Revamping health care is constantly in the headlines as officials attempt to hammer out a way to make health care costs – one of the largest sources of debt and bankruptcy in the nation – more manageable for more Americans. Free or reasonably priced health care coverage is one of the ways the American public…
Life insurance is one of the most important components of your personal financial plan. Unfortunately, life insurance is poorly understood, and breadwinners’ mistakes invariably cause great financial hardship for their survivors. The primary purpose of life insurance is to protect your survivors from the adverse financial consequences of your premature death. If service members have…
Confused about life insurance — whether you need it, what kind, how much and the like? So are a lot of people in the military. While the military provides you with Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI) coverage, that may not be enough for some people. To make those decisions easier, we’ve boiled it down to…
Military retirement often marks the end of a long road. As a military spouse, you’ve put in months of waiting on your service member to come home from long trainings or deployment, all while holding down your home and taking care of your family. You’ve battled career challenges for yourself, planning disasters, cross-country moves and everything…
Preparing for military family deployment can seem like an uphill battle. For one, your Family Readiness team (be it an officer, group or other) has probably handed you a to-do list that is several pages long. Add in the fact that there’s the inevitable family you’re going to have to find time to see (I’m sorry, Aunt…
Military Spouse Employment Manual Holding down a job while your spouse is in the military is easier than you might think. While the military often throws a monkey wrench into best-laid plans, your career doesn’t have to be one of them. Military spouses have successful careers in all types of industries. Want to be a writer? A teacher? An entrepreneur?…
The military can be a difficult lifestyle for a family, but it does come with some excellent benefits. Some of those are in the form of cash, and some are in the form of discounts. In addition to the bi-monthly paycheck, military service members receive benefits like money for housing, subsidized groceries and healthcare. Don’t know exactly…
IRRRL stands for Interest Rate Reduction Refinancing Loan. You may see it referred to as a “Streamline” or a “VA to VA.” These loans are typically used to reduce the borrower’s interest rate or to convert an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) to a fixed rate mortgage. As you’d expect, IRRLs typically must result in an interest…
Those leaving the military have several choices. For many, the Post-9/11 GI Bill makes heading back to school a very attractive choice. But even if college sounds good, you might still be struggling to make the decision. How do you choose what to do? How do you know what school to attend? It’s important to…
You’ve heard it time and again: “You need a college education if you want to make good money.” But that isn’t always the case. According to Monster.com, the average salary for an accountant with a college degree is $50,000. But, according to that same website, a licensed electrician also gets an average starting wage of $50,000….
