When you are a federal civilian you fall under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) retirement system which is basically:
1. 401k style Investment account (Called the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP)) with a 5% match
2. FERS Pension which is 1% of your high three salary ( The FERS pension is peanuts compared to active duty pension)
3. Social Security
With Active duty BRS you get:
1. BRS Pension at 40% High three
2. TSP with match 5% after your first two years and then a continuation lump after 12 years
There is a bunch of BRS talk on these threads so I won’t get into any details but, me personally and to be honest my daughter is active duty now and I gave her the same advice is that financially you are best served by going active and staying as long as you prefer as long as you A.) max out your TSP and B.) stay till 20 years and get your retirement whether you stay active for the 20 or if you get out after a period and finish your 20 in the reserves.
My thought process around it is this:
1. The one thing you can get back once its gone is time, so the earlier you are able to max out your 401k/TSP the better off you will be. This is income stream #1 at retirement
2. Do 20 years in the military and get a pension active obviously pays out more and reserve obviously less and at different ages (active pays out when you retire, reserve does not kick in till after 60) This is income stream #2 at retirement.
3. I see you are 32 so if you did 20 and got out at age 52 you still likely have a good 10-15 years left in you, this is where you start your (second career) NAVAIR and places like it will still be there when you are done with the military except now you have more education and experience and should be able to negotiate a much higher role and salary. So instead of a GS-9 lets say you start at GS-14. Now you are earning $100k plus and putting another 10-15 years into your TSP. I’ll call this Income stream #3
4. Guess what, with FERS (unless it has changed since I had it) you vest after 5 years so, although small you would get something and your high 3 is now higher which means the payout is higher. Lets call this income stream #4
5. You still get social security – income stream # 5
6. If you do 20 in the military you also get Tricare/Exchange/Commissary/Space A etc
7. FIN- Drinking Mai Tai’s and cigars on the beach
It all adds up if you do it right and a lot of people do, others may differ with opinion and I may have missed a point or two but this is my general opinion
P.S. don’t forget about BAH and BAS when calculating your active duty pay, you will likely be over $40k equivalent, and you have no healthcare cost which would come out of your GS-9 check and everything is taxed whereas BAH and BAS is not