Certain positions, such as living in Townsville or Darwin, or training recruits will provide you extra money for that location or role.

Some I know have used that money to finance a depreciative asset. Then when posted out to a position without an allowance, they felt that financial pinch and sold the item they didn’t get value from.

Alternatives for allowances:

• Placing allowance money into your ADF Super as a Non Concessional Contribution by automating a payment the day you get paid. ‘After’ factoring in tax
• If your child is due to finish school before you expect to post out, use it to put your child into a private school
• Put it into a holiday or future large outright purchase savings account

Calculating post tax allowance amount can be done using your pay statement and deducting your tax rate:

• Pay statement says: District Allowance $375
• $375 x .7 (30% tax) = $262.5 additional (bank transfer) fortnightly payment to your ADF Super or savings
• X .63 if in 37% bracket

Not relying on allowances to pay debts means when posted from Darwin to Perth for example, when the district allowance ends and no other allowance takes its place, you feel no impact to lifestyle or spending power.

Post exercise Field Pay allowance Non Concessional Contribution example:

• Pay statement says: Tier 1 Field Pay x 12 $1405.92
• $1405.92 x .7 = $984.14 Amount you could bank transfer to  ADF Super or savings without impacting your usual finances.

Remember, a 16.4% match on the field allowances will also go into your super

(Factual, informational not financial advice, before making any decisions based on this information, you should seek independant financial advice)