Originally Posted by GMK35

Assumptions:

- 2023 mil pay with no bonuses/retirement considered
- Using non-locality BAH (which is going to be lower than what 99.9% of guys coming here are actually getting)
- Some sort of Tricare (so not accounting for paying into DAL healthcare)
- New TA pay and ALV of 80
- No paycheck withdrawals to things like 401Ks, IRAs, etc.

1st year pay FO: $8640 pre-tax
Get out as O-5: $13.3K/mo pre-tax / $4660 diff
Get out as O-4 at commitment expiraiton: $11.5K/mo pre-tax / $2860 diff

Now, those diffs above are PRE-TAX and not representative of take-home diff. 55% of mil pay for a pilot is non-taxable, where as 100% of my DAL pay is taxable. Spitballing, but you can easily add $1K (potentially even more) to those diffs when finally accounting for the tax disparity (and God forbid you made a clean break from the mil and no longer have Tricare). That's how "$4-6K" was born. And unless the new TA fixes it, you'll still have a 1-1.5 months of basically no pay during the training to OE-complete transition, then the pay **** ups you have no SA on and don't catch, etc.

The point of all this is for anyone bailing on the mil for Delta, internalize this and go into it with eyes wide open. It will be the best life decision you've ever made, and the above is only a short-term problem in the grand scheme of things, but it can be a huge problem if you haven't planned accordingly. By the way, now throw in you're moving and buying a house all while in this financial point in your life (which many mil dudes do, because the **** if you're going to live in XYZ location the mil last put you at, either by choice or because you're overseas).