Before BMT · home front
Everything to square away before you report to BMT — for her, and for you.
Checkboxes save to this device only — there's no shared login. When you want her to see your progress (or vice versa), copy a snapshot link and send it over text. Opening it offers to apply that progress here.
Every dollar figure below is an editable example, not a live rate — military pay tables change every year and BAH depends on her exact ZIP code. Type in your real numbers once you have them (MyPay, your LES, or the DTMO BAH calculator for her rate). Everything here is a gross estimate before taxes — your actual deposit will be less.
Gross estimate before taxes and other deductions — not a substitute for your LES. This isn't shared with her automatically; talk through the numbers together.
Shown as a range because the exact tech school graduation date depends on your aircraft shred (71 vs. 96 class days) — see the Checklist timeline.
2A031 trains on B-1, B-2, B-52, F-15, F-16, and F-22 test stations — the bases below are the ones tied to those aircraft, U.S. soil and overseas. The real estate ranking below uses real median home prices and market trends pulled live on Jul 12, 2026 (sources linked on each entry) — but home prices move, so treat these as a snapshot to re-check closer to when it actually matters, not an evergreen number. The quality-of-life ranking still uses general, durable factors (climate, cost of living, distance from her in NY). Neither is a guarantee of assignment — your actual duty station depends on Air Force needs and the preferences you list at tech school, and could be any of these or somewhere else entirely.
Buy a primary residence at each assignment with $0-down VA financing, live in it (VA loans require you to occupy it, typically within 60 days of closing), then when you PCS to the next base, that becomes a legitimate reason to move out and rent it to the next family instead of selling. Your VA entitlement can often be partially reused for the next purchase even while the previous loan is still open, subject to your remaining entitlement and that county's loan limits — work with a lender who specifically handles VA loans and knows the current entitlement math, since it depends on your individual Certificate of Eligibility and changes over time. Repeat at each PCS to build a small rental portfolio instead of buying and selling every move.
U.S. soil only — VA-loan house-hacking isn't the same play on host-nation overseas bases, so those are left out here and covered in the quality-of-life ranking instead. Ranked using real median-price and market-trend data pulled Jul 12, 2026 — source linked under each entry. Where sources disagreed, a range is shown rather than picking one number. Click Full market analysis under any base for the deeper breakdown, following the same four categories HUD's official Comprehensive Housing Market Analysis reports use: Economy, Population, Home-Buying Market, and Rental Market.
A few terms in plain English: Unemployment rate — the percent of people who want a job but don't have one. Vacancy rate — how many homes or apartments are sitting empty, out of all of them in the area; lower usually means it's easier for a landlord to find a tenant. Months of supply — how long it would take to sell every home currently for sale, at the current sales pace, if no new ones got listed; a rising number means the market is cooling toward buyers.
All possible assignments, U.S. and overseas — weighted partly on how easy it'd be for her (and the baby) to visit or for you to get home, since that's the actual situation here.
Pulled from your own income-sources workbook (as of Jul 27, 2026) and rebuilt here as live calculators instead of frozen numbers — everything below is editable and recalculates as you change it. Same privacy model as the rest of the site: local to this browser only, nothing sent anywhere. Pay tables, BAH, contribution limits, and interest rates all change — treat these as a real starting point to revisit every few months, not a permanent record.
Gross, before taxes — pay-table figures are transcribed from your own workbook for E-1–E-6 (the realistic near-term range from here); confirm your exact current rate via MyPay before relying on this for a real decision.
Years 1–4 project forward from the Pay sub-tab using the growth rates above; years 5–8 assume separation at the end of year 4 and switch to business-income-only, using the Exit Plan sub-tab's assumptions.
2026 contribution limits: Roth IRA $7,500/yr under age 50; TSP elective deferral $24,500/yr plus an $8,000 catch-up at 50+. Not enforced as hard caps here — just context.
A handful of ZIPs worth comparing side by side for the next house-hack — edit any cell.
Once you close on something real, track actual cash flow here instead of the hypothetical deal analyzer above.
Adapted from your own plan — priorities are ordered, not just a list.