Calculate Your U.S. Military Reserve Retirement Pay: A Step-by-Step Guide

Retirement pay for the U.S. Military Reserves is based on accrued points. The more points you have, the more you will be paid in your retirement. Points are calculated in accordance with the amount of service you performed--the more time you spent, the more drills you attended, the more classes you took to further your value to the military, the more points you will have and the higher your retirement pay will be.

Step 1

Add 15 points for each year of service.

Step 2

Add one point for each day of active military service. This includes days you spent training and days you spent deployed, but it does not include your weekend reserve training.

Step 3

Add one point for each training session. There are normally two of these per day on your reservist weekends; a weekend that starts on Friday afternoon will generally earn you five points while one that starts on Saturday morning will earn you four.

Step 4

Add one point for every three hours of correspondence credit you earned as a reservist.

Step 5

Add one point for every funeral you participated in for two hours or more.

Step 6

Disregard every year for which the total is less than 50.

Step 7

Add the total of all your years that earned 50 points or more.

Tip

Reserve retirement points are streamlined through the entire military, so you can use this system for the Army, Navy, Marines or Coast Guard.