Planning for military retirement is a little different from planning for civilian retirement. If you’re a career military service person, your goals will be a little different. You’ll have some money to depend on after you retire because of military benefits. However, you still need to save just like any other person planning his or her golden years.
The first thing you need to do is check out the military retirement plan you’ll be eligible for. Each plan varies, depending on when you entered the service and on the number of years of service you’ve put in. If you happen to enter retirement with no debts and you want to live simply, you might be able to live off of your military pension for a while.
Still, you’ll probably want to travel, spoil the grandkids, or do other fun things when you retire. If this is the case, you need to figure out the gap between your monthly pension payments and what you really want to live on. You can fill that gap by making contributions to retirement accounts now so that you can draw on them later on.
It can be a good idea to meet with a financial adviser who knows about military retirement benefits. This adviser will be able to help you map out your financial future and make investment decisions. The earlier you meet with an adviser, the better off you’re going to be for your retirement years.
It’s definitely worth the effort now to start saving a little so that you can retire in ease later on. Even if you’ve just entered the military, you’ll still be able to look at your potential retirement benefits and figure out what you need to start saving now.
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