I almost missed the announcement. It’s bland corporate text inside a box on my USAA Visa credit-card bill of 2 July. It’s the boilerplate you always ignore while you’re scrolling to find your new balance and checking your payment date: "Effective October 1, 2019, USAA Federal Savings Bank will be eliminating the ...
[This post is brought to you by Alecia D. Blair, M.S., AFC®. If you're interested in contributing at The-Military-Guide.com, please see our posting guidelines.] About six months after having my second child I found myself eager to return to work. It was summer in beautiful ...
This was the best conference yet! For those who are just joining us, last month I polled people's questions about USAA's insurance and financial programs. I brought those issues to the Digital Military Experience with USAA's Communications team, other program managers, and several executives. But first, it's ...
[Nords note: if you're finding this post via a search engine, here's the followup post with USAA's responses: USAA Answers Your Insurance And Financial Questions] It's almost that time of year again! The San Antonio summer is cooling off (a little) and on 19-20 September I'll be USAA's guest ...
As a young Staff Sergeant back in 2002, I found myself in an incredibly awkward position. It began harmlessly enough. My foolish attempt at living above my means began to produce a lot of heartache and misery. It started small and then snowballed into an extreme amount of debt. Over time, I began to live ...
Did you know that USAA offers newly commissioned officers a low-interest loan to help them start their career? This guest post on the USAA Career Starter Loan was written by Spencer, a company grade officer in the US Air Force. Spencer is documenting his journey to financial independence using his military pay and ...
It's been eight months since USAA launched their Financial Readiness Score service, and I took the opportunity for a followup interview. Susan Owens, the AVP for Enterprise Advice Implementation, dug up the statistics and shared the insights that USAA will gradually roll into the new versions of the program. USAA ...
Did you know many credit card companies are going above and beyond their legal obligations under the Service Members Civil Relief Act? Many companies are retroactively lowering interest rates for balances placed AFTER your enlistment! Under the SCRA, 6 percent is the maximum interest rate that can, however, in ...
Over 3.3 million high school students graduated this year, and nearly two-thirds of them started college. Another 1.8 million college students are receiving their bachelor's degrees. Nearly 200,000 of all those young adults will join the military. They also have another new life project: building a credit score. A ...
Is the Army Air Force Mutual Aid Association (AAFMAA), Career Assistance Program Loan (CAP) worth it? I’m going to have to say YES! Back in the day as a young Staff Sergeant I needed some extra cash during a tough financial period. I was introduced to AAFMAA by a fellow Soldier. He informed me that AAFMAA offered an ...
A reader writes: "After seeing a couple of your posts on the Mr. Money Mustache forum I checked out your book from the library and finished it in a day. It was great but I would love your opinion on what to do in my own situation. My spouse is a junior officer. We married nearly six years ago with significant debt. ...
Welcome to the peer-to-peer loan calculator! This blog doesn't talk about debt very much. If you're pushing hard to reach financial independence then you probably left debt in the dust long ago and you're saving at least 20% of your income. However, this post is part of a series on P2P lending, and about the ...
We're military veterans, not financial advisors. We're trying to share what we've learned and to pay it forward – but you have to make your own decisions.
What worked for us will probably work for you, but unfortunately, we can’t guarantee it. Let us know if something’s not working for you, and we’ll try to figure out a better way... Continue Reading...
Doug Nordman 
Curtez