Overseas Cost of Living Allowance?
We are a new family to the Army. We are getting PCS to Germany (from the US). I looked up the overseas housing allowances and the overseas cost of living allowance. It looks to me like the amount I see for the OHA is a MONTHLY amount, but the amount I see for OCOLA is PER PAY?? Can someone please clarify? I will likely have lots more questions in the future. Thanks. I guess what I really want to know is: The amount that is posted at perdiem.hqda.pentagon.mil for OHA and OCLA...are both those figures paid per pay check (which means they are doubled), or are the amounts split per pay check (which means they are a total per month)....
Public Comments
- You will get OCOLA every month. It helps with the cost of living since things are more expensive there. It can also change amounts monthy depending on the cost of things. We are PCSing to Germany in the fall. Don't know where yet but we are excited about it. If you need anything else feel free to email me. Good Luck!!
- Pretty much all aspects of military pay are per month. Some things, such as TDY pay are per day. But COLA should be per month. Hardly anything is calculated per two week "pay period" as all things pay related are from the beginning of the month to the end of the month. Your OHA will be the maximum amount you are allowed to get for rent - but you will only receive what you actually pay in rent. This is all assuming that you live off base. The COLA may vary if you live on base or off base. Good luck Germany is an envious assignment.
- when we lived overseas in japan he got something like 11 bucks per day for each dependant...for cola...its in addition to the housing..the housing overseas tends to be in your rank you can go up to this amount..but you get what your actual rent is...for offbase housing..if you dont spend it all you dont get it all...in the states its one set amount for your rank you get it regardless of whether you use it or not..its much better overseas to live on base...when we lived off base the rent was paid for but the rest of the utilities ate us up...when we moved on base we only lost 400 dollars a month ...we still got the same amount of cola...which was what we had been paying our utilities with...
