Even in the best of times making your finances stretch to cover your expenses is a challenge. But managing your finances while on active duty during a time of war is especially difficult.
With so many of our service people on duty far from home, there are numerous costs and unexpected financial drains on the family. Families all over the world are seeking help as to how they can spend their military dollars wisely. Financial planning is a difficult undertaking but there are simple steps one can take to begin the process. If you are not already working with a savings plan, a budget and long term and short-term goals, you should start working on those things today. Here are some specifics to consider.
Plan and Live on A Budget. If you have never written down what comes in and what you have going out every month, that’s the best place to start. Start keeping receipts from purchases, in a specific place. At first you will sometimes forget, but after awhile it will become easier and more of a habit. Write down things you spend money on, and try to avoid compulsive or impulse buying.
Pay Yourself. Many people fail to put anything into savings. Make it a priority to save a bit of your pay every month. Start small, in a manner you can successfully achieve, and gradually increase the amount until you reach a happy medium. Save nothing and you don’t get ahead, but try to save too much and you wind up short on your bills. Target tax free pay or bonus pay to have the majority of such pay go directly into savings, you don’t normally have this type of pay so you wont miss it from your monthly budget.
Set Goals. Think about where you would like to be financially in ten years. In five years. And in a year, and in six months. Set these long-term, intermediate, and short-term goals. Make the short-term goals more realistic, and when setting longer term goals have an idea about how you want to meet them, and specifically what it will take to meet them. You don’t head into a combat zone without some sort of a plan, and you shouldn’t construct a budget without a plan either.
Set up an Emergency Fund. Try and set aside between three and six months of your monthly expenses. At first gathering that amount together will be hard, so start small, but once it goes into the emergency fund make sure you don’t touch those funds.
