Joining the coast guard? What are these allowances?

Question

i know i need to talk to the recruiter. but i havent yet. But what are these allowances? Family seperation allowances? Sea Pay? and clothing allowance for clothes i guess? but why?

Answer 1

Family seperation allowances?

Paid to mil families where the spouce and children are in one place and the Active Mil person is overseas or otherwise placed where a family home can not be set up/

Sea Pay?

Money paid while at sea smiliar but lower then combat pay

and clothing allowance for clothes i guess?  Uniforms  

Answer 2

Family seperation allowances: If you're away from your family (wife and/OR kids) for more than 30 days you get an extra "allowance".. It's just a little extra on your LES (check). If I remember correctly it's about 230/two weeks. I may be wrong on the amount. But that's the idea o fit.

Sea Pay: That's what you get paid if you're stationed on a cutter (Anything 87' or larger). It also goes up the more sea time you have.

Clothing allowance: It's about $8/mo you get for clothes and uniform items..

These are all things that are just additions to your basic pay. You get them for different assignments you do. There are plenty of other entitlments you can also get (Such as BAH (Housing allowance) COLA (Cost of Living, if you live somewhere where the cost of living is abnormally high) ect.) It's just extra pay, because if you look at the pay chart as an E4 with 2+ years I should be making 1,848.90 on basic pay alone. That isn't much. With my Clothing allowance (again, only a petty $8/mo) BAH and a few other things, I make a little over 3.5k/mo. It's not a bad gig.

If you have any further questions feel free to ask me.