Financial Freak Show

Here’s a guest post from my favorite military wife / mom. In this post she talks about her change in mindset around the extra deployment money that’ll be coming in soon from her husband heading off to do what needs to be done for those that can’t do it for themselves. For those of you not familiar with the military pay; “deployment money” is the extra pay they receive when they’re deployed…hence the name “deployment money” and to sweeten the deal many times this money comes to them tax free. Apparently they can earn a noticeable pay increase during the time they are taking on the bad guys – and in my opinion they deserve every damn penny they get!

Enjoy the following guest post – and when you get to the part about “a very wise man” and “single-handedly did something Superman and an army of super heroes couldn’t have done” remember that me she’s talking about- oh yeah!

‘Deployment money” a military wife’s favorite words. Visions of Coach Bags and spa trips dance through her head while trying to fight back the tears as her husband boards the plane. We all do it, yet most of us won’t admit it. This time though I’m taking this deployment to a whole new level. I’m on a mission to go down in the military spouse hall of fame as the one who passed the Coach bags in the Exchange and with a disdainful smirk I head to the children’s section for the half priced shoes. Ever notice they put those gorgeous bags right in the front walkway of the store? I am on the road to paying off all of our debt. All of it, all $125,000 in credit cards, car loans, and the boat. Our awesome boat – yup, the one we can’t afford to put gas in.

Thank you to a very wise man who, in a 20 minute conversation, single-handedly did something Superman and an army of super heroes couldn’t have done. Got me (of my own free will no less) to pull every credit card out of my wallet, wrap them pretty in a rubber band and throw them in a drawer I affectionately call the “junk drawer.” Fitting name huh? I then proceeded to break the news to my husband. We sat down and had what was probably the most open and honest discussion about our finances in almost nine years of marriage. We mapped out a plan TOGETHER, figured out where we could cut back, then celebrated… by eating our first dinner at home in a long time! (a personal apology to all Olive Garden shareholders).

Using my husband’s first “deployment money” that came in from a recent short trip, I paid off the lowest balance debt. Seeing that first zero was almost as exciting as a new pair of shoes. The second zero balance I have achieved almost made me… well you get it.

It’s a game now. I created a sweet little excel spreadsheet staying true to my “excel goddess” nickname that auto-calculates our totals, gives me the percentage paid down on each debt and the total percentage of debt paid off to date. Are you ready for this? 10.24% in 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS!! That’s about $12,000 of worry, stress and interest we’ll never have to pay on again!! He leaves again in a few weeks for 6 months this time. And I will sit in my office every day and secretly curse all of the women telling stories of the money they spent the past weekends on shoes, clothes and manicures, and I think of all the things our family can do with our money when he comes home. Things like a family vacation paid for with actual money. All out of our bank account instead of on credit cards. Amazing.

I have a feeling the next 6 months is going to change the rest of their lives. So do you think she can pull it off? Do you think somebody’s going to get hurt if they stand in her way?

Please take a second and add an encouraging comment.