Navy Reserve Retirement Credit for ROTC Summer Training

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Doug Nordman

[August 2015 update:  The Defense Finance and Accounting Service has started issuing letters to Reserve retirees who have claimed credit for ROTC summer training.  According to the comments on this post and some Facebook posts, it appears that DFAS is re-calculating pensions for revisions of as few as 90 points.  More information is at the Naval Personnel Command Midshipman Points FAQ page. ]

[October 2014 note:  The Navy Reserve appears to be taking a new, narrower interpretation of 10 U.S.C. section 971.  Two Reservists have reported that they were recently denied this credit, although one of them was able to receive points without credit toward a good year.  Please read those comments at the end of this post, and contact me if you’ve had the same issue. ] 

Today’s post answers a question from a Navy Reserve reader. I try to balance out the topics, questions, and reader stories in The Military Guide to apply to all the services.

However, this is a niche topic that I’ve seen cause a lot of unhappy faces in Navy Reserve units all over the country. So if you’re in the Army, Air Force, or Coast Guard then feel free to move on to other financial independence projects and ignore this post. If your service has a similar problem with their Reserve/Guard point credit toward retirement, please leave a comment. If you’re in the Marine Corps then I don’t think this applies to you either– but you’re painfully familiar with oddball Navy requirements and you’re probably smiling already. Enjoy.

If you’re Navy enlisted (active-duty or Reserve) then you might want to stick around for this information in case you someday decide to earn your own commission.

Here’s the background. Active-duty enlisted servicemembers (of all services) start earning their pay & benefits from the day they show up at recruit training. All of their service also counts toward retirement, although for the vast majority that time “cliff vests” only when they reach 20 years. There are exceptions for medical retirements and the Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA), but they’re relatively rare.

Even military retirement is not the norm: today only about 17% of the officers & enlisted who join the military stick around long enough to earn a pension.

Enlisted servicemembers can join the Reserve or National Guard and earn credit toward retirement for their drills and active duty. (They can get retirement points for other activities, too, but drills & active duty are the main categories.) If they attend a service academy or an ROTC program while enlisted in the Reserve, but do not complete it, then that time also counts toward Reserve retirement points. However, they’re not earning year-round pay & benefits like active-duty servicemembers– only when they’re on drills or orders.

Officer candidates are treated according to their commissioning program. Service academy students (of all services) are considered to be on active duty from the day they show up, but it doesn’t count toward retirement. (Several generations ago, officers who graduated from a service academy could eventually count that incarceration academy time as part of their years toward retirement. It’s literally been over 60 years since that benefit was in effect.) Today’s U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen earn pay & benefits since Induction Day, almost like anyone else on active duty, but no retirement credit. They suck up a lot of training & supervisory effort from the chain of command– perhaps some more than others. They’re considered to be adequately compensated for their time at Annapolis, so nothing they’ve done there is credited toward a retirement. (Unless they were one of the very small handful of prior enlisted who drop out before graduation.) Officers from USNA only begin earning time toward retirement on the day they’re commissioned, and for the vast majority of officers that time “cliff vests” to a pension only after 20 years of service.

Today’s topic, Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen, are in a different niche. They’re not on continuous active duty like USNA midshipmen, and they certainly don’t have all the active-duty benefits like health insurance. Their college tuition & fees are paid by the Navy, and they also earn a tax-free stipend for up to 10 months of the year. Unfortunately, they still have to pay for their own room & board, and some NROTC students aren’t even on a four-year scholarship. However, NROTC midshipmen are considered to be on active duty when they’re ordered to summer training.

It turns out that NROTC summer training can be counted for credit toward a Navy Reserve retirement. (I have no idea how this benefit got started, let alone why, and I’d love to learn the history behind it.) Unfortunately, this time has to be officially documented day by day, and most Reservists only learn about the program years afterward when they leave active duty for drills with a Reserve unit. Even then it only applies to those commissioned through NROTC, so not every Reservist can tap into the benefit.

This post was inspired by a reader comment on the Reserve retirement post:

Can anyone show me in writing where it says you can or cannot get credit for your midshipman summer cruise? You are on active duty orders, wearing a uniform, and getting paid. So unless there is something specific that says you can’t get credit, I don’t see why you can’t?  Thanks!

You’re absolutely right, there is something specific that says you can get credit. But it’s buried in BUPERSINST 1001.39F of 17 Sep 07, “Administrative Procedures for Navy Reservists“. I’m looking this up on the website of the Association of the U.S. Navy, which is an excellent advocacy group for Navy Reserve servicemembers. According to the Navy Personnel Command website, 1001.39F is undergoing major revision. If you’re on active duty or in the Reserves then you’ll probably have a better chance than me of figuring out when .39G will be released. (Or an alert reader will let us know here on the blog.) What I’m about to describe is from .39F, and I sincerely hope it’s fixed in .39G.

The “problem” is that most officers are given an active duty service date (the date that they actually started active duty as an officer) of the day they’re commissioned. Since this date doesn’t count ROTC midshipman training that happened before their commissioning, officers have to submit a record of that earlier training.

Article 2600.3 (Chapter 20, page 20-8), says:
3. ROTC Summer Training Credit. Per 10 U.S.C., section 971, graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy (or other service academies) are not eligible for summer training credit. Members that participate in ROTC Midshipman/Cadet summer training are eligible for retirement point credit (one point per day under orders). Because the actual number of days served on summer training can vary, it is necessary that training be properly documented as a prerequisite to awarding retirement point credit. Proper documentation consists of one or more of the following and should be submitted to NAVPERSCOM (PERS-911):

a. Standard ROTC Summer Cruise/Training Orders (NAVEDTRA 1320/1) issued for each period of a midshipman summer training and endorsed upon the member’s arrival and departure.

b. Leave and Earning Statements (LES) or NAVCOMPT 2120, Pay Voucher.

c. Ship’s Deck Logs or Ship’s Diaries, which show the dates the member (by name) embarked and debarked.

d. A letter from the ROTC Unit CO certifying the actual dates of summer training.

e. A letter from DFAS Cleveland, OH, certifying the actual dates of summer training.

f. NAVPERS 1070/613 (Administrative Remarks) prepared by the ROTC unit, which states that the member is being discharged to accept a commission. These standard Administrative Remarks usually list the summer training completed while enrolled at that particular ROTC unit.

Most officers find out about this opportunity years (even decades) after their NROTC summer training. They may no longer have their midshipman orders or their LESs, and there’s just no easy way to get a certification letter from an old CO or DFAS. It’s remotely possible that they still have their page 13 admin remarks. After those options are exhausted, though, the only remaining opportunity to obtain credit is the ship’s deck log. By this point, you’re praying that the command recorded your report/detach dates in the deck log, and that the deck log is legibly filed at the Naval Archives.

So what’s your call to action after reading this post? If you received your commission through NROTC, then find all three sets of your summer training orders. Be ready to document your service in accordance with the Article 2600.3 paragraph. Even if you’re still an NROTC midshipman, please make sure you have this– or submit a draft of a page 13 for your unit to place in your record. You may never need it, but if you need it later then it may be impossible to reconstruct.

This is a hassle and it only pays off if you join a Reserve unit for long enough to earn a Reserve retirement. However, if you someday do that, every point counts toward your pension calculation. Three months of NROTC midshipman summer training could be over 90 points– well over a year’s worth of Reserve work! I’ve heard this from dozens of Reserve officers: the “person you’ll be someday” will be very happy that the “person you are today” took the time now to find the paperwork and have it on file.

I sure hope that electronic service records and BUPERSINST 1001.39 revisions will someday eliminate this burdensome requirement. I’m not holding my breath, and you shouldn’t either. Take care of yourself now, and save that documentation.

Related articles:
Calculating a Reserve retirement
Should you join the Reserves or National Guard?
Comparing an E-7 active-duty pension to an E-7 Reserve pension
Retiring from the Reserves and National Guard

Posted in Military Retirement | 22 Comments

Geriatric Financial Management Update

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Doug Nordman

Along with FINCON12 I’ve visited my Dad and worked on his finances.  I’ll talk about how he’s doing now and then I’ll review the latest financial lessons.

Alzheimer’s is relentless. Dad’s mid-stage symptoms are worse and his brain is losing control of his emotions. He has trouble remembering faces and aphasia is setting in. For the last 18 months, he’s enjoyed socializing with the staff and residents, but last month the Alzheimer’s progression may have made him much more introverted and withdrawn. He’s also begun showing more signs of sundowning. He’ll try to flee from stressful situations, so the safest environment is a memory care facility with cipher-locked doors. He’s on his facility’s waitlist for their memory wing, and he wears an RFID bracelet that alarms the exit door.

There could be other physical reasons for his behavior changes: depression, vitamin deficiencies, hypothyroid, or medication side effects. His multiple myeloma chemotherapy seems to have worked, although we’re skeptical that further aggressive treatment is his best option. He spent a week in the hospital to check the chemotherapy results along with all of the other possible issues. His medications now include Aricept and a low dose of Lexapro. The first may help moderate the severity of his sundowning, and the second is an antidepressant. So far so good.

Dad’s geriatric care manager has been the vital link. We worked with him 18 months ago to find this care facility, and he’s ready to help with anything else. He and his staff know the area and they work with the hospital discharge coordinators. When a facility has a vacancy, the care manager reviews it with us while we take a tour. The discharge coordinators and facilities prefer to work with care managers, too, because they’ll help the families make better & faster decisions. We’ve learned that a good care manager listens, educates & reassures, makes helpful suggestions, and can respond quickly. If they can help navigate the confusion, stress, and hard decisions, then their hourly rate is worth it.

There’s no false hope here. We’re trying to keep Dad safe, checking everything that could ease his suffering, and seeking a peaceful environment. It’s going “as well as can be expected.” If you’re in a situation like this with your loved ones and you’d like more information on what we’ve learned, then please feel free to e-mail me or use the “Contact me” box.

More geriatric financial lessons

The last post on geriatric finances described how Dad converted four 1960s whole life insurance policies into a single-premium (paid up) whole life policy. He did this while he was in early-stage Alzheimer’s, and even today I’m still unsure that he was acting on his own. He didn’t keep all of the paperwork, but I finally figured it out from his local insurance agency and the previous insurance company.

Last month I had a similar experience with his pension fund. They mailed him one piece of paper (from 2008) that mentioned improvements to his life insurance. Life insurance from a pension fund? Yep. I have no idea why this exists, but it does. Ideally, the pension fund provider would have eventually contacted us about the policy, but there’s no guarantee that the bureaucracy would keep track of us.

We’re not alone in this. People buy insurance policies and then move on in their lives, and eventually, the insurance company loses track of them. Beneficiaries have no idea what policies the insured owned, and the insurance company can’t find them. A national database registers all policies for the companies to track with each other, and state government websites also help find “missing” policies.

My brother had one final box of family photos to go through, and I scanned in most of them for our family archives.  Tucked away in an old envelope of one album was a DD-214:  Dad’s discharge papers.

He’d mentioned long ago that he’d been drafted for Army training, and this was the evidence.  Between January-May 1958 he went through recruit training and “three months of active duty formal training under the Reserve Forces Act Program“.  It must have been during his last year of college, because he said that he was given a deferment to finish college and then start his work with Westinghouse as an electrical engineer.  He had an inactive Reserve obligation through early 1966.  I never saw him in a uniform and he never said much about the experience.  I don’t think he’s eligible for any veterans benefits, but that’s one more research project.

This month the stock market continued rising, and it’s possible that euphoria is edging toward irrational exuberance. I have no idea how high the market will get, or even which way it’s going, but I know that Dad doesn’t need to take a large market risk. Even more importantly, he doesn’t need to endure volatility or confront a bear market. I took the opportunity to cut back his stock holdings, and we’ll put the profits into CDs. I’ll keep his asset allocation at ~30% equities, another ~15% in short-term bonds, and the rest in CDs.

This month I also visited Dad’s lawyer. I gave him a copy of my conservator’s court appointment and checked to see if Dad had any other papers on file that we hadn’t found yet. There were no surprises, and the lawyer appreciated the update. He’s standing by if we want more help.

I hate to think about the final step for a conservator, but we’ve started to plan for Dad’s death. He’s already done the work for us. He has a will and a medical directive, and he’s also given us plenty of advice for handling his cremation and his memorial. Even today, when his memory only covers a few minutes, he still asks us if he did a good job with his estate planning and whether he needs to do anything else for us.

He still wants to make sure that he’s taken care of us and that we “have enough”. Even while he can’t care for himself, he’s still caring for others.

Related articles:
Forensic geriatric finances
Book review: “When The Time Comes”
Book report: “The 36-Hour Day”
Geriatric financial lessons learned

Posted in Military Life & Family | 3 Comments

Frugality After Financial Independence – Saving Money on Shaving, and Other Thoughts

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Doug Nordman

I’d like to credit Mike over at Live The New Economy with inspiring me to write today’s post. When you’re done here, go visit his site and check his progress on achieving his goals.

I may be an older dog, but he re-taught me an old trick.

One of the perpetual debates on forums like Early-Retirement.org or MrMoneyMustache.com is the dividing line between frugality and deprivation. It’s a very personal choice and it varies widely across lifestyles.

A car enthusiast may buy only the finest synthetic motor oil and the highest-quality filters to change their own oil every 3000 miles. I buy Wal-Mart’s five-quart containers of 5W-30 and the least-expensive filter every 6-12 months.

Someone else may go straight to the franchise to let the experts deal with it, freeing up their valuable time for earning more money (while they wait) than they’d ever spend on an oil change. Yet all three of us will claim to be frugal because we’re optimizing our resources and our time to take care of our gear.

Why Being Frugal After Financial Independence is Important

Another perpetual debate is why you would stay frugal after you’ve achieved financial independence. You hold on to the money management reins pretty tightly during the first five years of FI to make sure you haven’t screwed up overlooked something, or in case the stock market hands you a bad series of losses. You track your budget and spending. You watch your investments.

Eventually, though, you’ll relax a bit and start to live a little larger.

Maybe you spent a lot of time on frugality when you were saving for FI, but now you’ll give yourself a little freedom to let a franchise change your oil– even if it’s just because you’d rather read a book while they’re working. You’re not going to buy a Ferrari when your Honda goes over 300K miles, but you’ve probably stopped sweating the little expenses.

Others, though, find it hard to let go of frugal habits. Hey, those habits got you to FI, so why stop now? If frugality makes you feel challenged and fulfilled, then you’ll have even more time for it when you quit your job. You may have already won the FI contest in the third quarter and now you’re just running up the score, but you still enjoy playing it. It turns out that we humans like to play games, especially when we’re good at them, and we’ll keep playing long after we’ve “won”.

So frugality may not make a lot of economic sense when you’re financially independent, but if you’ve gamified the lifestyle then you’ll still enjoy being frugal. It’s the thrill of the chase.

In my case, Mike brought me back to old-school shaving– before shaving cream.

How to Save Money on Shaving – And How it Adds Up

I learned this as a midshipman. The U.S. submarine force has a long list of “atmosphere contaminants” that you’re not allowed to bring onboard. They’re usually propellants or chemicals that poison our little biosphere, like bug spray or air fresheners.

One of the forbidden items back then was canned foamy shaving cream, so in 1979 I dutifully went to the military exchange to buy a shaving brush and shaving soap with a Gillette twin-blade razor. I didn’t bring enough shaving soap, so by the end of that underway time I was foaming up with regular ol’ hand soap. I kept up that habit until the end of my second sea tour in 1992.

I’m no Luddite, but I usually stick with what works until a vast improvement has become the cheap established standard. I’m sure that some of you can detect the difference in your shave when you’re using 3, 4, or 5 blades, but I cannot. 33 years later I’m still using that same razor. (I’m waiting for the Gillette Shaving Museum to buy it back from me.) It’s getting difficult to find twin-blade cartridges, but they last a long time now that I’m a military retiree who only shaves twice a week. Besides, Mike has helped me make those blades last a lot longer.

In Mike’s post on saving his family over $214K, he mentioned that he’s started using a shaving brush. The next time I shaved, I found that I also still had my 33-year-old shaving brush– despite having moved to three different homes since the last time I used it. (“But I might need it someday”, and I did!) So I rinsed it, stuck it into a bar of soap, and foamed up.

When you only shave twice a week, you lose proficiency. You’re also not very interested in the project and you might rush a little, so you end up nicking yourself. This time, however, the shaving brush made a huge difference. The razor ran more smoothly, the blades didn’t clog up with shaving cream & stubble, and I didn’t nick myself. Hmmm.

I used to buy state-of-the-art shaving cream. At $2.25/can it seems to disappear awfully fast, so I was probably spending $8-$10/year on it! Whoa! It did the job but it was messy. It clogged up the razor blades, coated the sink, and even hung up in the sink drain to encourage the formation of hairball clogs. In contrast, the shaving brush is much cleaner. We have a whole-house water conditioner and I’m using Zest soap so there’s not much residue in our soft water. The soap & stubble rinses right out of the razor and the sink no longer looks like a hazardous waste dump.

“Best of all”, I’m using soap scraps. Thanks to Amy Dacyczyn, I’ve always felt guilty about throwing them away instead of carefully saving them inside an old stocking to assemble into new bars of soap. (I know, I need help, but it’s my competitive frugality– and I’m winning the game!) Now the soap scraps go into my shaving mug, and I can use them up there instead of patiently growing them into a bigger bar. I don’t feel guilty about opening a brand-new bar of soap just because the old one is too small to handle.

As a bonus surprise, the razor blades are lasting longer. I could never clean the shaving cream gunk off the blades, and I’m sure the moisture corroded them. Now, however, I’m able to rinse the blades clean and dry them thoroughly. I can actually feel the difference in the smooth glide, and I haven’t nicked myself in nearly six weeks. So not only am I saving $10/year on shaving cream and not wasting the last 10% of a 50-cent bar of soap, but I’m also extending the lifetime of those $1.50 razors. Whoa again– the savings are snowballing into as much as $20/year!!

Yeah, I agree, it sounds pretty silly. But I’m actually doing less work, reducing waste, enjoying a better shave, and getting a free blog post out of the experience. That’s priceless.

I have no idea how much longer that shaving brush will last. If the shaving industry reads this post, the price of brushes may spike to $50 overnight.

Frugality is a Lifestyle & a Mindset

I’m not the only frugal one in our family. My spouse makes the most of every freebie on Ancestry.com for her genealogy research. (She’s already saved at least $20.) Our daughter practices once-a-week cooking, so that she can eat healthy while saving the leftover money from her room & board stipend.

Frugality is a mindset, not just time & labor. You can make it a lifestyle. Once you consider how to reduce, re-use, or recycle everything in your life, you have the skill to make big savings out of small changes. It may seem silly to focus on shaving cream and soap scraps for only a few dollars a year– but that same mindset saves you thousands on your groceries, your insurance bills, your home maintenance, and even your investment expenses. It may seem silly to pick up a penny from the sidewalk, but your frugal habits will soon have you seeing $50 bills everywhere you look.

Don’t get me wrong– frugality is just one part of your game plan for financial independence. It’s great defense, and you can score a few points that way, but when you’re working then you can run up the score faster by raising your income. If I can earn more money from one hour of blogging than from an hour of doing my car maintenance, then I’m taking the car to the franchise. If you can use that time to improve your job skills and get a raise, then feel free to take your car there too. If you can earn $300/hour at your career while employing $40/hour assistants to manage other parts of your work and your life, then that’s what you should do.

But someday you’ll stop working. When you give up your earned income, it’s reassuring to know that you have frugal skills and can still play great defense.

So even if you’re a frugal black belt, keep practicing your skills after you reach financial independence. Your habits helped you reach your goals, and they’ll keep you alert for other opportunities to save during the rest of your life. If you want to relax your discipline and only do the parts you enjoy, that’s fine too.

Thanks again, Mike. I may have already crossed the financial independence goal line, but I like the game and I still enjoy the thrill of the chase!

Share your stories here. What frugal habit have you kept going after it’s no longer strictly necessary?

Related articles:
Frugal living is not deprivation
Old-school frugal (part 2 of 2)
A complete waste of money
DIY home improvement
DIY home maintenance

Posted in Money Management & Personal Finance | 10 Comments

Lifestyles in Hawaii: “Naked on the beach”

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Doug Nordman

(Sorry about that cheesy title. As a writer, I couldn’t resist the double entendre. As a blogger, I couldn’t resist the SEO. I assure you that the spammers will punish me for my transgressions…)

Hey, it’s Labor Day, and you’re probably not going to read this post until you’re back at work the next day… or at least until you’re finished with a day full of fun & family.  I’m not even going to attempt to write a 2500-word 15-link pillar post on some aspect of military financial independence.  Instead, let’s give you an idea of how others spend their “Labor Day” around here.

I do most of my surfing at White Plains Beach in Kalaeloa, the former Naval Air Station Barbers Point. The underwater topography is very flat and shallow, with old coral reefs worn down to small humps across the sandy bottom. The outer breaks are several hundred yards wide and 2-4 feet high almost every day, yet the water depth is only 6-8 feet.

Closer to shore there’s always a reliable 1-2 feet of surf and the water depth is only 5-6 feet. (It’s a great spot to learn to surf.) During the summer, the southern-hemisphere storms bring the waves thousands of miles across the equator. Several times each summer they can push the surf up to 8-12 feet. Yet because the breaks are so broad and flat, with so little coral to bump into, White Plains Beach is an excellent break for beginners.

I’ve surfed there for over a decade, and a few of the old-timers have been there for over 30 years. Our daughter is proud to state that she’s been surfing there for over half her life.

White Plains Beach is frequented by a few other ocean dwellers, too. The shallow, flat, sandy conditions mean that predators have trouble sneaking up on their prey. Sharks stay away from the shore (as far as I can tell) but there’s still limu and an occasional urchin among the old coral heads. Small fish dart among the shallows, and I’ve seen a few pufferfish wandering by the lineup.

Twice in the last decade, I’ve been privileged to watch a honu cruise through the area, checking the rocks for limu. They’re protected creatures so they get a wide berth.

However, White Plains is also frequently visited by another omnivore that’s pretty far up the food chain: Hawaiian monk seals. They were here long before us humans, but in the 19th century, they were nearly hunted to extinction.

The population estimate is now under 1200 seals and may still be declining. They’re protected creatures too, and one of the reasons that the northwestern Hawaiian Islands (west of Niihau all the way to Kure Atoll) have been declared a marine national monument. However, the seals don’t read our maps so they range widely throughout the area and have given birth on many of Hawaii’s populated islands.

I took these photos from at least 30 feet away with a zoom lens. As you can see, these guys are just seething with nervous energy.

Monk seals on White Plains Beach, Kalaeloa, Oahu

Monk seals also don’t play by the Sea World rules. They’re wild animals weighing over 400 pounds, and even on the beach, they can lunge faster than humans can backpedal.

They look cute & fuzzy but they have teeth. When they’re raising their pups they’re protective and even aggressive around humans. They generally hunt for fish and eels in deeper waters from dusk through dawn, but they haul out on beaches during the day to avoid predators and get their rest.

Of course, that can lead to problems on a beach that’s frequented by humans. If surfers out at the break notice a dark shape swimming by the lineup, it can cause the wrong type of excitement.

I’ve sat on the beach and watched a monk seal pop its head out of the water just a few feet from shore. Then it cruised along the beach looking for a quiet place to haul out.

Unfortunately, it was Saturday morning so both the beach and the water were packed. As the seal nonchalantly made its way through the (human) swimmer’s area, some of the people froze in place while others bolted for the beach. The seal serenely ignored them all and eventually hauled out further down the coast.

This side of the beach is the "fence line", and it's a quiet spot away from the crowds.

Napping at dawn.

Surfers and fishermen know to give the seals a wide berth. Casual beach visitors, however, may mistake monk seals for the inhabitants of a petting zoo.

I’ve even wandered onto a beach in the early dawn hours, yawning and not really paying attention until I belatedly realized that I was within 10 feet of two sand-covered somnolent seals.

Eventually, a wildlife volunteer (or the lifeguards) will show up with signs and ropes to cordon off the area.

This particular morning I was relieved to see that both of the seals were adults– no juveniles. When the females give birth (usually in the spring but also later in summer) they stay on the beach for 5-6 weeks nursing their pups. To make sure the pups are successfully weaned, the local National Marine Fisheries Service staff can close the beach (to humans) for the entire time. Sure, there’s usually another perfectly good surf break just a mile or two away, but surfers get very familiar with their favorite breaks (and parking spots, and food wagons) and don’t like to have to start over again somewhere else.

They actually sleep very lightly, but if you stay clear then they relax.

Still napping… all day.

As disruptive as monk seals can be, I still enjoy seeing them around. It’s a constant reminder that we humans are only guests in their waters. If they encroach on “our” areas, it might be an early sign that the population has bottomed out and can start recovering. Honu have made a comeback, and I’m hoping that the seals can do the same.

Related articles:
Good reasons NOT to live in Hawaii
Lifestyles in early retirement: Hawaii long-term travel
Lifestyles in military retirement: Living in Hawaii
Lifestyles in military retirement: learning to surf in Hawaii

Posted in Travel | 4 Comments

Good reasons NOT to live in Hawaii

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Doug Nordman

A reader writes:

I’ve read many of your posts and links about military retirement in Hawaii. It’s not something we had considered previously, but it sounds pretty good. Apart from the high cost of real estate, what are the pitfalls? We are a pretty frugal couple, so I don’t think the excise tax would be too bad for us. My spouse is retiring from active duty this year, and we are both “beach people” with a fair amount of experience living and traveling overseas. We’re not surfers – we both scuba dive.

(We found your blog from MrMoneyMustache. Thanks for serving the military community in this way.)

You’re welcome, and thanks for inverting the question! This is the first time I’ve focused on reasons NOT to move to Hawaii.

Will you enjoy learning about local culture, or will you miss the culture you grew up with?

Kamehameha Day lei draping ceremony
Photo courtesy of my daughter

Part of the challenge of answering this question is that people place different priorities on different factors. I grew up in Pittsburgh yet I’ve never waxed nostalgic about experiencing all four seasons (let alone winter) or being able to drive hundreds of miles in a straight line. However, those are two very common reasons that servicemembers didn’t enjoy their Hawaii tours.

Whether you’re commuting to work, or self-employed from home, or even if you’ve earned your financial independence, here are some other issues.

Oahu is a 600-square-mile island. Its “small” size can drive many people nuts. Yet in 23 years we haven’t explored even half of it, and we have not yet visited Lanai or Molokai. We enjoy returning to our favorite spots again and again, and occasionally we’ll try something new. I’ve spent most of my decade of surfing at the same break, only tackling other breaks when they’re big.

I think the biggest pitfall of living in Hawaii is proximity to family. If you have Mainland relatives who you’re close to, or aging parents who need your help, then you’re going to get awfully tired of the 2500-mile five-hour flight between Honolulu and the west coast. People on the Mainland claim that they’re going to visit, and they do it once or twice, but the plane fare is discouraging. After the first couple trips you’ll spend years swapping Facebook updates before you get together again.

Local kids are likely to leave Hawaii for a Mainland college, and then they’ll start a Mainland career. They’ll meet someone on the Mainland, you’ll enjoy their Mainland wedding, and someday there’ll be Mainland grandkids to visit. It tends to draw your interests back to the Mainland, and we see it a lot among veterans. One of our local submariners retired from active duty in the 1970s and started a real estate agency. He hired dozens of veterans who were stationed in Hawaii and wanted to stay here. But one by one, during the next decade or two, they all relocated to the Mainland– closer to aging parents and new grandkids.

Excise tax is not much of an issue alongside commissaries, exchanges, and base gas stations. Costco, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Target are competitive with military shopping– even including the excise tax. Shipping expenses from the Mainland are still annoyingly high for online purchases, but there are ways to work around that. Eating local cuisine is fairly cheap, while Mainland food can be expensive.

Speaking of four seasons & driving, it’s best to live here for several months. The year’s “worst” weather is August-October (dry & “hot”) and January-February (rain & “cold”). House sit or rent an apartment. Use local transportation or buy a cheap sedan from a military base’s used-car lot. Live as local as you can… and then see if any of those pitfalls matter to you!

Related articles:
Lifestyles in military retirement: Living in Hawaii
Lifestyles in military retirement: Hawaii long-term travel
So You Want to Live in Hawaii (a very popular book)
How to Live in Hawaii (a very detailed blog about moving to Hawaii)
Lifestyles in military retirement: Napili Bay, Maui
Lifestyles in military retirement: Haleakala Crater, Maui
Lifestyles in military retirement: Haleakala Crater again
Lifestyles in military retirement: Learning to surf
Waikiki beach camera
HawaiiThreads discussion board (Register and then browse the “Islands Ahoy” forum)
Star-Advertiser newspaper website (Worth paying for a subscription)
Honolulu Civil Beat (another excellent online newspaper)

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