What this calculator covers
This is a full suite of military money tools, not a single calculator – eleven tabs that share one profile, so your grade, time in service, filing status, state, and promotion schedule carry across every tool. Change your pay grade once and every tab updates. To keep the screen focused, you pick up to four tabs at a time, and four one-click presets load the right set for wherever you are in your career:
- New Accession – your first contract: pay ramp, enlistment bonus, TSP, and first housing call.
- Retirement – total comp, career and pension modeling, and VA disability.
- CONUS PCS – a move and the sell-vs-rent / rent-vs-buy housing decisions around it.
- Separation Countdown – leaving before 20: terminal leave and a cash-flow runway.
Everything runs in your browser on 2026 reference rates – nothing is sent to a server. Use the Apps button to swap tabs or presets, Share to copy a link that restores your exact inputs, and Save PDF to print any tab.
Total compensation & take-home pay
The Total Comp tab is the backbone: it turns your grade, years of service, and duty-station locality into base pay plus BAH and BAS, then estimates federal and state tax to show the take-home and the true value of the tax-free allowances most civilian salary comparisons miss. It's the honest number to benchmark any civilian offer against, and it feeds every other tab. OCONUS housing (OHA) and overseas COLA can be entered by hand.
Starting out: first-term pay and TSP
The New Accession preset is built for a first contract. First-Term Pay maps the promotion pay ramp, prices enlistment-bonus installments at your real marginal tax rate (instead of the 22% flat withholding that makes bonus checks look small), and weighs barracks vs. BAH honestly – BAH is only worth what's left after rent and utilities. TSP Starter answers the three questions that matter early under BRS: contribute at least 5% for the full match, know that matching and the automatic 1% don't vest until two years of service, and choose Roth vs. traditional by comparing today's marginal rate to your expected future one.
Career & pension modeling: staying vs. going at 20
The Retirement preset answers the classic question – stay to your High Year of Tenure or retire and go civilian. Career Modeling projects your promotion timeline and High-3; Pension Modeling turns it into a break-even civilian salary: the pre-tax pay a civilian job must offer to beat the larger pension, military pay and allowances, and TRICARE you'd keep by staying. Your pension is a multiplier × years of service × High-3, and each extra year raises the multiplier – 2.0%/year under BRS (40% at 20 → 60% at 30) and 2.5%/year under legacy (50% at 20 → 75% at 30) – on top of any High-3 growth from promotions. Because the pension is paid for life and indexed to inflation, a single step past 20 can be worth six figures in today's dollars, so the tool shows exactly how large an offer would have to be to justify leaving.
VA disability compensation
The VA Estimator combines your rated conditions using VA math – the "whole person" combined rating rather than a simple sum – including the bilateral factor for paired-extremity conditions under 38 CFR § 4.26. It's a self-contained tool for estimating the monthly, tax-free compensation a given set of ratings produces.
PCS moves & the housing decision
The CONUS PCS preset covers a move and the money around it. CONUS PCS lets you describe endpoints by BAH locality so pay changes with the new duty station. Rent vs. Buy weighs renting for the tour and investing the capital against buying (often VA, zero-down) and building equity to sell at the next PCS, with the funding fee, PMI, and itemize-vs-standard-deduction reality baked in. Sell vs. Rent handles the home you're leaving: sell now and invest, or rent it out and sell later, accounting for the military § 121 suspension, depreciation recapture, and the 1031 option.
Separating before 20: leave and a cash runway
The Separation Countdown preset is for leaving without a pension. Terminal Leave optimizes the last 90 days – sell the leave, burn it as terminal leave, or run SkillBridge – and prices the lump sum at your real tax rate. Budget Runway then answers the question that keeps people up at night: how many months of cash you have between your separation date and your first civilian paycheck, counting leave sellback, any severance, unemployment, and VA compensation, and whether the gap closes before your savings run out.
Bottom line
Wherever you are – signing a first contract, weighing a stay-past-20 decision, moving duty stations, or counting down to separation – the same shared profile drives every tool, so the numbers stay consistent as you move between tabs. Pick the preset that matches your situation, enter your grade and years of service once, and run the decision that's actually in front of you.
Quick answers
What does this military calculator include?
Eleven tools sharing one profile: total compensation and take-home pay, first-term pay and TSP, career and pension modeling, VA disability, CONUS PCS, rent vs. buy, sell vs. rent, terminal leave, and a separation budget runway – grouped into New Accession, Retirement, CONUS PCS, and Separation Countdown presets.
Should I stay past 20 years or retire?
It depends on your break-even civilian salary – the pay a civilian job must offer to beat the larger pension, military income, and TRICARE you'd keep by staying. The Retirement preset computes it from your grade, years of service, and promotion timeline.
How much does the pension grow for each year past 20?
About 2.5% of your High-3 per year under legacy and 2.0% under BRS, plus any rise in your High-3 from promotions and longevity raises – paid for life and adjusted for inflation.
Can it help before I hit 20 or when I'm separating?
Yes. The New Accession preset covers first-term pay and TSP, and the Separation Countdown preset prices your terminal leave and shows how many months of cash bridge you to your first civilian paycheck.
Is my data saved or sent anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser on 2026 reference rates; the only thing stored is an optional snapshot in your own browser, and the Share link encodes your inputs in the URL rather than a server.