memes

I wish I was a millionaire. If I liquidated all of my assets, I might have about a million... But in liquid cash, I'm a low thousandaire. 😅

I joined the US military at 18 years old; I literally left for basic training 2 weeks after I graduated high school. After 20 years of service, you qualify for an official retirement if you so choose.

So at 38 years old, and after suffering through one Trump presidency, I decided it was time to grab my benefits and get out before he somehow got reelected again. It was definitely a good time to leave; it seems that Pete Hegseth has ruined what remaining integrity the military had. I couldn't serve in today's military.

Anyway... I joined back when the US military offered a pension. So even though it went away 7 years before I retired (replaced with a 401K-type program), I was grandfathered into the old program because I wouldn't be able to serve long enough to build up a proper retirement savings. So I now get 50% of my former military pay in my bank account every month for the rest of my life. It's not much money, but I'll never starve or go homeless.

On top of that, the military broke me (mentally and physically), and I was quite literally limping my way to retirement. I was walking with a cane at the end of my service, and the only reason they didn't medically separate me is because I was close to retirement and didn't need my legs to do my job. I was an IT professional, so I mostly sat at a desk all day.

When I retired, I had enough approved medical claims with the VA that they gave me the coveted "100% Permanent & Total" rating. So I get a lifetime monthly pay from the VA that's twice the amount of my pension, plus free medical and dental for the rest of my life.

My wife served too, but she only made it to 12 years before they medically discharged her. She was too broken to continue serving and she somehow also qualified for that rare 100% P&T rating. So she gets the exact same VA pay and lifetime benefits as me, just no pension for herself.

So with all that passive income, we don't really need to work anymore. Granted, we're not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. But we have enough to pay the bills and live comfortably right now. We did have to sacrifice our minds and bodies to earn it, but we're not so disabled that we can't get out of the house and live a little. We just can't be as active as we used to, which is fine. We're both introverts, so we don't mind sitting around the house most of the time. It helps us not drain our bank account.

Oh, and I inherited my childhood home when my dad passed away, so we have a house on 6 acres of land in the countryside. My state gives huge property tax deductions for 100% disabled veterans, so we're paying practically nothing in taxes to live here. So we've also managed to dodge the housing crisis.

We're actually helping the mother of a friend of mine who can no longer afford her city apartment (after her house was foreclosed on when she was 95% done paying the mortgage!). So she's living with us for a while, until her son finishes building her a retirement hut on his tiny sliver of land in Hawaii. If he'll ever get there; he's also living here until he can afford to move to Hawaii and build his own small hut on his land.

We've been pretty fortunate, despite the disabilities. But it is a shame that we had to sacrifice our bodies just to get the kind of benefits and security that a lot of European countries have. We need medical reform bad.

Heck, I'm dreading the day when Trump decides to gut the VA and take our benefits. I'll have to go back to work if that happens, and I'm not looking forward to dealing with the job market. One of my friends has a finance degree from Harvard and even HE has been job hunting for over a year now! He applied to just over 100 jobs before he got a single callback... and they didn't hire him. It's rough for everyone now.

TL;DR - The military broke me and my wife. We're both 100% disabled according to the VA and earn just enough in pay and benefits to not need to work anymore. And I inherited my childhood home when my dad passed, so we have a place to live without dealing with rent or a mortgage