The military pays us an allowance (tax free money) that we can use towards housing. The news is that the military is getting an average of 0.5% increase. Clearly we are above average with an increase in our allowance of 11.3%! That is $183 increase. We don't have to use our full allowance for housing if we don't choose to. Currently, we have a mortgage on the home we live in. Our current payment is $1,311, increasing to $1355 because of increased taxes. With our new housing allowance at $1800 per month, we are well under the allowance.
It is very tempting to put that extra money towards the mortgage, but more than likely I will just save it for the move coming up in 2015. Yes, we have already started down that road...ranking our preferences based on the jobs available. I really want to stay in our current state, but the odds are against that I think.
Once the holiday and celebrations have past I will be working hard on figuring out our new paycheck amount and goals. One thing I need to figure out is how much as a percentage to send to retirement. It is probably time to increase it again with the raise in salary and housing allowance.
Anyone else out there in the military? Did you get a bigger than average increase in your BAH for 2015?
Housing Allowance Increasing
December 23rd, 2014 at 04:01 am
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