Before we left Washington DC I was doing a lot of volunteer work. Budget counseling at the Navy-Marines Corps Relief Society, tax prep for low-income seniors through AARP’s Tax Aide program, assisting with financial counseling on various military installations and was serving as a military spouse advisory council at the Military Officers Association of America.
Then we PCS’d to Singapore and — poof — it was time to start over with making new friends and establishing local contacts. Nothing new there but I did not want a repeat of Seattle and Virginia Beach. We lived in each place for nearly two years and met no one beyond a neighbor or two.
It can take a ridiculously long time to build up a social network and when you do make the effort, the news of an upcoming move can make you feel foolish for trying. Just look at this poor guy being slapped in the face with reality. He pretty much nails the experience and yet, in a few months, he will be pushing that rock up the hill again. In Japan.
The good news for me was that I did not like anyone I met in Washington DC.
Just kidding, but I was ready to leave and this time I found that there was a lot to be said for aligning with military-related organizations that will have a presence most places you go.
I was able to build on my volunteer work in DC and in the past month I started providing ongoing financial education workshops on base, even managing to line up my own funding from a Department of Defense contractor that provides financial counseling to service members.
So far I have completed two presentations on on basic budgeting and maintaining healthy credit and later this month I’ll be doing two introductions to investing. I have been creating the presentations myself plus using some materials from Million Dollar Sailor, a curriculum developed at some of the Fleet and Family Services Offices. People are surprised to hear that it is possible for an enlisted sailor to build investments of $1 million over the course of their career.
The biggest challenge is getting someone to complete a relatively simple task: Track daily expenses for two weeks so that you can prioritize how you spend and save your money. Most people want to skip to investing but understanding, in detail, where your money goes is really the only way to start or else you run the risk of raiding your investments at the worst times.
I try to explain that no one else really cares how you spend your money — if cigars are ‘your thing,’ that is okay — but you should at least be aware of how much money is going to each expense. Of course an underlying assumption is that you need to live within your means in order to reach your financial goals. That can be as popular as telling someone to eat more vegetables but it is easier when someone has a specific goal they want to achieve.
None of this is rocket science but the turn-out has been good and people have a lot of questions. I will probably start writing a column for the monthly newsletters to address a lot of military-specific issues such as the post-9/11 GI Bill. Thankfully I do not rely on this work for income. Our base is very small but it is gratifying to do something helpful for the community. And just as importantly, it helps me to rebuild a local social network.
