usmc-sgt

Next time you’re in the area. Stop at Hampton and grab breakfast or lunch at the airfield cafe. It’ll likely sell you on wanting to keep your plane there. If it’s a weekend, expect a 30-45 minute wait unless you call ahead to get on their waiting list.

Seabrook is nothing like Portsmouth or Hampton. It is however “booming” with nearly every amenity you would ever want. You can also get likely double the house and land for the same money and half the taxes. Again, just be selective and use google earth/visit to really check the property and its surrounding area before you buy. You may end up with a new construction 3500 square foot home on 6 acres of land next to 4 dilapidated double wide trailers and 6 broken down cars if you aren’t careful. Honestly though, same can be said for Hampton/Portsmouth/Exeter (Hampton Falls excluded from the double wide issue.)

Sliceback

Best friend loving flying domestic. I keep telling him to try the w/b. No interest. Liked his current gig. Finally tried w/b flying. "If I'd known it was this good I would have done it 10 years ago." I told you. "I know, but I didn't hear you. I didn't think it could be that much better."

It's not for everyone. But a lot of guys try it and some of them never leave. Actually a fair amount never leave. It created the joke - "what's the difference between a crack addict and a 777 FO? You might get the addict off of crack."

TransWorld

So many people trying a new food, vacation, getting married, having kids, having grandkids, etc.

dckozak

You should get working on the VISA ASAP. I think you can get it quicker than you believe, but than I haven't dealt with this in 30 years. Being married to a US citizen makes it a forgone conclusion, but until the day you have it you are stuck looking in from the outside for any flying job.

SamuelTheKItty

I'm putting together a comparison between all my financial options (pension, deferred annunity from the military and a salary, etc). Can someone give me a super coles notes of how the retirement contributions work at the Majors? I think I know that the legacies contribute 18% even before you contribute a dime personally, but that it the extent of the knowledge I am able to gleen on the subject. If anyone could give me enough information beyond that to fill out a spreadsheet doing a rough comparison, I'd appreciate it.

rickair7777

Typically they do 17-18% DC to a 401k. You can then voluntarily make additional tax-defered contributions, up to the IRS limit, which is age-dependent.

For a senior-ish CA, the company DC alone might exceed the IRS cap, in which case you'd just get the spillover amount in cash, taxable. You can google the limits.

In conjunction with company 401k, there are some other private options which can complement the 401k benefits.

That's the biggy, but most have other tax-advantaged vehicles such as HSA or ESPP, which are minor in the grand scheme. You can google how those work, but with HSA you can tax shelter a lot of money for current or future (typically retirement) health care spending. If you have a robust military medical plan with very low copays, the HSA might be of limited utility since you can only use that money for medical expenses.

You also typically get free standby travel in retirement.

SamuelTheKItty

Perfect. Thanks for the summary - this is exactly what I needed.

Sliceback

I happened to look at the limits earlier this week. Hopefully my memory is correct -

2024 - individual limit - $23,000. 55 and older gets another $5,000
Combined limit is - $69,000.

So if you max out your own 401K contribution the company is limited to $46,000 before they start paying you the 16-17% as pay. The $46,000 limit at 17% is reached at $270,588 of income. So the majority of pilots can reach the $69,000 limit. If you do that for 25 years it's $1.7+ million of contributions.

Up to $168,000 you also pay full Social Security of 7.2%. After the cap ($168K?) you only pay the 'High FICA'?? of 1.2%.

So after earning $168K you get a 6% reduction in taxes. You net approx. 3.6% at the max tax rates. After $270,588 you get the company's 401K contribution paid as income so you get another 16-17% which works out to be approx. 10% after taxes.

When you reach the $23,000 in personal 401K contributions you also stop contributing to your 401K so you get that amount as a gross pay increase.

I'd front load the 401K contribution so that would cap first, then SS would cap, then I'd hit the annual combined limit. Basically the May, June and September pay checks increased with the various limits being reached.