How to Find Out My Military Retirement Benefits
Most career military members think about their pension when they think about retirement benefits, but there are other benefits that are extremely valuable as well. Retired military personnel are entitled, for example, to health care at a greatly reduced or even no cost, depending on which plan they choose, and military exchange shopping privileges that can save them substantially on their monthly food bills. The savings available from taking advantage of these opportunities can enable a retired service member to retire much more comfortably than on a pension alone.
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Visit military.com to learn about how much retirement pay you'll be entitled to. As a general rule, in addition to the 50 percent you receive at the 20-year mark, you'll receive an additional 2.5 percent of the average of your highest three years of base pay for each year served. This means, for example, that if you retired at the 30-year mark, and you averaged $4,000 per month in base salary in your best three years, your monthly retirement pay will be 75 percent of that, or $3,000 a month. While prior to 2007 there was an upper limit of 75 percent, Congress has now repealed that law, so that since then there has been no upper limit on the percentage you can earn. For example, if you serve 42 years, you get 105 percent of your highest three years. You can visit other web sites as well, such as militarypay.defense.gov, to have them calculate your retirement pay for you.
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Go to military.com for more information about the health care plans available to retired service members. There are three basic plans for retirees that parallel the Tricare plans available to active duty dependents: Tricare Prime, for which military doctors and facilities are the primary care providers; Tricare Standard, for which medical facilities outside the military system are the primary providers; and Tricare Extra, for which medical facilities outside the military system but within the Tricare network are the primary providers. Each plan has its good and bad points. For example, Standard provides the most flexibility in selecting a provider of choice, but it also requires that you pay deductibles and co-pays, and Extra requires a deductible, but no co-payments.
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Visit http://www.aafes.com/ to find out where the nearest Army-Air Force exchange and commissary stores are located, and visit https://www.navy-nex.com/ to find the nearest Navy Exchange. Retirees are entitled to the same shopping privileges in the continental United States as active duty members, and there's no state sales tax payable. Use them to save on your grocery and other shopping bills each month.
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