BULWARKTHE DIRECTORY

[ MISSED SAVINGS ]

You have to ask.
So you don’t.

341 national brands run a military discount. Every one of them makes you ask at the register, pull out your ID, and hope the cashier knows the policy. Most people skip it. Here’s roughly what that costs.

[ STEP 1 ]

What do you spend in a month?

Rough numbers are fine. The defaults come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for a household in the pay band most junior enlisted fall in — correct them and the answer gets better.

$780 A MONTH · $9,360 A YEAR

[ WHAT YOU’RE LEAVING ]

$91–$364

A YEAR, UNCLAIMED

Most likely $182 a year — about $15 a month you could have kept.

  • Clothes & shoes$65
  • Gear & outdoors$43
  • Car$38
  • Home$36

Bulwark is being built so this stops happening — verify once, and you see it every month instead of never.

[ HOW THIS IS CALCULATED ]

No number here is invented.

WHERE THE DISCOUNT ISN’T

Two categories above count for nothing, and that is the finding, not a gap in our homework. We checked 101 brands across the four everyday places you actually spend money. Between them they run 1 offer you could claim on an ordinary purchase:

  • Restaurants — 54 brands checked, 1 company with an everyday percentage off
  • Grocery — 19 brands checked, no companies with an everyday percentage off
  • Fuel & Convenience — 23 brands checked, no companies with an everyday percentage off
  • Telecom — 5 brands checked, no companies with an everyday percentage off

Anyone who tells you their app saves you money on groceries or fuel is describing something other than a military discount. We would rather show you a smaller number that is real.

THE DISCOUNT RATES

The median published discount among the 41 independent companies in these six categories that state a plain percentage. Median, not average, so one outlier can’t drag a category upward.

Companies, not storefronts. Outback, Bonefish and Carrabba’s are one decision by Bloomin’ Brands, and Fanatics runs the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB shops. Counting those as five opinions instead of one is how a directory talks itself into a number.

A further 59 were left out on purpose. “Up to 20% off” is a ceiling, “extra 10% off” only stacks on sale prices, and “40% off family lines” covers one line of a phone plan — none of them describe what you save on an ordinary purchase, so none of them count here.

2 categories are left out of the total entirely, for having too few plain offers to state a typical rate from.

50 of the 41 listings behind these rates have been checked against the brand’s own published page. The rest have not been confirmed yet — treat those as provisional, and check the directory for the source on any number you want to rely on.

THE HONEST UNKNOWN

Nobody spends every dollar at a brand that offers a military discount, and no one publishes what share actually does. So this doesn’t guess once — it runs three:

  • 15% — if you shop wherever's closest
  • 30% — if you notice the ones you already use
  • 60% — if you deliberately pick brands that offer it

WHAT IT ISN’T

This is an estimate of discounts you were eligible for and didn’t claim — not a promise of what Bulwark will recover. Offers change, terms vary by location, and some brands exclude sale items.

If a listing looks wrong, tell me at isaiah@bulwarkcard.com and I’ll check it against the source.