Hey, guys and gals. First, a disclaimer: I'm not (yet) in the military and just a long shot old guy trying to get a Reserves/Guard UPT slot, so I am not posting this from the inside. That said, I am a big fan of the financial world/retirement options and, in my travels researching squadrons and poking around their pages for info today, I randomly stumbled across this article that could be important to some folks.
It basically says, if you're one of the fortunate ones that can max out your TSP at $18,500 and you're in the BRS with a match program, you want to make sure you're spreading the $18,500 in contributions out over the ENTIRE year and not maxing out early. According to the article, Uncle Sam is only matching 4% PER PAY PERIOD and, if you max out early, you'll be missing out on the government's match for each pay period after you max out until the end of the year. So, the government would be paying MORE of the $18,500 if you ensured you didn't max out too early, as opposed to the individual paying more of the $18,500 because the government caps at 4% per pay period.
Here is the article about the BRS match that goes much further in depth. It is a recent article that I didn't see listed here yet or discussed in the other BRS thread, so I figured it may be of some help here. My apologies if I'm speaking out of turn because I'm not in yet/dealing with the BRS personally, but I thought it might be valuable to some here.