The school I wanna go to is HCOL (Boston) and has a nearly $5K MHA rate but I’m seeing nice places near the school I can rent for half of that. If I add my current expenses onto that rent I should be able save about $1500 a month. If I ever need some extra cash I have $12K in camera equipment to make some extra cash by taking senior photos or portraits in general for some side hustle income.

With $1500 a month going to my brokerage for the two year program I would be looking around $85K in my brokerage, $46K in TSP, and $23K in RIRA. From graduation I need to be able to sustain two things until I’m 45. “Maxing” my Roth IRA using the constant of $7.5K and $1000 a month to my brokerage. If I could do that until I’m 45 I should have about $975K in a brokerage, $206K in TSP, and $475K in RIRA at 45.

I would then use my brokerage as a bridge fund until retirement age somewhere between a lean FIRE and a normal FIRE. With a lean and comfortable FIRE I should still have some cash left over even if I withdrew more than 4% because it’s only meant to last me 15 years. Then when I reach the official retirement age of 60, my TSP and Roth IRA after no more contributions should be around $585K and $1.35M for a total of over $1.9M tax free.

Now back to my point of running numbers all day today. If I extended just two years and kept my same rates then I would be looking at roughly $500K more in retirement. So $950K in a brokerage at 45 but $365K in my TSP, and $490K in my RIRA. That’ll turn into $1.395M in my RIRA and $1.039M by 60 for a total of over $2.4M.

Then again, that $950K is only meant to last 15 years so I could pull a bit more than 4% if I needed to. I’m hoping for atleast $200K left in the brokerage after those 15 years based on what I plan to take out. That brokerage will then be used as my 1-3 year cash buffer in downturn years.

Now I know there are a lot of assumptions and factors that can mess up my numbers but even with that I feel really hopeful and like I don’t need to be trapped in the Army for 20 years to retire early. Today is the first day I feel a little less anxiety about wanting to get out but feeling like I can’t. I was using a 7% return for all of my numbers and for most totals round down to the nearest $5K.

For any other context, I plan on living in Colorado after school and retiring there. Beautiful area and top 3 or 5 for lowest property taxes. I’m originally from Arkansas so if I really needed to adjust I would be fine with moving down South again to a cheaper state for retirement. I also expect my income to grow pretty fast to be able to support this plan because of the opportunities for pay raises as a Rad Tech.

Colorado starts their new grads at about $30 an hour and then each new modality learned adds about $3-$7 an hour. Quickest modality to learn for this pay increase is like 6-12 months and then others are around 1-2 years. By the time I’m 30 I definitely expect to be making $40 an hour or more base since that would give me like 4ish years to pick up these new modalities.

Again, I know life happens but man is it nice to see big numbers for retirement and then for the first time think you can actually make this happen without doing 20 years in the Army.

The title is a bit misleading but I felt like I needed to stay and do a full 20 years in the Army to reach my goals.

Currently 2.5 years in as a SPC(P) and about to make points for promotion. I’ve been debating for a long time about staying in. Ive literally been running numbers and scenarios everyday for like the last year and a half about it. I decided to do some more scenarios again today and see if it’s possible for me to retire at 45 after ETSing from the following options: Just a 4 year contract, 4 years and a 2 year extension, or 4 years and another reenlistment. After today’s planning I think I’m finally comfortable with a decision.

Current NW (20M) across a brokerage, TSP, Roth IRA, HYSA, and Checking: $55K

I’ll be 21.5 at the end of my contract and should be at about $40K-$45K in my brokerage, $40K in TSP, and $20K in Roth IRA. I’m maxing my Roth IRA every year and contribute 38% to TSP along with $1000 a month to a brokerage which will be $1250 a month after my promotion. I plan to go to school to become a Rad Tech on the GI Bill. The school I wanna go to is HCOL (Boston) and has a nearly $5K MHA rate but I’m seeing nice places near the school I can rent for half of that. If I add my current expenses onto that rent I should be able save about $1500 a month. If I ever need some extra cash I have $12K in camera equipment to make some extra cash by taking senior photos or portraits in general for some side hustle income.

With $1500 a month going to my brokerage for the two year program I would be looking around $85K in my brokerage, $46K in TSP, and $23K in RIRA. From graduation I need to be able to sustain two things until I’m 45. “Maxing” my Roth IRA using the constant of $7.5K and $1000 a month to my brokerage. If I could do that until I’m 45 I should have about $975K in a brokerage, $206K in TSP, and $475K in RIRA at 45.

I would then use my brokerage as a bridge fund until retirement age somewhere between a lean FIRE and a normal FIRE. With a lean and comfortable FIRE I should still have some cash left over even if I withdrew more than 4% because it’s only meant to last me 15 years. Then when I reach the official retirement age of 60, my TSP and Roth IRA after no more contributions should be around $585K and $1.35M for a total of over $1.9M tax free.

Now back to my point of running numbers all day today. If I extended just two years and kept my same rates then I would be looking at roughly $500K more in retirement. So $950K in a brokerage at 45 but $365K in my TSP, and $490K in my RIRA. That’ll turn into $1.395M in my RIRA and $1.039M by 60 for a total of over $2.4M.

Then again, that $950K is only meant to last 15 years so I could pull a bit more than 4% if I needed to. I’m hoping for atleast $200K left in the brokerage after those 15 years based on what I plan to take out. That brokerage will then be used as my 1-3 year cash buffer in downturn years.

Now I know there are a lot of assumptions and factors that can mess up my numbers but even with that I feel really hopeful and like I don’t need to be trapped in the Army for 20 years to retire early. Today is the first day I feel a little less anxiety about wanting to get out but feeling like I can’t. I was using a 7% return for all of my numbers and for most totals round down to the nearest $5K.

For any other context, I plan on living in Colorado after school and retiring there. Beautiful area and top 3 or 5 for lowest property taxes. I’m originally from Arkansas so if I really needed to adjust I would be fine with moving down South again to a cheaper state for retirement. I also expect my income to grow pretty fast to be able to support this plan because of the opportunities for pay raises as a Rad Tech.

Colorado starts their new grads at about $30 an hour and then each new modality learned adds about $3-$7 an hour. Quickest modality to learn for this pay increase is like 6-12 months and then others are around 1-2 years. By the time I’m 30 I definitely expect to be making $40 an hour or more base since that would give me like 4ish years to pick up these new modalities.

Again, I know life happens but man is it nice to see big numbers for retirement and then for the first time think you can actually make this happen without doing 20 years in the Army.

So a little background. The barracks flooded a year before I made it to my duty station so all soldiers were given BAH and said they could either roommate with each other in on base housing to save money or live off post. I’ve been living with roommates on base the last two years because of that and the barracks are finally coming back online by the end of the year. NCOs don’t have to move back in and when I leave for BLC this month I’ll have the most points in my MOS by a landslide.

With that being said I’ve been progressing really fast in the Army and the longer I stay the more I don’t see myself doing this as a full career. I made Specialist from PV2 after like 18 months. After hitting my two years, all within the span of 3 months I went to my first SOM and won; the next month P Board and got it; then SOQ immediately after that and won. Now my old first line has been made my soldier, I have to sponsor him to the SOM and P Board all within 4 days of each other and I have to take over as the NCOIC of our clinic for good. On top of all that, I just turned 20 last month and although great stats for my career, I’m exhausted and feel like I didn’t really get to enjoy my time as a junior as much as I could have.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I’m on track to save a little more than $100K across a brokerage and all retirement accounts by the end of my enlistment. I would be 21.5 and was debating extending for two years to keep saving the way I am or even extending twice and then calling it quits from the Army.

If I extended once I would have about $180K-$190K NW by year 6 and if I extended twice I would have about a $300K NW by year 8. With those numbers I’d be 23.5 and 25.5 respectively and then would get out to go to school to become an XRay Tech along with getting my MBA on the GI Bill.

I just wanna know what others would do based on their time in the service. Part of my hopes after getting out of the military is to be able to CoastFIRE if things don’t go exactly to plan after leaving the Army. I’m concerned about staying in because if I’m in a chill place like this and still don’t really like it, I know I’m gonna hate it at another unit just as much. Just listening to all of my battles from basic talk about their units I would be counting the days until ETS and wouldn’t even be in the same financial position.

If you were in my position, what would you do? I wanna be sure of my decision because I told myself if I got out I would be doing my VA claims and there would be no point in tearing up my body for the Army all these years, getting compensated and then rejoining to lose those claims and still be broken.

TLDR: I would have roughly a $100K NW at 21.5 y/o after ETSing at my first contract, $180K-$190K NW if I extended for 2 years at 23.5 y/o and $300K NW at 25.5 y/o if I extended twice. I would then go to school for a Rad Tech program and get my MBA and any extra money from BAH I would put to my brokerage for a future house. If you were on my shoes when would you ETS? I wanna CoastFIRE if things don’t go as planned as a civilian.