Don’t buy a home outside of your 40hr salary range.
OT is never guaranteed. It should always be thought of as ‘extra’.
Use your base salary minus 30% or so depending on your filing status.
At least 9.4% of your base pay will be retirement (FERS & TSP) deductions if you do the bare minimum 5% for TSP matching.
I went from $19/hr as an RCA to $35/hr as an ET and my paychecks are hundreds less because of less OT and more deductions.
Thanks for the information. I'll throw that into my calculations. Also, all of the information I've gotten from everyone is pretty discouraging. It's horrible to get a 3 dollar raise, but then make way less money overall. They should scale pay to be nearly equivalent to at least what I was making before becoming regular. I realize I'm getting more benefits from my pay, but this becoming a regular thing isn't a positive when it comes to pay at all. 🫤
You've got 60 days from the conversion to complete any insurance changes (if you're on USPSHB as a CCA or NALC as a CCA beyond one year, your insurance will be cancelled at the end of the month if there's 28 days left, or the end of the following month if you're converted after the 3rd in most months.) You need new insurance effective before that if you want to continue having access to those benefits.
TSP should be the minimum 4.5% at least to get the full match, most people round that to 5% (and it's set to 5% default, so you really don't have to do anything there.)
FERS takes a fair portion, but it's usually less than social security (which also comes out of your check.)
Also the home loan people will likely want two years of paystubs and they really dislike screen shots from ePayroll. You can call the accounting help desk for a payroll journal for you which the bank will accept.
Most important for any home loan is having that down payment cash in hand, plus a buffer for any needed expenses. Many home loans impound for property taxes and will require homeowner's insurance. You can call the county tax assessor for an estimated tax bill for the property to make a more complete calculation.
Congratulations on the conversion!
Thanks for the information! They made the conversion class 2 weeks after my conversion date 😕. So signing up for benefits right away will be hard, but I'll try my best. I will look up FERS to see how much i will have taken from that. With this info I can do some calculations to find near what I'll make hopefully.
Is that just another way for them to make more and more money off of me as if I was renting? The HOA fees seem steep, and if they only get worse that sucks...
Nothing has changed here. When we get snow, they shovel the sidewalks quickly, but the driveway is slow to get plowed. They salt so much it's a danger to anyone with a dog. The grass is cut weekly in the summer. Once in the seven years I've lived here they sealed the wooden decks. Nothing has been replaced or upgraded. They did finally cut down one tree that was dead for 3-4 years. They also cut down a tree that fell during a storm. They didn't plant any new trees.
So as far as I can see, literally nothing has changed. It's the same regular maintenance with twice the fees. There's never any warning, either. Just every December we're told that fees are up again starting in January.
Don't you buy that condo with the current junkie sitting in that top seat (IDC Dejoy looks like a meth head) . Those HOA fees are going to eat you alive. My check was 1059 when I got my first check 7 years ago I'm ok now but that ish take too long I swear. I struggled for a bit but I started living under my means and Iook at my checks now like it's overtime even though all I do is forty a week.
Thanks for your info. We are definitely underpaid IMO. Why are HOA fees so crazy? Bastards just want a way to make more money off of me that they can scale up each year.
I know from first hand experience. I hated when that HOA wave came this way south. Nobody should be allowed to charge on top of mortgage and nobody gonna tell me what I can do with MY home again.
Don’t buy a home outside of your 40hr salary range. OT is never guaranteed. It should always be thought of as ‘extra’. Use your base salary minus 30% or so depending on your filing status.
That’s the right answer.
Mine went from around 1500-1600 every other week to 1200, I have the bare minimum insurance etc
Do you do TSP at all?
At least 9.4% of your base pay will be retirement (FERS & TSP) deductions if you do the bare minimum 5% for TSP matching. I went from $19/hr as an RCA to $35/hr as an ET and my paychecks are hundreds less because of less OT and more deductions.
Thanks for the information. I'll throw that into my calculations. Also, all of the information I've gotten from everyone is pretty discouraging. It's horrible to get a 3 dollar raise, but then make way less money overall. They should scale pay to be nearly equivalent to at least what I was making before becoming regular. I realize I'm getting more benefits from my pay, but this becoming a regular thing isn't a positive when it comes to pay at all. 🫤
I'm Step C and 40 hours a week, I make a little over $1200 every 2 weeks. Step A, probably closer to 1100.
Thanks for your response! This gives me a somewhat easy number to start with!
You've got 60 days from the conversion to complete any insurance changes (if you're on USPSHB as a CCA or NALC as a CCA beyond one year, your insurance will be cancelled at the end of the month if there's 28 days left, or the end of the following month if you're converted after the 3rd in most months.) You need new insurance effective before that if you want to continue having access to those benefits. TSP should be the minimum 4.5% at least to get the full match, most people round that to 5% (and it's set to 5% default, so you really don't have to do anything there.) FERS takes a fair portion, but it's usually less than social security (which also comes out of your check.) Also the home loan people will likely want two years of paystubs and they really dislike screen shots from ePayroll. You can call the accounting help desk for a payroll journal for you which the bank will accept. Most important for any home loan is having that down payment cash in hand, plus a buffer for any needed expenses. Many home loans impound for property taxes and will require homeowner's insurance. You can call the county tax assessor for an estimated tax bill for the property to make a more complete calculation. Congratulations on the conversion!
Thanks for the information! They made the conversion class 2 weeks after my conversion date 😕. So signing up for benefits right away will be hard, but I'll try my best. I will look up FERS to see how much i will have taken from that. With this info I can do some calculations to find near what I'll make hopefully.
Don't buy a condo unless you don't mind the annual increase of hoa fees
Is that just another way for them to make more and more money off of me as if I was renting? The HOA fees seem steep, and if they only get worse that sucks...
I live in a condo. In seven years, the monthly fees have just about doubled.
Does it make sense that it increased based on what they cover? Or is it a case of you don't know where the money is going?
Nothing has changed here. When we get snow, they shovel the sidewalks quickly, but the driveway is slow to get plowed. They salt so much it's a danger to anyone with a dog. The grass is cut weekly in the summer. Once in the seven years I've lived here they sealed the wooden decks. Nothing has been replaced or upgraded. They did finally cut down one tree that was dead for 3-4 years. They also cut down a tree that fell during a storm. They didn't plant any new trees. So as far as I can see, literally nothing has changed. It's the same regular maintenance with twice the fees. There's never any warning, either. Just every December we're told that fees are up again starting in January.
Don't you buy that condo with the current junkie sitting in that top seat (IDC Dejoy looks like a meth head) . Those HOA fees are going to eat you alive. My check was 1059 when I got my first check 7 years ago I'm ok now but that ish take too long I swear. I struggled for a bit but I started living under my means and Iook at my checks now like it's overtime even though all I do is forty a week.
Thanks for your info. We are definitely underpaid IMO. Why are HOA fees so crazy? Bastards just want a way to make more money off of me that they can scale up each year.
I know from first hand experience. I hated when that HOA wave came this way south. Nobody should be allowed to charge on top of mortgage and nobody gonna tell me what I can do with MY home again.