Savings Deposit Program

[audette]

We used it on both of DH's deployments. We basically lived off of savings (and my income) so his whole pay could go towards the SDP to max it out asap.


You can't beat 10% interest.

[audette]

DH was able to set up recurring deposits/payments from his monthly pay.

The first deployment, he set it up while over there. I think he actually had to bring a copy of a bank statement to show finance when he directed all his pay towards it, because finance didn't want me left with nothing for household bills back here... (so the bank statement showed we had sufficient savings that I wouldn't have a problem)

The second deployment, I set up the recurring payment, and stopped it, by going down to the finance office for his unit (division, I think), and showing my POA. They wanted a POA specific to finance/LES stuff to let me do that.

In both cases, the money never hit our account before it went into the SDP, it went directly from DH's pay.

[Jam]

I used a POA to start it up as soon as the 30 days hit. I also went several times during the course of the deployment to increase the amount being put in each month.

Next time we will also put in a good chunk from a separate savings account and will suck it up and wait the 90 days to accrue interest. We only accrued about 250 of the 700 we could have because we lack patience and took the money out all of five days after he got back LOL!

[audette]

Oh, and it was super easy to set up and cancel the payments from DH's pay. One page form, and they photocopied my POA.

They also helped me fill out the form, because it was in military-speak, and I was not sufficiently acronym-enabled...

[dancingpanda]

We did it. Dh tried to set it up before he deployed, and they said he had to do it while in country. He went over there with a check and set it up. We transferred money from savings to checking, and they took the check with no problems. We did about 2 months payments before we maxed it out with automatic payments, and then we had the rest of the year to earn interest.

He got back in December, and we just left it in the SDP until March.

[Jam]

Aside from lacking patience we also took the money out because we knew we'd be traveling about during his block leave and had no clue how long it would take for the money to be deposited into his account. From the date of withdrawal request, it took 5 days.

We were both pretty surprised how quickly we got it. I'd assume it's the same once the 90 days hits. It's 90 days after the leave the hazardous location, I believe.

[Jam]

Jul 6, 2012 16:52:28 GMT -5 Stan said:

LOL at me. I'm trying to calculate the exact day I can make the request. I'll just have H call.

Lol! He can do it on MyPay. I'm pretty sure I did it on a weekend too. I'll check in a bit to see when exactly I requested the withdrawal and when it was received.

ETA: I did the request online on a Friday night, DFAS processed it on Monday and the funds were transferred on Wednesday.

[misshark122]

I wish I had known about this! DH never mentioned it. I wonder if he even knows about it?

[dancingpanda]

Hark, we learned about it at the pre-deployment brief. I wish we had known for his fisrt deployment.

[basilosaurus]

Yeah, I wish we'd known about it, too. Although, it doesn't apply to us all that much. We spend tons of time apart, but he's usually going to places that don't qualify.

[misshark122]

Oh my gosh.... I can't even believe we didn't know about this! Luckily we saved a lot of money while he was deployed, so I am going to use that to make myself feel better.

[misshark122]

Jul 6, 2012 17:40:31 GMT -5 Stan said:

Here's the info Hark

www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/sdp.html

I, like Audette, lived on my salary while H was gone, and am so glad we did it.

But you can only deposit a total of $10,000 into this, right?

Wait.

I'm so confused - sorry. Is this saying that you can deposit up to $10,000 each deployment, and when you get back you have the option to keep the money in there? Meaning it can accrue 10% interest indefinitely? Or do you have to take it all out 90 days after return? And can the account ever have more than 10k in it?

Sorry for the dumb questions - I read it over but I am blaming my lack of comprehension on the utter boredom I have endured at work all day

ETA: I'm pretty sure you don't even have to answer, because I think I understand now.

[Jam]

You can gain 10% interest on UP TO 10k. Anything over that gains an interest of 2.4% (or something close to that).

[Jam]

Also, it's not indefinitely. 90 days after they return here they will automatically remove the accrued funds from SDP. You can start it back up during the next deployment provided it's to a hazardous location and he's been there 30 days.

[Jam]

Oh yeah! Stan is correct on the 120 before it gets transferred over. I always think 90 because that's when the interest stops HAHA!

[dancingpanda]

Jul 6, 2012 17:59:58 GMT -5 misshark122 said:

Jul 6, 2012 17:40:31 GMT -5 Stan said:

Here's the info Hark

www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/sdp.html

I, like Audette, lived on my salary while H was gone, and am so glad we did it.

But you can only deposit a total of $10,000 into this, right?

Wait.

I'm so confused - sorry. Is this saying that you can deposit up to $10,000 each deployment, and when you get back you have the option to keep the money in there? Meaning it can accrue 10% interest indefinitely? Or do you have to take it all out 90 days after return? And can the account ever have more than 10k in it?

Sorry for the dumb questions - I read it over but I am blaming my lack of comprehension on the utter boredom I have endured at work all day

ETA: I'm pretty sure you don't even have to answer, because I think I understand now.

This is how it was explained to us at the brief (I read the site just now too) You can earn up to 10%, but you get 2.5% each quarter. So if you are gone a year you get the 10%, plus the 90 days. So if you are on 6-7 month you only earn 5%, plus the 90 days get another 2.5% (if I'm remembering everything correctly). This is doesn't matter how much you put in, you still get the 10% annually (yearly) no matter how much you deposit into it. We decided to max it out fairly quickly so we would earn more.

[poppet]

This thread just reminded me to tell DH to move the money we have ready into his SDP since we just passed the 30 day mark!

[misshark122]

OK my husband apparently knew about this program but said "it's a pain in the ass." I told him he basically refused free money. Haha. Oh well, next time he deploys, I am definitely going to bug him until he does it.

Thanks for clarifying, everyone.

[mrsredrox]

Jul 7, 2012 11:12:37 GMT -5 misshark122 said:

OK my husband apparently knew about this program but said "it's a pain in the ass." I told him he basically refused free money. Haha. Oh well, next time he deploys, I am definitely going to bug him until he does it.

Thanks for clarifying, everyone.

Mine said the same thing, and he said it wasn't worth it because it's such a short deployment. GAH!