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Financial concerns are among the top issues facing service
members and their families.
Blue Star Families, along with the help of USAA, surveyed
thousands in the military community to reveal key trends
facing today's military families.
This video is part of a series taking a proactive look at the
current needs and what can be done to support
the military family.
Debbie, one of the cornerstones of a solid
financial plan is to have an emergency fund in place.
In this year's Blue Star Family Survey, you actually
checked in on people to see how they're
going on that front.
Yeah.
We asked a number of questions about finances, and one of
them is whether somebody had a rainy-day fund
in case of an emergency.
And we found that about 50% of our families did say they had
about a three-month--
--fund in place--
--fund in place.
And so that was a great finding of the survey.
And there are plenty of reasons in the military life
to have that fund in place.
Yeah.
One of the things that we asked about was what were the
barriers to having a solid financial plan, and there were
three things that came up.
One was spouse employment.
One was the uncertainty of the military lifestyle,
and then PCS moves.
And I know, as a military spouse myself, all of those
things have affected my financial plan as a family.
And so those same things that are barriers are also reasons
to start now in building a cash cushion because you don't
know what kind of expenses are right around the corner.
So it makes sense to set up a savings account and start
funding money into that.
Whether it's $25 or $500 each paycheck, whatever you can
afford to get it going into this cash cushion
or emergency fund.
Yeah.
I think that's a really nice point because there's quite a
pay differential between people in the military.
The earliest E1 to the highest officer, there's a big pay
range in between, and so savings plans need to be
scaled to those pay grades.
And with all that uncertainty, maybe the three-month rule
that we often talk about should be six months because
there is so much that we just don't around the corner.
Yeah.
I think that uncertainty plays into that.
I think military families need to be very proactive about
their financial plan because things come up
that you didn't expect.
You might be moving when you didn't plan to move.
You might be moving to a location that you didn't know
you were going to be moving to.
And all that impacts your finances.
So that's a great thing.
Get started now, start building the cash cushion, and
then you will be prepared for whatever life throws your way.
Exactly.
All right.
Well, for more information on the survey, folks can visit
the Blue Star Families website.
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