Originally Posted by L'il J.Seinfeld

I wish someone had explained this to me before I got off AD. I got my dream job at UPS, but the USAFR is saving me right now. My first year pay at UPS is $800 after taxes every 2 weeks. In the USAFR I can easily make 3k a month. I do not claim to be an expert, but this is how I understand the system works. I am sure others will correct any mistakes I may have included.

There are 5 ways to get paid working in the reserves.

TP Training period TP is a 4 hour block where you get paid 1/30th of your monthly base pay plus 1/30th of your flight pay. You do not get housing or subsistence. There are two types of TPs; flight and ground. You can do two flight TPs in a single day. That's how you get paid for 2 days and only work 1. You can also do a ground and flight TP but not 2 ground TPs in the same calendar day. You are allocated 48 TPs in a year and you can only do 16 per quarter. You do not have to complete all of your TPs.

Annual Tour Day You have 15 days of annual tour to do. You can break them up however you wish and they are paid the same as if you were on active duty.

Man Day There are two types of man days and they are Reserve and Military. Military is when the active duty needs help and pays the Reserve member. A man day is paid as if you were on active duty i.e. 1/30th of your basic pay plus BAH, fly pay and any other allowances. A man day would be used for sitting Alert, getting you PHA done, or travelling on a TDY to get your alt chamber renewed. Reserve Man days are what get curtailed when money gets tight.

RUMP I forget what it stands for. It is a 4 hour block where you get paid 1/60th of your base pay and fly pay. It involves doing special non-mission related duties such as Awards and Decs. The limit is 24 and you can do 2 Rumps in 1 day.

UTA UTA days are the best. Units have a UTA weekend every month. They count as 4 TPs so you get paid for 4 days while working 2. You can also reschedule them if you can't make the scheduled unit UTA.

So if your goal was to make as much money as possible without taking a deployment you would at least be able to do the following:
48 UTA TPs (12 months X 4 TPs=48pay days)
15 Annual Tour Days
48 TPs
24 Rumps=12 pay days

That totals 123 pay days. There are unlimited man days right now if you accept a deployment. Under federal law you can miss work at your civilian job in order to do mil duty. I ususally do 8-10 days a month with the Reserves. That means I get 15-20 USAFR paydays. Once I get to second year pay (assuming we get a FedEx-type contract) I would lose money if I took mil leave and will probably only do the UTA weekend and one flight per month in order to maximize time at home. Each pay day you get counts as 1 point towards your retirement. You get 1 point for every day you spent on AD. Right now an O-5 retirement pays something like 45 cents per point per month and starts at age 60.

Thank God for the USAFR. As much as I hated the AD and the corrupt leadership, I love the reserves and the folks in the unit. It's amazing how much you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit.