Some 2.1 million young, middle aged, and older Americans serve our nation either as active duty military or members of either the National Guard or the Reserves. After their generally four years of active duty, service members must decide whether to reenlist, separate, or switch from active duty to serving either in the National Guard or the Ready Reserve.
These decisions involve, of course, a host of non-financial factors, including missing family and pride in defending our country. Economics can only clarify financial tradeoffs. My company’s personal financial planning software, MaxiFi Planner, which is 33 years in the making, measures those tradeoffs. MaxiFi does economics-based financial planning, which seeks to raise, sustain, and protect households’ living standards. One of MaxiFi’s many strengths is comparing different career paths based on their lifetime-spending impacts.