Servicemembers with dependents in mainland Japan and on Okinawa are being urged to fill out an online survey this month about their shopping habits.

The effort could mean a fatter paycheck in the form of a bigger allowance, U.S. Forces Japan officials say. Or not, depending on how much people spend on base or in the local economy and the level of participation in the survey.

“It’s your family’s chance to help determine the amount of COLA you receive,” USFJ locality coordinator Ron Stewart said Monday.

The living pattern survey is conducted every three years by the Per Diem, Travel and Transportation Allowance Committee, the agency at the Pentagon that sets cost-of-living allowance for servicemembers overseas.

To participate, members must have at least one dependent sponsored under the status of forces agreement. They also must be assigned to their duty station for at least three months before the survey period.

Including single active-duty members in the questionnaire would skew the data, Stewart said. “A single person is not going to buy as much or as often as people with dependents.”

The survey asks members which local stores they shop in and what percentage they buy from the base commissary and exchange.

Questions get specific, asking where, for example, members or their family buy meat, poultry, seafood and dairy products.

A drop-down menu provides choices such as 7-Eleven, Daiei or Home (base).

The survey takes about 30 minutes to complete.

“We highly encourage people to take the survey with their spouse, as many times the spouse is the primary purchaser of goods,” Stewart said.

A separate retail price survey will be conducted in April by representatives of each installation, recording the cost for more than 100 goods and services on and off base, Stewart said.

Those prices will be compared with prices in the United States for equivalent goods and services, he said.

Prices and shopping patterns could in turn affect the COLA index assigned to a location, “if the overseas market basket cost is greater than the U.S. cost,” according to the Defense Department’s COLA Web site.

Any changes to COLA due to the living pattern or retail price surveys probably won’t take effect until July or August, Stewart said.

Three years ago, about 45 percent of eligible servicemembers participated in the living pattern survey, Stewart noted.

Areas to be surveyed

The living pattern survey includes 10 areas in Japan: Atsugi, Camp Zama, Iwakuni, Kure, Misawa, Okinawa, Sasebo, Yokohama, Yokosuka and Yokota.

For servicemembers assigned to Tokyo or in other areas not covered by the survey, information is collected by the Department of State and provided to the Department of Defense for COLA purposes.

The survey cannot be completed from Iraq due to firewall restrictions, the first page of the survey notes. Servicemembers deployed to Iraq with dependents are advised to have a spouse or someone stateside enter their responses.

The survey is available online until March 31 at http://www.perdiem.osd.mil/oscola/lps/japan/.

— Stars and Stripes