F that noise

Trip mix varies month to month, but inside 15% will usually get you turns. Inside 10 to avoid weekends.

Im splitting hairs, your overall point that it requires seniority is correct.


However I would respectfully dispute the difficulty of dropping drops and picking up "easy" OT. I started doing it around 30% and had zero difficulty. Wish I'd started earlier. I see folks far junior do it with better results so it sure ain't that I'm the smartest guy in the room.

Love/hate commuting/day turns--something for everyone. Part of what makes this such a great job. I sucked at commuting so moving was a no brainer. Base has more options, I like options. Half the airline (Air Line) commutes, that's a lot of evidence it works

To the OP, the financial options this career provides are fantastic. I don't have to make decisions based primarily on lowest cost. That is a huge change from the reality of my life before. If it is financially doable to move to base, don't let the mortgage rate be THE deciding factor. Many people don't have the financial means to even consider what you are suggesting, we do. Good luck

Keep in mind the biggest single factor that governs trip mix is work rules. If you have very strong work rules credit time almost always forces longer trips. It's very difficult to pull long legs out of the flight segments to build turns without driving up credit on the longer trips and reducing overall trip value. I once worked with other pilots to show the company a better bid package could be produced. One of the goals was to create more turns and two day trips. One we pulled long legs for turns it became impossible to build the rest of the bid package without a substantial increase in credit. The flight attendants have lots of turns. They also have lots of 3 day trips worth 14:30 ect... If they had our work rules a lot of the turns would go away.
One last consideration. Prior to the last merger 5 day trips were considered to long domestically with regard to QOL. Post merger the company agreed to limit trips to 4 days. This produced a huge number of pilot complaints to bring back the 5 day trips. The company said fine, it helps with credit. Be careful what you ask for!

I think you meant to write "within your means", didn't you?

Second gen retired major captain. So here is my advice; Don't follow the crowd.

My dad lived right on the edge of his budget and took on plenty of debt. He went through a furlough and an involuntary base transfer. It was hard on the whole family because of the financial stress. He had lost his " captain castle" which I helped build in 1969. He died after 22 years of retirement with a near zero personal balance sheet, and owing money, including the IRS. Life can throw unexpected curves.

I learned from his mistakes. I'm retired now and still living in my dream "FO" home. Children really don't dream or care about living in a mansion, or owning a big boat. They care about stability in the family, and good experiences. That is more doable while living well within your means.

Invest in your family's emotional future. If you have kids, it is very likely they will need help at some point after they leave home. It's just the crappy state of our ever inflating economy and the fickleness of the job market. Be prepared for that.

Your legacy won't be positively affected because you own really nice " stuff", like houses, boats, cars. It will be about how generous you were with. your time and money.

Yes and no... To keep things simple one's primary residence should be considered a consumer item just like any other purchase. This is different from an actual investment property.

We can agree to disagree. Homes appreciate. Consumer items don't. Owning a home leverages a large amount of capital with a relatively small upfront cost. You have to pay to live somewhere unless you have a great tent and a luxury underpass. The appreciation in a home compounds. The post above talks about living in his FO home forever. That's great but given what the market has done the last 30 years that cost him dearly. I recently retired and sold my last house to build my dream old guys house. I used the equity to build my current house debt free and still put a nice chunk of money in the bank. Over my airline career it cost me zero to live in nice houses. 200k down on a 1 million dollar home produces a 20% return on that money if the home appreciates 4% a year. As the home value compounds that 20% return goes up and up! It's likely your payment would actually go down over time with refinancing. If you worst case choose to rent your payments are only going up over your career.

Sure, till the market takes a dump on everyone. It’s coming, inventory is building up, people got greedy and now they can’t sell and buyers are in strike. I’m one of those, not paying 1+ mill for a house that’s not worth 300-400k. Not paying for 500k for a house that’s worse than my house built in 2013.

House correction is already started in TX and FL. Also as boomers starts to die and their kids can’t pay for HOAs/Taxes/Insurance, homes will seat vacant because not many people will be able to or willing to pay for those prices.

Millenials and Gen Z, don’t care about big houses, boats, planes…they just want to experience life differently than their parents. We are having less kids or no kids, a lot are in financial distress and have college debt. Most of them just want to travel or have more time off with their families.

Culture is changing and will be changing. All those benefits you got, not everyone will be able to experience.

The market will take several dumps over the course of a career. It always comes roaring back. I Know a bunch of guys who short sold during the giant dump in 08-09. They got crushed when the market came back and ended up priced out of the market. They were also paying far more in rent than my mortgage payments.
You keep trying to state that home ownership hurts quality of life. I would argue the opposite. It's the basis for a solid financial footing to allow all the things you state you value. We never lacked for vacations or quality of life enhancements. I get that some people want to put every dollar into savings and take zero risks. Most people I observed like that also spent almost no money on vacations or quality of life. I oftened wondered the reasons many of them were saving so much money. I assumed it was so they could afford the very best wheelchair down the road.

Personally I think a couple more desirable bases would be more beneficial to the group as a whole. 50% of the air line commuting is absurd.

To OP, I'm not sure if you've made up your mind or not, but I hope some of these comments have been helpful. I was in your shoes two years ago and decided to continue commuting. The family being happy and safe around friends and our entire family while I'm gone at work means a lot to me. We bought a home in an incredible area before the price hikes as well and couldn't find anything remotely reasonable price-wise in bases we were considering. Our mortgage was only going to increase $1,000 so I can't even fathom increasing 3x like your situation. We're walking distance from 1st through 8th grade schools and 2 miles from the high school with lake access. We're only a few years in and already have made countless memories.

In my opinion, living in base is only a viable option in these situations if you choose to apply for other positions that pull you from the line and keep you home almost every night. Otherwise, I couldn't shake how selfish I was being with uprooting from a place we love just to be able to drive to work and still be gone half the month with my family alone and unhappy. A remedy to the situation has been bidding home layovers. If you can do this, you're essentially getting all the time lost due to commuting back and more.

Good luck with your decision and trust your gut. It's just a job and there's so much more to life to focus on and appreciate. Especially after 65 when this job is a distant memory and what's left is everything you've built and cherished along the way.

Not always. And especially not always more than standard equities market rates of return.

In other words, depending on your home for retirement funds is high risk.

Buying the least expensive home you can tolerate will free up a lot of exess wealth that, if invested properly in a diversified global equities portfolio, will absolutely out perform the home purchase in most cases most of the time.

However, it is indeed possible to get lucky by having one's home value increase at a faster rate over time than 'the stock market.' But that's rolling the dice. And same for investment properties... the real benefit is that you get someone else to invest the money for you, OPM.... but again... much higher risk.

True until you factor in that you must pay to live somewhere and you are leveraging your investment with the ability to put a relatively small down payment to control a large asset at some of the cheapest interest rates you can obtain. As I pointed out a one million dollar home with 20% down yields a 20% profit in year one if the home appreciates only 4%. Your payments also increase equity each month. The one thing that caught my attention early in my career was the senior guys who seemed really well off had money in real estate. It certainly should only be a portion of your financial planning but should not be overlooked.

I have done well with multi unit properties if you can stomach the hassles of being a slumlord. Did it last 15 years and I just cashed out on my last one and will bite the bullet on capital gains. Just need to time the market , usually just luck I’ve found out. Then when youre Getting phone calls asking if you want to sell your property- it’s a good time to sell it !

As far as younger Gen Z , D and E not wanting to buy. They do have a point. I personally cannot fathom the idea of not owning my home, yet I lease a car. A lot of younger people I engage with don’t want the hassles of ownership. They can pay their rent, fulfill their lease and be gone . Also a lot of nice apartments are like resort living now. A newer pilot I worked with travels the world like a gypsy on her days off and it sounds appealing. Society is changing .

Yeah, I don't own and really can't justify it financially. I live well below my means, invest the excess into index funds, move whenever I want to and just call my landlord whenever anything breaks. Hassle free life.
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All this financial talk; anyone have a recommendation for a reasonable reference for a financial planner?
I am not from this kind of money and financial planning is not a passion of mine. Looking for someone to talk to kind of just have a set it and forget type plan. 401k, health spillover, etc

Just curious, you think it's not a realistic option because of the current real estate market? Which I completely understand, i've got a buddy at an ACMI, 76 CA who can't afford to get into a home in ATL. We built our house new 11 years ago for $500K'ish, it would now sell for $1.3M on our street. And it's nothing insane, relatively standard 4/3 around 3,000 sq ft on a 1/3 of an acre. And people are still buying these places 2 days after going on the market, for over asking. Young couples too, I don't know where they get this money from.

A good rule to use is to never take financial advice from a pilot.

With that being said, here is my free advice.

A financial planner can drastically eat into your 401k balance.

"An extra 1% in fees can be brutal when it compounds over time. And extra 401(k) fees add up even more quickly for higher-income workers. A scenario from NerdWallet analyzes a 25-year-old who plans to retire at 65, has $25,000 in retirement savings, saves $10,000 in the account each year, and earns a 7% average annual return. In this example, paying just 1% in fees costs the saver more than $590,000 in sacrificed returns over 40 years of saving."

If you truly want a financial planner, try to find a fee only fiduciary. I got quoted from such a planner for a whole holistic plan for around $5000. We didn't end up going that route as we are still young and I enjoy learning about financial strategies. The person with the most invested in your financial future is you, so I feel with proper education, you can control your portfolio yourself. Only like 5% of fund managers can outperform the market, so I really feel passive investing is the way to go.

If you don't want any part of it, a basic target date fund is a good way to do it. Just make sure it is not actively managed and uses index funds to keep costs low.

If you want a little more control, a 3 fund portfolio (domestic total market, international total mark, domestic bond) is very easy and reliable. Just rebalance once a year and it's totally hands off besides that. We are still young so we do this without the bond allocation.

But my biggest piece of advice is to max out your 401k, your wife's 401k (if she works), your and your wife's Roth IRA (use the backdoor method as long as you don't have a traditional IRA), and if you are eligible, your HSA. Never touch your HSA funds until retirement. Pay cash for medical bills while allowing your HSA to grow tax free (HSA is one of the best retirement accounts possible as it is triple tax advantaged). Save all your receipts along the years and when you retire, withdraw cash from the HSA using those receipts.

I really enjoy following these guys. They have a financial order of operation that walks you through how to save and where to put your money. They have a youtube channel, which I enjoy.

https://moneyguy.com/article/foo/

There are other areas where a financial planner would be very beneficial, but I'd say it depends on your mindset and your age. As I get older, I will definitely pay a fee only financial planner to double check my plan and help tweek it a bit. But doing Roth conversions now (Trump's tax cuts are ending soon) to reduce future required minimum distributions (RMD's) might be a good idea, depending on your tax bracket now.

I'll emphasize this. You can just go head down, nose to the grindstone and blindly accumulate savings and wealth when you're young.

But approaching age 50 (maybe sooner if you hit max contribution limits) you'll definitely want a professional to look at your situation holistically. Fee only, not somebody with a financial product to sell, and they need to be local in your state to address your specific tax situation.

The point of this, now that you have wealth, is to ensure that you don't waste any wealth or opportunity by mismanaging investments, taxes, social security, etc. For example you may need to reduce 401k savings late in your career, to avoid excess RMD's and associated tax in retirement.

Day trips generally go senior, often very senior. Nice if you live close, like them, and can hold them.

But not really a valid proposition for most pilots to tell them "just fly turns".

If the question is "how do I spend more time at home after my wife retires at age 60?", then turns might be the answer.

Most of the rest of your advice was excellent and spot on... but target date funds are not any good:

https://www.paulwinkler.com/podcast/...nts-heres-why/

I love this. Thanks for posting it. I think that's something that I've had to come to terms with too, and if I could go back in time and tell my newhire self one thing, that would be it--that way I could have gotten started down this path earlier. We're not totally off the rails, but I think I would have made some decisions differently. I think when you get hired at a major, you think that you've "made it." Well, you have and you haven't. So I've had to adjust some of my expectations. It was unpleasant at first, but I think both my wife and I are on the same page now. Luckily at this income level, you can fix financial problems in fairly short order if you catch them early and prioritize.

Yes, mostly this. For me it's cheaper to rent currently.. significantly. Now long term (10+ years), it's hard to tell, but I also don't want to commit to a house for 10 years right now. The key is that if you are renting, you need to be investing your savings. Long term real estate is a good investment and the cheap leverage the common man can get with low rate mortgages does amplify it, but it's not all rainbows like some people who push the "American dream" like to insinuate.

My dad used to tell me "I wish I bought a house sooner.. it was the best investment I ever made." And I would say "yeah, but it's the ONLY investment you ever made (he had a pension)."

Not to mention the products that you have available to you. Generally, qualified purchasers/accredited investors have far better options available to them that they are not able to purchase through retail brokerages directly, like hedge funds, etc. While you might pay someone to access these investments, the trade off in gains/tax-efficiency outweighs those fees.

You don't have to be senior at a major airline to fly turns. You need to be senior in your category. The last few years that has taken place quickly.

Hedge funds almost always underperform index funds, and are less tax efficient. The only people who have any investing advantage are the spouses of Congressmen.

As a pilot at a major airline you have outstanding retirement vehicles. If you haven’t saved enough for retirement it’s a you (spending) problem.

I’d argue you don’t even need to be senior in your category, you just need to know how to use the system.

I’m 80% in my seat and I could fly only day turns Mon-Fri every month if I wanted.

I'm honestly curious, since 80% isn't really that senior, what sort of system manipulation are you doing to only get day turns during the week? I'm not sure i've ever seen a junior'ish guy with only day turns on their sked

if I had to guess he is NYC based at a Legacy, or works for Allegiant.

There are a lot of commuters into NYC, so at DL the day turns go more junior than at other bases

I live in base and hate day turns. The less times I have to drive the Van Wyck a month the better.

I'm also that weirdo that loves EWR trips, but I live in NJ and am too junior to hold them. When I was a commuter I hated EWR trips.

AA Miami Bus FO live in base.

I’m not manipulating anything, but I use TTS and DOTC constantly. We just had a union email the other day that said only 40% of the crewforce uses our trip trade system, so there’s plenty that can do what I do and choose not to.

I honestly don’t care what PBS awards me. I don’t fly any of it. I drop/trade/pickup my way into the schedule I want. I usually pick up last minute trips with high credit and low block. IROPs are a gold mine.

I’m not saying I can hold turn awards, but if that’s all I want to fly for the month I can do it no problem.

Are you a member of any hedge funds? Obviously there are many out there, but my K-1s have not only beat the S&P every year, but also post losses every year while doing so. The point of hedge funds is to be tax efficient. If all you have are your retirement accounts, that is another story as they are inherently tax efficient.

Not sure of your particular situation but I suspect they are returning your capital to you and that’s why it looks like you are beating the market and having tax loses. Warren Buffet won his million dollar bet that an S&P index would beat hedge funds. Every study I’ve read shows low cost index’s beating hedge funds.

Hedge funds make hedge fund managers rich (with your money), and give investors who want to feel fancy, something to talk about at the club. They don’t beat low cost index funds. That may change in the future, but right now you are just making your hedge fund manager and whoever sold you the fund rich.

I would recommend you talk to a professional if you have the assets to purchase them. Particularly if you have a large amount of money outside of retirement accounts. You are thinking of them as a mutual fund, which they are not. They are a tax avoidance tool. They don’t have a NAV or post 1099s.

I am familiar with how they function. I completed the academic portion of the certified financial planner program (masters).

The point of my post is to point out to the average pilot that he or she is much better off using the retirement vehicles in their 401K before chasing things that claim to have “special access” to exotic investments. Your financial advisor is taking a huge cut when he sells these things to you, and the hedge fund manager is taking another huge cut by selling these things.

Not sure about the other airlines but Delta and United pilots can do back door Roth 401ks. This allows them to put almost 44K of already taxed money and 23k of pretax money in tax free (Roth) and tax deferred (traditional) accounts. Coupled with Back door Roth IRAs, they can put almost 85K of their money away. I think folks should utilize these accounts then diversify into real estate, if they still want to invest more.

AA can too. I maxed out $67k my first year via this method. I’m married, so I could also do ROTH IRA x 2 and HSA. It worked out to ~$87k tax advantaged contributions, Great deal.

Again, I’m not talking about retirement accounts. If all of your savings are limited to those, then alternative investments don’t make sense. But if you are only looking at 415C limits and IRAs, we’re not talking about assets in the same ballpark.