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On Your Way to a Smooth Move: DoD Roundtable
It is that time! PCS season is upon us and many military families are negotiating orders and beginning the process of planning for a move. With that in mind, I had a great chance to listen to and speak with Barbara Thompson, Director, Office of Family Policy/Children & Youth, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense. We all know that a PCS can be an amazing adventure but also an incredible stressor on families. I have an example for you; in the late 80’s my family moved from Ft. Walton Beach, Florida to Keflavik, Iceland. Can you say, “Change of scenery”? In the end the move to Iceland was…
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The ‘busy-ness’ of Spring
Ah… Spring. A perfect adjective would be refreshing. We get out of the house. We start the garden. We clean off the deck. We pull out our soccer cleats, baseball gloves and running shorts. We pump up our bike tires, clean out our cars and hose off the outdoor dump trucks, bubble wands and kiddie pools. We open windows, smell the flowers, take long hikes. We start to fill the family calendar with all sorts of events. As military families we also might be looking at orders. We clean out our closets, get rid of the ‘extras’, plan for the future. We make last ditch moments to see the town we called home…
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“Mondays in My Garden”: Four Easy Ways to Save Money when starting your Garden
There are a few blogs that I just love. Household 6 Diva is one of them. Ann Marie is a down to earth Army spouse recently relocated from Germany to Texas and there are so many times that I think, “Wow, would we be good friends if our lives had ever crossed.” She started a series called “Mondays in My Garden”. Be sure to read her inaugural post here: Welcome to “Mondays in My Garden” Ah… my garden. Just the thought of it has my heart smiling. Yesterday it was 72 degrees out in NE Ohio. The back door was open all day. The front door was filled with sunshine. Smiles, laughs, giggles…
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PCS? Moving Tools Can Make it Easier!
It is the PCS season for many military families. Orders in hand and with the next location almost in site, how do you find help to learn more about that next assignment? Friends? Social Media? Military One Source? Family Centers? Military friendly businesses? There are so many resources that are available for you! We tried to grab and bring them to you in a centralized location. Military experience helped us create some ways that can help you on MilitaryAvenue.com. Our Moving Tools section is perfect to guide you through many of the challenges military families face! Come take a look: School reports, mortgage advice and articles, packing materials, utility hookups…
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The Path to Investing
Military Saves week is coming! From February 25 through March 2 there will be a concentrated effort to get our military families on the road to Financial Readiness, a subject matter near and dear to my heart. To get you thinking about this important week we have a guest blogger, Amy, Army spouse who shares some great thoughts about getting started on investing. Thank you, Amy, for helping to empower our military families through sharing your thoughts: “It’s important that both you and your spouse understand the investments that you have chosen”. I stared at this sentence, and felt like a hypocrite. I had shared a financial book with a friend who…
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Tax Support for our Military
Tax Season will soon be here. Be sure to check out these resources for you, the military family: W-2 and other tax forms are available on line for our military memembers and civilians at myPay, including Reserves, Retired, Savings Deposit Program forms and more. Air Force, Army, and Navy will be available tomorrow, 1/24. (https://mypay.dfas.mil/mypay.aspx) Military OneSource Provides Tax Assistance Service: As tax season nears, Military OneSource and H&R Block have joined forces again to provide a free online tax preparation service for service members. 5 Tax Tips for Tough Situations: Your returns may be relatively uncomplicated — but sometimes new circumstances can make tax preparation a bit trickier. Follow these tips…
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The Year in Review – 2012
MilitaryAvenue.com has a lot to offer the military family, from local military discounts, to stories of personal experience, and articles from reputable resources like the DoD, USAA, Community and Family Policy and so many more. So what was important to our families this year? Here are the Top 10 Articles on MilitaryAvenue.com from the year 2012: MilitaryAvenue’s Moving Checklist: A move isn’t complete without a checklist! It certainly is less stressful with one. Click on a link below to take you to the appropriate time frame and then skim the other lists to make sure you are on track for a great move. Growing Up in the Military: A few years ago,…
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A Prayer for the New Kids
This is for all the ‘new kids’: The shy kids, the anxious kids, the kids that have knots in their stomach because they don’t know the teachers, the building, the other kids. The kids who aren’t sure how they are going to remember which locker is theirs, where their locker is going to be, how long will it take to memorize their locker combination with all the other new things going on. The kids who wonder who they will sit with at lunch, who they will meet, laugh with, talk to, or will they just be alone unable to eat anyway with all these “new kid” anxieties. The kids who wonder…
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Back To School Giveaway
It is almost that time of year … when moms do the happy dance, kids find themselves anxious and excited (don’t let them kid you!) and dads are wondering why the credit card bill is so high. New backpacks, new pencils, new folders, new glue, new pencil boxes, school fees, new clothes, new shoes, new lunch boxes, sports fees… my credit card bill just hurts thinking about it all. The list is seemingly endless. How do you save money this time of year? Continue Reading to learn about our Back to School Giveaway from SitterCity for our Military Families. Let us know (as a comment on this blog post) and we’ll enter your…
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The Blackberry Patch and Col K
Our crop is going to be cut by 90% and this “farmer” is a bit sad watching them shrivel. 2011 Blackberry PatchThey are in the blood and sometimes they draw our blood through their thorns! Growing up outside of Gary, Indiana, we lived in farm country. It was a completely different world than our city cousins or the Air Force life I would eventually join. Ten acres of strawberries, black raspberries, vegetables and woods with a small pond kept us out of the house and busy in the spring/summer – whether working or playing, it did not matter. We were the “berry pickin” cousins and as we got older we…
