We are AD at 23 years and 18 months (?) to go. I spent his career getting our expenses covered by one paycheck. Not that difficult or challenging on an officers salary even with moves every 18 months, but the closer you get to 50% the easier retirement will be. I don't have an answer for you bond question, but I can give you my opinion and the reasons why I carry no bonds. I bought no bonds during his early career because his life insurance is 400,000 more than a good start to get back on my feet, after 15 yrs he still had 400000 in life insurance and, barring bad behavior on his part, a very good chance of making it to retirement or at least getting a separation package. At 18 years, he was basically "vested" in his retirement and I had a good idea of the amount his retirement. Now with his retirement assured, a net worth higher than his insurance and our expenses below the check I expect, there is no reason for the safety play of bonds. Transferability of the GI bill further reduced my need to protect a percentage of my investments. If the Government was to fail to provide for it's veterans at least nominally I think the markets would have more problems than I can insure against. That said your risk tolerance has a large role in your investment strategy and you should do what works for you.
My DH is at 15 years. Due to timing or orders, it looks like he'll have to do at least 21, if not 22 before getting out. I suspect that if he thinks he has a good change for O-6, he will stay for that, and then maybe long enough to get 3 HYT years in at that pay. But who know? Of course he's not quite ensured the retirement yet, but barring something very bad, it's a safe bet. He currently has verbal orders and is slated for a job that puts him through 19 years (yes, odd that we know this far out).
Congrats to your DH on the long and presumably successful career!
Thanks to what will end up being 3 sets of orders and 9 years OCONUS, we've had no choice but to set up to rely on one salary. Unfortunately, that's the only salary, though in Japan (where we were, and will be again), there is at least the ability to earn some nice part time money, but it's not really career building. I'm going back to school (GI Bill) to hopefully increase my ability to find meaningful work when we are finally Stateside agin (Dec 2018, unless something drastic changes, which of course it might).
I don't necessarily see quite the direct relationship between bonds and life insurance that you do. DH is, IMO, grossly over-insured, but it's his thing and he's otherwise very frugal, so whatever. But that doesn't help me hedge against market drops in retirement, which is part of the reason for holding bonds--a more stable holding than stocks. Ideally, he will still be with me when we are happily spending down our retirement funds, so I don't look at insurance (his or mine) as being relevant. Good to have, but not really a measure to protect against market instability, unless I'm missing something.
