Moving to Wiesbaden what is the LQA? - Germany

Hello All,

My wife and I are moving to Wiesbaden from the USA and we are trying to figure out what our housing situation will be. This should not be so hard but I can't find any information that tells ma exactly what our LQA will be. I'm a DOD civilian, GS-9, married with Np children (except the cats) and told I will be living off the Post.
Can anyone help me to find out what I will be making a month?

Thanks,

baterup

Am curious as to how, even in an organisation as f'ked up as the US military, you don't actually know what your salary is going to be. Sorry, your "living quarters allowance". Surely amongst the reams of paperwork involved in such a move there's a subparagraph §B.22.3.4 which says LQA at Grade B and then another document in which you can look that up whilst referencing a third document which explains all relevant TLAs.

Well spank me on the ass and call me Charlie, a quick check on Google leads you to none other than a thread on this here site referencing relevant DOD documents and information.

Come on [s]Keydeck[/s] Charlie...

Look under his user name... You should take that into consideration..

Then The fact that he is DOD brainwashed.....

And....

Oh well..

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the informative input to my question; you really helped me out on this one. Being new to this site, and a little excited about relocating back to Germany I asked for some help and you two are what I got.

Wow, my question to both of you is this, why the hell did you even answer something that has nothing to do with you??? You really must have nothing to do but cruse the chat rooms where you can insert your "Pearls-of-Wisdom" whenever you feel like.

Again I say thanks for your comments

Well again, thanks for your comments I really appreciate the help. In the meantime though, why don’t you two go have a couple of ponit, or shorts, (which ever you prefer) and then spank each other.

Respectfully,

baterup

@baterup

first up, welcome to

Toytown Germany
Keydecking since 2002

just possibly,

if you'd first found [s]Keydeck[/s] Charlie's favourite friend on the top right* before you exposed yourself
to a classic rite of passage for any newbie who launches with a sameold sameold question into Toytown,
(affectionately known to TTers as a "Keydecking"!!)

or even,

having already got a fail on Toytown observation 101 once,

taken your second chance a little less excitedly than you did here, >>>>

>>>> then you may have actually found exactly where Keydeck had indeed inserted his "Pearls-of-Wisdom" for your benefit.

Be that as it may, if you wish to take advantage of the most beneficial forum in Germany for English speaking ex-pats without getting unnecessarily upset by other members, it's probably a good thing to remember that in our very international forum there are many different nationalities styles of expressing light hearted humour, some of which take time to get accustomed to if they are unfamiliar to you.

The friendly help you overlooked probably came because you posted in the, primarily (non-DoD) civilian, "Life in Frankfurt Rhein-Main" section which is logical geographically, but your DoD related question would have found it's natural home and answer in the "Military" section.

Because you're, understandably, a little excited you can now have ANother chance to

find exactly where Keydeck inserted his "Pearls-of-Wisdom" for your benefit.

<<<< Now see if you can look (hard) enough to find the badly-hidden secret clue this time, baterup.

That way you'll probably avoid getting a second SPanking.

These people have busy lives too, you know, so you can't expect their attention all weekend.

You already got one free "SpiderPigging" as an added bonus !!


Respectfully,


2B



* That's the one with the little magnifying glass on it with the secret password to the right.

Ok, guess I'll have to take you through it slowly then. Click the link I posted above. Scroll to post #4 and click the link in there. Select "Allowances by location" from the menu on the left-hand-side. Select Germany from the "Country" LOV. Click "Go". Scroll down to "Wiesbaden" and click the link for "Living quarters allowance". Now, obviously I don't know if the information there pertains exactly to you, but it'd certainly be a good place to start.

My money says that at GS-9 level you are probably Group 4 (see FAQ here - Q4 pertains to group) and so long as "a Living Quarters Allowance (LQA) was granted by your employing activity as a recruitment incentive" (see FAQ here - Q1 pertains to LQA for DoD Civilians) then it looks like you're entitled to $40k a year => $3,333.33 per month, paid bi-weekly according to the provided information. This is of course on the assumption that not having kids means "Without Family". If your wife entitles you to "With family" status then it'll be the other amount, see WF rather than WOF.

Now, do I really need to answer the "why the hell did you even answer something that has nothing to do with you???" question?

I live in Wiesbaden. Welcome. What governs what you get for LQA is your grade and your family size. My GUESS is that you are a grade 4 for housing allowance (lowest amount of housing allowance), so you are likely to get $43,400 per year because of your spouse. You get only what you spend, not the whole amount. You will also be limited in the number of bedrooms you will be allowed to have, probably three. You will get 1/26th of whatever your annual costs for apartment rent, utilities, and nebenkosten (miscellaneous expenses for the apartment that the landlord pays) every pay period.

http://aoprals.state.gov/Web920/lqa.asp?PostCode=10540&EffectiveDate=20100801

An annoying thing about the cost of living allowance is that it is based on "spendable income", and it isn't a 30% bump in your salary. It works out to closer to a 10% increase in your gross income because what you pay for taxes and into the TSP is excluded from the "base" for the cost of living allowance.

Thank you all for the above information and "Pearls-of-Wisdom”

Today I learned my first lesson towards my new adventure, slow down and read the fine print.

I still say the spankings should continue until the moral improves