Surveys show ex-service members retire with more assets, less debt and greater confidence. Here are six ways to follow their lead.
When her son Corbett joined the Marine Corps right out of high school in 2013, Lara Ferguson was surprised to learn that he was required to sign up for a retirement savings account.
It wasn’t just the military’s focus on financial planning that got her attention. It was that, as a certified financial planner herself, she seldom saw civilian clients start preparing for retirement so early.
“Before they get their first paycheck, someone is telling [new enlistees] to put a portion of it into savings,” says Ferguson, who works for Citizens Wealth Management in Charlotte, North Carolina, and whose three sons have all served.
New research suggests there is a lot to learn from how they and their peers plan for retirement.
People who have served in the military have more assets, are less worried about debt and are more confident about retirement than their nonmilitary counterparts, according to a 2024 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). They’re also more likely to know how much money they will need to pay for health care or cover an emergency expense in retirement, the poll shows.
Another 2024 study, by financial services company First Command, found that more than three-quarters of career military families are confident they will be able to retire comfortably, compared to about half of civilians who have financial advisers and fewer than one in five who don’t.
“It’s astounding how many conversations I have with nonmilitary people who don’t know whether their company even has a 401(k) match,” Ferguson says.
But in the armed services, she notes, saving for retirement becomes the norm right off the bat. “They don’t have a choice. We should all get in that habit.”
Here are six things military members do to prepare for retirement that we can all incorporate into our plans.
1. Start building a nest egg as soon as you can
Like Ferguson’s sons, most service members join up young: 83 percent are 17 to 21 years old when they enlist, according to the nonprofit military research organization CNA. Unlike most civilians in that age group, all are required to undergo financial counseling.
“The military from day one is teaching you to have a long-term goal,” says Will Mullin, a former Army combat engineer and senior vice president at the Wealth Enhancement Group, a financial advisory firm.
Incoming service members are automatically enrolled in the Thrift Savings Plan, a 401(k)-style retirement account for federal employees and military personnel, and they get a life insurance policy administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“From the day you start working, you start preparing for retirement,” says Paris Jackson, a financial adviser at Northwestern Mutual who served for more than 20 years as a financial manager in the Army.
That’s a crucial message for people who didn’t serve in the military, she says. “The phrase I always hear from them is, ‘I wish I’d started earlier.’ ”
Most people don’t get the head start service members do — fewer than 8 percent of civilians ages 15 to 23 have retirement accounts, according to U.S. Census Bureau data — but financial advisers stress that it’s never too late to start saving. If your workplace offers a 401(k), sign up. Set your contribution rate to automatically increase each year and take full advantage of any employer match.
“We as a population have to get back to thinking about our futures at a younger stage in life,” says Christopher Fitzpatrick, deputy director of Coordinated Assistance Network, a nonprofit that provides financial coaching to active service members and veterans.
2. Talk about money
There’s another thing that focuses service members on their financial futures sooner: Research has shown that, on average, they get married several years younger than civilians do.
“It causes them to be much more serious about making sure that if something happens to them, their family’s going to be OK — to sock money away, make sure they have life insurance,” says James Cadet, a retirement planning counselor at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and a West Point graduate who served as a military intelligence officer. He says that even civilians who marry and have kids later can anticipate family financial needs and plan accordingly.
Because of disruptions such as deployments, military couples do something else advisers say civilians should do more: Share financial information between them.
“Know the passwords and how the bills are being paid,” says Michael Meese, a retired brigadier general and president of the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association.
Ferguson echoes that in her work. “I preach this all the time with clients: Everybody needs to know everything.”
3. Get help
Many service members don’t confine those conversations to their families. They openly discuss their finances with more experienced mentors, typically officers and older comrades. “You’re much more prone to seek out advice,” says John Osarczuk, a former Air Force pilot and the national director of adviser operations at First Command.
“It’s not unheard of for a squad leader to go to the car dealership with a soldier so they don’t take out a loan with 19 percent interest to buy a Dodge Neon,” says Kyle Packard, a former Army Ranger and a certified financial planner in Alexandria, Virginia, whose firm, Packard Wealth Strategies, focuses on retiring service members and veterans. “Everyone knows exactly what everyone else makes, so there’s no self-consciousness or anxiety over money.”
In civilian life, money “is still something people consider secret,” Jackson notes. “People don’t talk about what they make.”
These pros’ advice? Don’t be afraid to open up.
“Ask for help. Ask the old guy in the office,” Packard says. Or talk to your HR department. Tapping their years of experience and expertise may well be worth the short-term discomfort.
4. Live within your means
Enlisted service members are not highly paid, at least not early in their careers. Basic pay in 2025 starts at just over $25,000 a year (not including additional allowances for housing, clothes and other needs). Financial advisers say that gets people in the military accustomed to another important habit for retirement planning: budgeting.
“There’s a sense of frugality,” says Packard. “I don’t want to say it’s universal, but it’s much more prevalent in the military.” In the civilian sector, Cadet says, “people may get sucked in more easily to spending money they don’t have.”
Emulating the military’s culture of discipline, at any stage, could help Americans prepare better for retirement, Meese says. “You don’t spend more than you make, and you try to put away 10 percent and do all these disciplined things,” he says.
5. Ask about your benefits
Fewer than 30 percent of service members stick with the military until retirement, the EBRI survey found. Most muster out to other careers and are confronted with an entirely new alphabet of civilian benefits.
“They make this big transition, and that causes them to ask more questions at that point,” says Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits research at EBRI. “Just gliding through the private sector, you don’t have that kind of big focus.”
Civilians changing jobs “look at it as more paperwork,” Mullin says. They may not know or understand the full range of benefits offered and, as a result, don’t take full advantage of them,.
Jackson encourages her clients to ask detailed questions whenever they switch jobs: “Have I taken advantage of everything my employer offers? Have I signed up for all the benefits?”
6. Revisit and revise your plan
Military culture motivates service members to regularly reconsider their retirement plans in response to changing circumstances. As on the battlefield, there is always a Plan B.
“In the military, it’s not fire and forget,” Osarczuk says. “You don’t do it one time and then never come back to it. You pay attention to it all the time. How have my goals changed? How has my life situation changed? And how has that changed my plan?”
Financial security is considered part of operational readiness for service members; people focused on money worries can be distracted from the mission. Meese, the former brigadier general, says there’s a lesson there for civilians: “It’s crucial to create a culture where fiscal responsibility becomes second nature.”
https://www.aarp.org/money/retirement/plan-like-a-veteran/
