Moving every few years comes with challenges, especially once a military member has a spouse and/or children. Sometimes, it makes sense for the service member to move to a new duty station while their family remains at the old duty station. Or sometimes the service member moves to one location and the family moves to a different location. This situation is called being a “geographic bachelor,” often shortened to geobachelor, or geobach. When someone is doing this thing, living separate from their family by choice, it is called “geobaching.” So how do things work when you geobach? What happens to Basic Allowance for Housing? How about Tricare? What other things are affected?
Note: This article is specifically about when military members and their families choose to live apart but have the option to be together in the US. Nothing said here applies to deployments or trainings or unaccompanied tours or any other situation where the military member is away from their family because the family can not be with them.
What Is a Geographic Bachelor?
A Geographic Bachelor is a service member who chooses to live apart from their dependents. Why might someone want to geobach? There are lots of reasons. Maybe the kids are finally thriving in a great school. Or there are aging grandparents. Maybe the spouse got their perfect job. Or they can’t afford to sell the house they buy. Sometimes the service member is going to be deployed a lot and they have a solid support system. Maybe someone is getting medical care and they don’t want to interrupt treatment. This list could go on.
Being a Geographic Bachelor is not an official military status. Rather, it is an informal term used to describe this living arrangement. Despite its unofficial nature, the arrangement can have significant implications for housing entitlements and financial planning.
A geographic bachelor is NOT someone who is on unaccompanied orders, on deployment, at a school, or whose family is otherwise not permitted to move to their location.
Understanding Basic Allowance for Housing and Geobaching
Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) is a the allowance a military member receives to pay for housing. The BAH rate is based on three factors:
- Duty station location
- Pay grade
- Dependency status (either with dependents or without dependents)
Rates can vary pretty dramatically from location to location. This becomes even more important if the service member is not living with the family and one location has a significantly higher cost of living, or the family is trying to support two households with only one BAH.
How BAH Works for Geographic Bachelors
As a general rule, service members receive BAH for the location where they are stationed, regardless of where their family chooses to live. This means that the family needs to pay for two homes – one for the family and one for the service member.
There are exceptions and those are handled by the individual branch of service. And example of an exception is when a service member is going on an Individual Augmentee assignment and the family is authorized to live in the location of their choice. Another example might be when a family is authorized to receive the old BAH because they have a student finishing school, or a family member receiving medical care.
Maintaining Two Households
Besides the obvious negative that the family is separated, there are significant financial consequences of choosing to geobach.
First, each part of the family will need housing. If the service member is moving away from a previous duty station, the family is likely already settled into a home, and that rent or mortgage is not going to go down because the service member doesn’t live there anymore. Then the service member will need a place to live at their new duty station.
Options typically include renting a room, sharing an apartment, or getting a small apartment. Some service members will purchase a small trailer or even a sailboat. Some installations or commands may authorize geobachelors to live in the barracks, sometimes for free or sometimes for a cost. But don’t assume that’s going to be an option!
Tricare
Thankfully, Tricare is easy when you are geobaching.
Just make sure that every individual is registered at the location where they are actually living so that they’re in the right Tricare Region and in the right plan for that location. You can find out what plan(s) you can choose for each location using the Tricare Plan Finder.
Moving Entitlements
In most cases, the service member should retain any unused household good allowance to use when the family eventually reunites. However, it is possible that there might be some out-of-pocket costs depending on the location of each of the eligible moves. The Joint Travel Regulations are quite clear in Section 051301D:
“If a Service member does not transport the total authorized HHG weight allowance to a new permanent duty station (PDS), then the remainder of the weight allowance can be transported at a later date. The HHG must have been in the Service member’s possession before the effective date of the PCS order from the PDS where the HHG remained. The Government’s cost to transport the HHG is limited to the cost to transport the PCS weight allowance in one lot from the old to
the new PDS.”
Depending on the specific situation, you might be able to ask that orders be written to reflect the fact that the family is not moving. This will change the move entitlement for the service member but it will also create a paper trail that the family is still at the old duty station. I have not done this, but it has been recommended to me as something that some people have done. So talk to whomever writes your orders and see what they think.
Servicemember’s Civil Relief Act
SCRA is the law that protects service members and their spouses from having to change their legal residence with each PCS move. However, the protections under SCRA only exist when you’re in a state due to military orders.
If the service member then leaves that state because they’re PCSing somewhere else, you’re no longer covered under the residency protection of SCRA.
Do the states care? Will this matter in your situation? I can not speak to every state and every situation. At some point, this becomes a question between you, your personal ethics, and your tax preparer. I’m not here to judge what you choose to do in that situation.
Another protection under SCRA says that you can break leases and other installment contracts with PCS orders. Do those protections apply if the PCS orders don’t have anything to do with the location where the contract exists? The law does not specify. So just consider the possible implications and how much you are willing to fight a landlord who says, “I’m not letting you out of this lease in Washington because your spouse has orders from San Antonio to Tampa.”
A Resource
I’ve discovered a great resource for geobaching families: Family in Flight. Check it out!
Conclusion
Geobaching is a valid option for many military families. Understanding the short- and long-term implications on benefits and legal protections can help you make a decision members, and understanding how this arrangement interacts with Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) is crucial. You can’t make the best decision without all the information.
On that note, don’t trust what you’ve read here. Rules change all the time, and you might be in an unusual situation that doesn’t follow the regular rules.
One comment on TRICARE. If the SVM is geobaching and the family is living with family or an otherwise “remote” location, the family is not eligible for TRICARE Prime Remote. “Active duty family members who live with TPR-enrolled sponsor” is the requirement language.
We learned this the hard way when my spouse was in a deploying sea billet, and we moved to be near family in Columbus, Ohio; we were only eligible to enroll in TRICARE Select.
This is an important point! Folks gotta know their options! Thank you for commenting!