Do you want to be a millionaire one day?  Forget about teaching English in Korea to meet your financial goals, you might just want to consider joining the military:

If you’re brave enough and willing, the Army can be a lucrative career. Just ask U.S. Army Captains Matthew and Kristen Shifrin.

Matthew and Kristen met in 2004 while stationed at Ft. Bragg, and married a year and a half later. Now both 27, Matthew is training in Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo. to be a military police commander, while Kristen is training in Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. to be a military intelligence commander. Together they earn an annual salary of $133,000. (…)

“Both my wife and I are obsessive about saving for retirement,” Matt said. Their plan is fairly simple: save with one paycheck and live off the other.

Matthew and Kristin max out both their Thrift Savings Plans (TSPs), the government-employee version of a 401(k), for $1,239 per pay check, and they contribute the maximum to their Roth IRAs with $833 per month. Currently, they have a total of $87,500 in retirement funds.

They also invest $500 a month in mutual funds, which now total nearly $44,000. (…)

Matthew and Kristen are on their way to millionaire status, but there are some things they can do to maximize their chances of meeting their goals, according to Brian Orol, President of the Strategic Wealth Group in Raleigh, NC.  [CNN Money via Blackfive]

This CNN report has actually inflated how much these two actually make.  A captain with six years of service makes $4,740 a month in basic pay.  When that is multiplied by two that comes out to $9,480 a month between the two captains.  This makes their combined income based off of basic pay $113,760 a year.  Remember this what they make before taxes, this number will drop below $100,000 when taxes are added in. 

To get the $133,000 number quoted, CNN included their basic allowance for housing (BAH) which varies depending on where a servicemember lives.  Since these two a geographical bachelors meaning they live in two separate duty locations, this means they draw two different BAH allowances and not just one if they were living together.  The dual BAH allowance has allowed CNN to inflate their pay to make it appear to be more then what it actually is. 

With that said I have known many servicemembers who have retired in very strong financial positions due to smart decisions they made while on active duty and it appears these two are doing quite well for themselves as well, though their credit card debt and expenses for the airplane they own seems a bit too much to me. 

However, if you read the comments section over at CNN you can see how many military haters are out there bashing servicemembers for being paid too much and even demanding reductions in retirement benefits.  For those who think these two are "rich" remember they each make roughly $66,500 per year which with that salary is a solidly middle class pay.  Keep in mind that an officer has a college education which means officers get paid more then an enlisted soldier with the equivalent six years of service in order to keep officers’ pay equivalent with what college graduates are making six years after leaving college.  When I graduated college I had friends who had starting civilian salaries equal to that, much less six years after college. 

It is also important to note that the military is mostly composed of enlisted servicemembers who are not making as much per year as these two each make.  So before people complain about "rich" servicemembers, two single captains is not the average military family.  An E-6 staff sergeant making about $3,000 bucks a month with a wife and three kids is more or less better representative of the average military family.  With pay like that, these families will have a hard time paying their mortgage much less being future millionaires.  Just for the record though I have seen E-6 military families doing well for themselves because their spouse was also either military or a civilian working drawing a paycheck as well. 

Something else to keep in mind when determining military pay is how long the working hours are and deployments.  For example the two captains in the article are even separated while being stationed in states much less overseas on deployment.  Is $66,500 a year worth spending a year away from your family in Korea much less in a combat zone like Iraq?  Remember that $66,500 year is captain pay, a private first class on the other hand makes about $20,000 a year.  That is not a whole lot of money to be away from your family and being shot at.

Clearly the military is not a way to get rich quick, but if people who join the military put together a solid financial plan from the day they join up and stick with it for 20+ years it can be a great way to set yourself up for a solid retirement. 

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