To start off, I'm the spouse. I own my own counseling practice but honestly just do it for fun more than anything, I also have an on-call job working weekends as an advocate for SA survivors. My husband just made O-3 in the Coast Guard this summer, he's an academy grad. We're both 26. He doesn't reddit, so I'm the one posting – hope that's okay.

    We both feel like we're simultaneously doing well but also somehow way behind, and although when we look at our finances compared to the average Joe we're doing great for our ages, we're wondering if for the career, we're actually not doing so well.

    We're aware that with him being an officer we've been incredibly fortunate (as well as by not having childcare expenses). I'm mostly posting this to get perspectives from other JOs or more senior officers with experience being where we are now. This isn't meant to be a discussion on the huge disparity between officer and enlisted pay, which we both agree is a huge problem and something we both want to advocate for improvements in throughout our careers.

    Current stats:

    Checking: 12k (we have a lot of money coming in and out each month so this is our "buffer")
    HYSA @ 5%: 20.5k
    Investment (Schwab): 37k
    TSP: 48k
    Other retirement (mine/his non-tsp through vanguard): 27.5k

    Total across accounts is 145k

    We contribute to the investment account and tsp monthly, and plan to use money from the investment account for any major purchases (house, car, etc.) The HYSA is our more "fun" savings that we keep around 20k and contribute to if we need to bring it back up, after (for example) paying for a vacation.

    He has 7k left on his career starter loan at .75%, and I have a personal loan for 1k (from my father, at 0%, will be paid off in 3 months)

    We have about 425k @ 2.5% remaining on our mortgage, our home is worth approx 500k so we have 75k equity there. We rent out this home and are renting at our new duty station, below BAH slightly.

    We own 2 older cars in good condition (2002 Subaru and 2009 Scion) with no car payments. We may be looking at buying a newer used car when we move to our next duty station as my Subaru is probably too beat up to be shippable, we're in AK currently and I wouldn't trust it on the AlCan. Our cars are worth cumulatively about 6k.

    Our net worth inclusive of everything is 218k

    No kids, and we never plan on having kids, so we're just planning for the two of us. My husband wants to be in the CG for as long as they'll have him, ideally 30 years and then retiring when we're in our early 50s.

    I'd really appreciate hearing from other people of similar ages/situations, or who are more senior but have been where we are, to hear if we're ahead or need to be playing catch up. Is there any way we should be changing our contributions? The whole military life thing is still pretty new to me and I have no perspective aside from our personal situation.

    Thanks in advance!!

    Financial reality check for new O-3 + spouse?
    byu/plsstopprocreating inMilitaryFinance



    Posted by plsstopprocreating

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