Military Financial Independence

I’ve spent most of the last five months posting chapter excerpts of “The Military Guide”. This post starts the last of the book’s chapters. It could also mark the end of the retirement fairy tale: “And they all lived happily ever after.” Right?

Not so fast. If you retire in your 40s then your age demographic can look forward to a minimum of 30 years of being responsible for your own entertainment. For financial-planning purposes you should count on 40 or even 50 years. You’ll find plenty of things to do all day, but each day will present its own set of challenges.

In the coming years, it’s quite possible that you’ll evolve as a human and your priorities will change. Retirement may turn out to be your avocation, but if you encounter another type of avocation (possibly even involving paid employment) then you should feel free to pursue it. Retirement is a life-changing event, and the subsequent years will change you too.

Long-term goals

The longer you’ve been on active duty, the more likely you are to have a list of goals: short, medium, and long-range. Even if you don’t have dates on those goals, you may still have an idea of when you’d like to complete them– monthly, quarterly, or annually.

However, if your retirement is typical of most early retirees, then your time scale is going to change. What used to seem essential for next quarter may start to stretch out over a longer period– even to next year. You were busy with other activities. You’re not transferring to a new duty station every few years, so your sense of timing will no longer revolve around the next set of orders. At a minimum you may find yourself adjusting your monthly goals to quarterly and your quarterlies to annual. Pretty soon you’ll be applying Paul Terhorst’s two-year test to every goal, not just the long-term ones.

If you’re the type of person who keeps a list of very-long-term goals then here are some longevity events to tackle:

• Stay healthy and active longer than the median of your demographic
• Join the list of the 10 oldest alumni from your schools or military occupations
• Collect more pension checks than paychecks (Bonus: adjust the totals for inflation!)
• Discover your “dream avocation”
• Teach your family’s next generation(s) how to achieve financial independence and retirement

Feel free to share your own long-term goals here or on Early-Retirement.org!

Find your avocation?

When you started planning your retirement all those years ago, your top goals were to achieve financial independence and to leave the workplace as quickly as possible. You’ll have enough money to avoid the workplace for the rest of your life, but don’t lock yourself out of the office just for the sake of maintaining your independence.

After a few years of retirement you might find yourself reflecting on your ideal avocation. Many of us achieved retirement through an occupation (like the military) or a series of jobs and never found our true avocation. Maybe your avocation offers a fulfilling sense of accomplishment, total creative control, and a flexible schedule. Maybe there are no bosses, co-workers, office politics, long hours, painful commutes, or workplace uniforms. Or perhaps you’ll discover the traditional corporate ladder of your dreams and begin climbing to your heart’s content. Your goal is to achieve the financial independence to spend your retirement time as you see fit, and to be able to change your life without fear of poverty or deprivation. Maybe retirement is the only avocation you’ll ever want, but you should also devote your time and energy to pursuing your dreams.

Another benefit of financial independence is seeking the work you truly love. You have to love it, because you’re rarely getting paid for it! Most retirees find this through non-profits, whether by becoming an employee of an agency or by volunteering where they see fit. The beneficiaries of your efforts are what make your work so fulfilling. You can focus your efforts locally or at making life better for all of us. While you may enjoy delivering your personal touch at a shelter or school, you can also help an advocacy group to campaign for better health benefits for the homeless or to call attention to veteran’s legal issues.

As a volunteer, you gain creative control just by agreeing to tackle a job that’s been languishing. Anyone who interferes with your control also risks the chance that you’ll simply drop the job and move on, leaving the organization with another vacancy. It’s the same for a flexible schedule– the organization appreciates that some of your time is better than none at all.

If you find your avocation then it won’t even feel like work. You enjoy it so much that if you’re getting paid for any of your efforts then you wouldn’t mind donating all of it to charity. Your intangible rewards are worth far more to you than the effort or the money, and you’re honoring a debt of appreciation owed to those who helped you find your path to financial independence.

But whatever you do, don’t rush it. It bears repeating from an earlier post:

Retirement is the best time of your life to make changes, but don’t be disruptive. It may also be the first time that you’ve ever had so much control over this many aspects of your life, so take it slowly and give yourself (and your family) plenty of time to adapt. Don’t give up that control, and don’t drift along letting change control you. Think through each of your changes and consider whether you’ll see the commitment as an incentive or a burden. Give yourself time to adapt to each change, to decide whether it’s temporary or permanent, and to learn whether it supports or interferes with your other change plans. Don’t burn out. You have the rest of your life to experiment and enjoy your changes, so don’t make things happen so quickly that retirement becomes painful.

Related articles:
Retirement: relax, reconnect and re-engage
Volunteering for charity or neighbors
Forget about who you were and discover who you are
Retirement: don’t recreate your old environment

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Now that you’re taking better care of yourself, it’s time to have fun with it. While you’re designing an improved lifestyle for yourself you can also get a life.

It bears repeating: retirement means that you’re responsible for your own entertainment. This is especially true if you happen to have retired at a more senior rank, where you had a team devoting their efforts to meeting every one of your goals and keeping you happy. That lifestyle is over! While spouse and family are happy to have you back in their lives, they may not necessarily share your new-found joy at being the focus of all your time and attention.

Luckily you can creatively think up plenty of entertainment. You can also evaluate all of your workplace-survival tactics and decide whether they’re still necessary. For example, are you wearing a watch? Why? When you were at work or on duty it may have been necessary to coordinate your activities down to the second– but do you need to continue that? It’s a tiny step to put your watch away for a few days, but it may need a big leap of faith in yourself. At first you’ll find yourself walking around to find a clock, and you might even have a momentary panic of “I’m late!!” But for what? After a few weeks you may have stopped looking for clocks. By the end of the first year you’ll know as much about the time as you care to, but you’ll be looking for a calendar to figure out what day it is.

Do you have to make your bed every morning? That may have been important when you were experiencing reveille and inspections, but those days are over. No one is going to care about your hospital corners, and you’ll probably be back in a few hours anyway for an afternoon nap. Sure, it’d be nice to set a neat example for the kids, too, but no one has to stow for sea anymore. Maybe the younger ones would share the thrill of your retirement by not having to make their beds every morning, either. Years later you may still feel as if you’re getting away with something.

Navy veterans of a certain age may remember that sad 1980s day when beards were outlawed by the uniform regulations. (Don’t worry, submariners, your secrets are safe with me.) Men felt that it was nice to shave less, beards kept faces warm during cold weather, and a few shipmates’ chins desperately needed a well-groomed coat of hair. If you’re now a retired man then what better way to remind yourself than by growing a beard, or at least a goatee and sideburns? The shock value with family and friends is priceless, and you can decide one last time if growing it is worth the itchy phase. Even if you shave it off again after a month, you can still relax your former clean-shaven standards. Shaving twice a week will keep you groomed enough and, if done regularly, it can help you remember what day of the week it is.

Speaking of hair, when was your last haircut? For at least the last two decades you’ve had little or no choice about your hair length and style– let alone its color and accessories. Once again you have a new opportunity to try new lifestyles and habits. From now on, every day your hair could be the longest it’s ever been. For some of us it may be the last chance to discover what our hair can do! If you’re a parent then few things will annoy your kids more than a pony-tail-growing contest. They’ll complain happily to their friends about the phase their parents are going through, but secretly they’ll be impressed and looking forward to their own retirement.

You get the idea, and from this point you can let your imagination run wild. Tattoos and body piercings are no longer out of the question, either, although you may still feel compelled to set an example for impressionable teens. Others may see retirement as a chance to have a tattoo or two removed without worrying about inappropriate workplace attention.

While you’re enjoying a little rebellion, remember to keep it “little”. Retirement is a fantastic opportunity to experiment with alcohol, smoking, or even riskier behavior. Family and friends don’t have to know about this research, and you don’t even have to worry about military urinalysis! But as you start this new phase of your life, the last thing you want to do is to risk your health (or your arrest record). In extreme circumstances it risks your longevity, let alone your military pension and benefits. There are hundreds of sad stories of retirees who couldn’t be responsible for their own entertainment and turned to riskier behaviors out of boredom or even fear. That’s not rebellion– that’s avoidance and defeat. You’ve looked forward to retirement for decades and you’ve prepared for months. Turn your lifestyle healthier, not more hazardous.

Related articles:
Retirement: don’t recreate your old environment
Retirement: relax, reconnect and re-engage
Lifestyles in military retirement: surfing
“But… but… but what will I DO all day?!?”

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Now that you’re financially independent with more control over your time, it would be a shame if this “retiree duty” ended early from negligence. One of your new goals should be to maximize your longevity!

Turn that goal into a plan and execute it. After years of denial and deferred gratification, it’s tempting to spend all day in front of the TV with junk food and frosty beverages. You’ve earned it, right? When you were in the military, your chain of command ensured that you maintained a minimum level of physical activity. In retirement, however, you have to take responsibility for your own health and fitness. The good new is that you can always fall back on group exercise or a personal coach, and now you have plenty of time to try all those lifestyles and activities you’ve been curious about.

When you finished your military separation physical, you may have found issues that wouldn’t delay your retirement but needed your corrective attention. Blood pressure and cholesterol levels may have been rising over the years along with body weight, and you may even be on corrective medication. You’re probably already coping with two occupational hazards: too much stress and too little sleep. Retirement gives you a chance to figure out long-term solutions for all of these problems.

Many retirees report that their first months of retirement included dramatic reductions in stress, weight, and blood pressure. Instead of eating on the run or bingeing on fast food there’s time to redesign your routine, restock the house with healthier food and snacks, and eat smaller meals at more regular intervals. Instead of going on a diet, a lifestyle solution would be to move to a better cuisine. This is your chance to explore a high-fiber low-fat menu, more raw ingredients, fewer convenience foods, different cooking styles, and new recipes. Instead of trying to get going each morning with caffeine or energy drinks you could focus on a wakeup routine that includes better hydration and a more leisurely breakfast. Instead of “lunch hour” you could balance your body’s digestive activities (and insulin levels) with smaller meals and more frequent snacks. Instead of racing home at the end of the workday to gorge on dinner and collapse in front of the TV with “dessert”, you can add an afternoon workout or an after-dinner walk and still have plenty of time to cook. Now that you won’t be trapped on watch or in meetings, you can drink as much water as you need and even use the bathroom whenever you want!

As you recover from years of chronic fatigue, think about what physical activities you want to enjoy for the rest of your life. Decades of government-sponsored exercise and operations may have ground down some body parts, especially knees and backs, while age may also be making inroads on your physique. You no longer have to design your exercise around passing the next physical readiness test, either. You could continue sports and activities that you’ve enjoyed for years, or you could explore new ones. Try to select different ways to improve strength, coordination, flexibility, reflexes, and aerobic fitness.

After retiring, when you first visit a doctor (for whatever reason), look around the waiting room and consider how your life has changed. When you were in uniform, doctor’s visits may have occurred all too often as an interruption to your workday. In retirement they may happen annually or even less often, and you’ll have to make the most of that time with research beforehand and a list of questions. Instead of having to squeeze the appointment into your workday or field maneuvers, you can arrange a convenient visit when both you and the doctor have time to talk. If you’re at a military clinic, take a look at the patients in uniform– you used to rush around with that look on your face, too. While your vital signs are being checked, you can chat with the assistants instead of hustling through to the exam. You could even let them know that you’ve recently retired and ask them to compare your previous heart rate and blood pressure readings for improvement. The doctor needs to hear that you’re retired, too, so that you can check for the inevitable physiological changes and evaluate whatever treatments you may be continuing from active duty.

As you move toward a healthier lifestyle, take the time to make a gradual long-term change instead of punishing yourself with a training camp or dietary deprivation. You don’t have to rush it, and you want food and exercise to complement a new routine instead of disrupting it. You can’t abruptly cut off the caffeine or immediately switch to a high-fiber diet or train intensely for a triathlon. Your body will not cooperate with the change, you may even risk injury, and your suffering will kill your motivation. Research, experiment, and move slowly. Make lists of the things you want to improve and consider planning them out on a calendar for the next 6-12 months. Build up your strength and your conditioning while your body adapts to your new diet. Make one or two gradual changes a month instead of slamming yourself into a new regime. Gradually ramping up to next year’s 10K road race is much more achievable than trying to cram in double workouts for next month’s Ironman.

Here’s a final note about taking care of yourself. Once you’re officially retired, register at your local Veteran’s Affairs office and consider making them your primary care manager. One critical reason to register with them is to enable them to quickly notify you of any veteran’s health issues that you may have unknowingly been exposed to in uniform. Another good reason is to document your local residency, which lets them claim their fair share of funds to support the veterans in their service area. Federal and state governments have also invested a lot of effort and money to improve the VA’s offerings and the quality of their service. Older veterans have a certain impression of the agency that may no longer be accurate in your area. You may find that their primary-care management is even better than a civilian clinic, and they have a much better appreciation for military occupational hazards or other lifestyle issues.

Related articles:
Medical and dental exams

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