My old unit had just got back from a nine-month mobilization to the sandbox. If you took an outside look at the living quarters, one thing was for sure… there were a lot of guys that were ‘deployment rich’ blowing off some serious steam. A bunch of dudes that had just spent the better part of a year getting sand in their ass crack finally home to enjoy spending some of the money they couldn’t or didn’t spend.
These guys were ballin’ out. All kinds of new whips and motorcycles and toys and vroom vroom shit all over the parking lot. Everyone had brand new clothes and shoes and watches and gucci sunglasses. New guns and knives and hunting bows. High quality liquors were flowing… not the bottom shelf trash (that still does the job, but tastes like shit and delivers terrible hangovers that make you want to die) that can usually be found in housing on bases across this great nation.
With flashy new shit and cash being thrown around, a new element usually enters the picture quite rapidly… barracks bunnies. And oh were they afoot. A couple guys even got married to their new girlfriends within the first couple weeks of returning home.
Life was good. New cars, new clothes, new girls, and money. I’ve never seen more happiness than seeing a military unit return from overseas.
Fast forward 8 weeks… the first Soldier enters my office with a little issue. He tells me with tears in his eyes that his landlord is being a dick, and if he doesn’t come up with this month’s rent in the next 3 days, he will be evicted from his apartment. What. in. the. fuck. bro. How are you that strapped for cash immediately following not being able to spend money for nine months?
We got the man the help he needed and he was able to keep his apartment through a program that financially assisted Soldiers… but he was one of the lucky ones.
One by one they fell. I don’t know the exact number of massively shitty financial situations that came about in our unit, but it was definitely greater than 10. I’m talking bankruptcies, evictions, and repossessions. Even some divorces (which are expensive as fuck) and at least one case of a girlfriend running away with a bunch of cash.
It was complete pandemonium.
Lucky for you clowns, here at Blue Falcon Finance, we compiled the data from this unfortunate and preventable shit show of financial failure and came up with a list of tips and tricks to keep your bank account looking right during and after deployment.
Here we go:
Tip #1 – Immediately upon deployment, take steps to get $10,000 in the DoD Savings Deposit Program at the speed of mach jesus.
This program is, in my opinion, the first important step in getting your cash right upon getting shipped off to some shitty place by Uncle Sam.
The SDP has some stipulations and some dumb rules associated with depositing money and pulling money out, but hey… it’s run by the government. What do you expect?
Even with its quirks, it’s an incredible deal. You can earn 10% interest on up to $10,000 with near-zero risk. Market crash while deployed? Who gives a shit. You’re still getting 10%. Sure, it’s POSSIBLE (but not guaranteed) to make more interest elsewhere, but the risk-free aspect is unheard of at a 10% rate.
You can continue to accrue interest for 90 days after return from deployment, and if you don’t request it earlier, you get a check for the balance after 120 days. It’s a nice little paycheck that you get a few months after you get home.
Additional info about the DoD SDP can be found here:
https://www.dfas.mil/MilitaryMembers/sdp
Tip #2 – You know those car and motorcycle sales guys at large bases that offer tax reduced deals on new vehicles? Fuck those guys. Don’t buy a new vehicle from them.
Some of these financial tips are things you SHOULD do, and some are things you SHOULDN’T do, and are equally as important.
On large, well-established bases overseas, you will find kiosks and offices of Harley Davidson and Ford and all the other fucking car and motorcycle companies. They offer “kick-ass” deals on new vehicles in the form of large tax incentives and reduced prices. These guys make a fucking killing selling all kinds of vehicles to dumbass servicemen that think they have money to blow on shit like this.
If you’ve followed Blue Falcon Finance for a while, you probably already know that buying a brand new vehicle is one of the biggest wealth killers for military members.
New vehicles lose approximately 9% of their value on average the very SECOND you drive it off the lot. For example, if you buy a $20,000 new vehicle, it loses $1,800 in value before the odometer hits 000001 miles. You might as well have take 18 one-hundred dollar bills and just lit those bitches on fire.