Many moons ago, I started talking to you about the Blended Retirement System. On 1 January 2018, eligible military members were able to start opting into the BRS. Can you believe the BRS opt-in period is now almost over??
If you are tired of hearing about the BRS, then honestly this post isn’t for you. This post is for everybody who has reached out to me and the other military personal finance bloggers over the past few weeks saying “I really don’t know much about BRS.” This post is, frankly, for all the people who don’t even know that military personal finance bloggers exist. Today I want to talk to the people who aren’t super knowledgeable about the BRS.
The BRS opt-in period ends in less than two weeks, and I want to make sure people are able to close out the year fully informed about their choice. So if this post doesn’t apply to you but it might apply to your coworkers, please listen up. If you don’t want to listen, at least send them the link. Let’s finish strong.
And oh yeah. I’m trying something new. AUDIO. Let me know what you think!
If you are looking for more information, you can always check out my Blended Retirement Page. It contains every post I’ve written on the BRS – which is a lot!
I also recommend checking out the hashtag #BRSBlitz on Facebook and Twitter. There are a whole bunch of military bloggers and podcasters writing/talking about this topic this month!
The BRS Blitz was organized by Kate Horrell who I need to recognize for her service. She has created a comprehensive directory of BRS information and is dedicated to ensuring people are making this decision wisely. Thank you, Kate!!
With BRS what happens if you get medically retired?
Hi Olga. If you switched to BRS and were medically retired you would still be under BRS as I mentioned in the audio post. But, usually medical retirements are calculated based on disability rating not years of service, so lower BRS multiplier doesn’t impact it. You can find more information here: https://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/disability/disability.html
The persons who are saying 65 years old are confusing when they would receive their retirement with when they could receive their TSP.
Also they are confusing retiring under the blended system with getting out of the military under the blended system. If you retire you receive your pension at 2% and your TSP. If you get out of the military before 20 years you leave ONLY with your TSP. That’s the benefit of the blended because under the traditional if you get out before getting 20 years, you get nothing. I think folks were thinking under blended they would only get TSP and no pension.
Hope this helps.
Yes, a number of people have told me they were told BRS didn’t have a pension. It’s clear in the training that it does have a pension but many people are also reporting they just clicked through the training without paying attention and were mostly listening to friends talking about it. It’s a shame, really. Many people are making this decision based on bad gouge.