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.

Two years ago (soon after my husband and I got married) I saw David's Bach's book, "Automatic Millionaire" and it truely 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 opened 2 retirement accounts, a high-yield online savings account (with automatic deductions from our checking account) and increased our networth from $0 to $18,000!

My husband's military pay includes his base pay, housing allowance, cost of living allowance, food allowance. All together it's $2,000 on the 1st of the month and $2,000 on the 15th.

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. Some people think we're crazy saving for retirement when we're in our early 20's, but we just want to use compound interest to our advantage!

We also save 25%, or $1,000, per month of his take home pay. We're saving to buy a home at his next duty station, though I have no idea where that will be yet. Currently we have about $12,000 saved up for our first home, and by the time we leave here (1 1/2 years from now) we should have at least $30,000 saved.

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.

More about me, and more about us...

March 10th, 2007 at 02:00 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 02:04 pm

Good for you!!
creditcardfree Says:
March 10th, 2007 at 02:40 pm

Good job!! It helps that some of our funds are not taxable such as housing allowances and BAS, too.
KEALINA Says:
March 10th, 2007 at 05:15 pm

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 11th, 2007 at 06:52 pm

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

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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