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About Me:

Amy

I created this blog because I like reading other military spouse's blogs. Part of being a military spouse is having the uncertainty of not knowing where you will have to live next or for how long. It often means moving around every few years and dealing with the deployment of a loved one. Financial advice isn't one size fits all and often financial advisors tailor their advice to the non-military folks out there, saying to buy a house right away and talking about 401k's instead of TSP's.

About 5 years ago (very soon after my husband and I got married) I saw David's Bach's book, "Automatic Millionaire" and it truly changed my life and how I thought about money. We started out with pretty much nothing when we got married. I had $1,000 in credit card debt, and my husband had $1,000 saved from a recent re-enlistent bonus.

We have since managed to save for a downpayment on a home, open and contribute automatically to 2 retirement accounts, and get rid of all our credit card debt once and for all. At the time this blog was first written I was very excited to write that we had "increased our networth from $0 to $18,000!" Now that number has gone up a bit.

Retirement.
We save 15% of his pre-tax income in the Thrift Savings Plan, which is the government's version of a 401k retirement account, only with no matching funds. We also try to max out our Roth IRA every year (some times it doesn't quite happen but close enough).

Saving.
We used to save 25%, or $1,000, per month of his take home pay but still had credit debt and as you'll see in some of the old blog entries we struggled with that for a while. We've notched down savings a bit, but still save regularly and have an emergency cushion that we're comfortable with.

Home.
After moving back in with my parents we saved like crazy and managed to save $33,000 for a downpayment on a our first home! We financed the rest with a 15 year mortgage since we had recently begun listening to Dave Ramsey and liked a lot of his ideas. We pay an extra $300 a month towards principle which means that if everything goes as planned the house will pay off in 10 years instead of 15!

Cars.
Part of the reason that we can save so much is that we have no car payments. I'm no finance expert, but I firmly believe that people spend too much on new cars when they should be saving instead.

Our goals now are to pay off the house and save for when my husband gets out of the army, whenever that may happen...

More about me, and more about us...

March 10th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

I thought this would be a good entry to further explain why and how we do what we do with our money. One of the main reasons that we are able to save so much (in relation to how little we make) is that we have no car loans. Granted, they may not be new or nice, but they are paid off and they get us from point A to point B...which is to say that they get the job done.

Another reason we are able to save 15% of our pre-tax income towards retirement and 25% of our after-tax income towards our dreams is that we are not big spenders. Saving money is a big priority for both my husband and I. The little things you buy can (and do) add up over time. So I'm not willing to sell my dreams for a lot of little things.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “More about me, and more about us...”

Ima saver Says:
March 10th, 2007 at 10:04 pm 1173564266
1173564266

Good for you!!
creditcardfree Says:
March 10th, 2007 at 10:40 pm 1173566442
1173566442

Good job!! It helps that some of our funds are not taxable such as housing allowances and BAS, too.
KEALINA Says:
March 11th, 2007 at 01:15 am 1173575731
1173575731

sounds great... my DH and i can be like that too... we save a lot of our income because we are willing to "sell" our dreams either...
Amber Says:
March 12th, 2007 at 01:52 am 1173664360
1173664360

Nice post, you are so right little things do add up. And I drive an old 89 toyota camry in which none of my friends really rides in but it gets thejob done..way to go

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Army Amy's Amazing Personal Finance Blog (wow!

Saving money while my husband's in the Army and I work for peanuts.

More about me, and more about us...

4 Responses to “More about me, and more about us...”

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