Raising a family while one parent serves on active duty can be tough, but it can be a whole lot tougher when money gets tight. Now, the Defense Department is looking to ease that burden while empowering military spouses to achieve their goals with a new effort called the MilSpouse Money Mission.
Related: Advice for the career-driven MilSpouse (from a career-driven MilSpouse)
Whether you’re a military spouse that manages the finances for your family, or you’re accustomed to splitting that bill with your deployed loved one, the MilSpouse Money Mission has resources that can help you plan, budget, and get you and your family on track to meet your financial goals. The content produced by the program is presented in a number of different ways as well: if you prefer to learn from watching videos, the MilSpouse Money Mission has them. If you’d prefer using a checklist to stay task oriented, they have them too. Maybe you just want a website you can check in with for daily tips and interesting tidbits? Their blog has you covered.
The content published on their website has been vetted, not only by a certified financial planner and an accredited financial counselor, but it also goes through the Department of Defense Office of Financial Readiness. So you can be sure that you’re not being led astray by sub-par financial planning.
Related: How to take advantage of military spouse benefits
The site’s resources are all entirely free, as are some pretty handy tools you can use to assess your current financial situation or even to plan for upcoming changes in your family. The site includes a “MilLife Milestones” section that identifies big changes in the lives of military families that you may experience (like the addition of a child) and helps you to not only understand the ways it will impact your check book, but also some of the ways the military’s family-specific infrastructure can mitigate some of those impacts.
While there are plenty of websites out there that offer financial planning services for families, the MilSpouse Money Mission offers military-specific guidance that takes military finances into account. Adding a child to your family can increase costs across the board, but it can also increase a service member’s basic allowance for housing — offsetting some of those added costs. Having your spouse spend long periods of time away from home can add a number of economic stresses to a family, but the Family Separation Allowance awarded to military families while the service spouse is away can help with some of those expenses. Knowing that can make a big difference when it comes to assembling your financial plan.
These military-specific changes to a family’s financial standing are just a few of the reasons why the MilSpouse Money Mission is one of the best places you can find on the web for military family economic planning information, but that’s not all you can find on their website.
The MilSpouse Money Mission also includes resources on preparing your taxes, planning to pay for your education, and even tips on how to ace your next job interview. If you’re a MilSpouse and you want to take a proactive approach to your family’s finances, it’s tough to beat the free resources offered by this Defense Department-funded program.
You can find the MilSpouse Money Mission here.
Read more from Sandboxx News:
- The MilSpouse survival guide to working from home with kids
- 15 duty station tips for Milspouses to feel right at home sooner
- The essential tax tips every self-employed Milspouse should know
- Did you know these 5 badasses were military spouses?
- 9 things I wish I’d saved on as a mom on a military budget
Feature image: U.S. Air Force photo/Maj. Gabe Johnson
This article was originally published 5/13/2020
