The military retirement timing decision — answered with math, not vibes.
Every year you stay adds pension. Every year you stay costs civilian earnings. VA disability starts whenever you leave. Somewhere in that tangle is your answer — and it deserves better than a spreadsheet guess. Stay or Go compares your candidate retirement years across pension, disability, Social Security, second career, survivor benefits, and how long people actually live — then shows you which assumption really drives the result.
The middle years rarely win
Under real uncertainty, the optimal answer is usually “leave now” or “go the distance” — the years in between are dominated. Most tools never show you this because they never model the uncertainty.
VA pay doesn’t care when you retire
VA compensation starts whenever you leave — which quietly weakens the case for staying longer. Offset below 50%, CRDP at 50%+ with 20 years, CRSC for combat-related: the rules are modeled, not hand-waved.
One more year, priced
“Should I stay one more year?” gets a dollar figure — the lifetime value of each additional year in uniform, weighed against the civilian earnings it forecloses.
System, pay, years of service, expected VA rating, civilian prospects, Social Security estimate. No account. No upload. Your numbers never leave this browser tab.
Each candidate retirement year becomes a full after-tax cashflow stream — actuarially weighted for how long people like you live, discounted to today’s dollars, with the offset/CRDP/CRSC rules applied correctly. Then 5,000 simulated futures test how often each answer actually wins.
The optimal year, the dollar advantage, the break-even age — and a sensitivity readout showing which assumption (longevity? civilian salary?) really drives your answer, so you know what to pressure-test before you decide anything.
Fill in what you know; sensible defaults cover the rest. Every assumption is editable under “Advanced.”
Facing a medical board? If you have an MEB/PEB in progress, this tool does not apply — Chapter 61 medical retirement changes the math fundamentally. Talk to your PEBLO and a Veterans Service Officer instead.
Range: value if you live to 78 → 92 · tick marks the actuarially weighted expectation
Cumulative discounted after-tax income by age — where later retirement overtakes leaving earlier
Swing in the top-two lifetime-value gap when each uncertainty moves across its range
This is educational modeling. Validate any real decision with a fee-only fiduciary advisor, your installation Personal Financial Counselor, or Military OneSource — all of whom will happily check this math.
VA ratings are inputs here, never objectives. If you have questions about a claim, see an accredited Veterans Service Officer.
Chapter 61 (MEB/PEB) retirement follows different rules this tool does not model. PEBLO and VSO first.
There is no server. The math runs in your browser and your inputs vanish when you close the tab. Verify rates against DFAS and VA.gov before acting — tables here are stamped with their as-of date.