About
Joe Mugnai.
Founder, Garrison Ledger.
Third-generation FamilyMedia. Building for the community my grandfather started serving in 1958.
How we got here
My grandfather, Joseph Mugnai Sr., started Family Magazine in 1958 after serving in the Army. Family Magazine is distributed at every military commissary. Its biggest purpose, from day one, is to help military families save money at the commissary.
My father started working for the company in the 1980s and fully took over in the 2000s. I joined in 2011.
In 2025 I built Garrison Ledger as a way to help military families learn what their benefits actually are and how to take advantage of them, and to take the confusion and complication out of military life.
Our overall mission has always been, and will always be, helping and giving back to our military families.
What we are, and what we aren't
No ambiguity. No overpromising. Here's where we help, and where you should go elsewhere.
- A research assistant backed by official sources: DFAS, DoD JTR, VA, IRS, TSP, and DoDEA.
- A factual base comparison tool using live data from authoritative providers, refreshed on a cadence you can audit.
- A family of free calculators (TSP, SDP, House Hacking, PCS Planner, On-Base Savings, Salary Comparison, Spouse Tax Wizard) built against current-year DFAS rates.
- Here to help you show up to your finance office, JAG, or S-1 prepared, with the right question and the right citation.
- Not your finance office, S-1, or a JAG legal assistance attorney. Go to them for authoritative decisions.
- Not a Certified Financial Planner, CPA, or tax professional. We don't give personalized financial advice.
- Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to the Department of Defense or any branch of the Armed Forces.
- Not in the business of manufactured testimonials or guaranteed dollar amounts. If it's not verifiable, we don't print it.
Editorial and data standards
These rules aren't a marketing page. They're enforced in code and in our data pipeline. If a claim doesn't meet them, it doesn't ship.
Factual-only policy
No randomized, synthetic, or formula-estimated values for BAH, school ratings, rents, or any other published data. If an official number isn't available, we show "Unavailable" and link the source.
Provenance on every data card
Weather, housing, schools, and amenity data each expose a Provenance popover: source, last-fetched timestamp, cache duration, and the vendor's attribution link.
Source hierarchy
DFAS, DoD JTR, IRS, VA, TSP, GSA, DoDEA, and official service-branch pages. We don't cite Reddit, Military.com, MilitaryByOwner, or generic "military savings" blogs.
Zero-storage LES policy
When we parse a Leave and Earnings Statement, we extract line items in memory and discard the PDF. We never store your SSN, bank account, routing number, name, or address.
Refunds and cancellation
7-day refund policy. One-click cancel from /dashboard/settings. No retention prompts, no hold music, no games. Access continues through the end of your billing period.
Have a question, a correction, or a story?
I read every email. If we got something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.