I'm in Afghanistan and find myself with two or three free hours everyday. I've decided to start a Military Finance blog to help occupy me during that time. Please let me know what kind of topics you would like me to cover, and it would be of great help if you gave me some comments and or suggestions on the general site design.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Marcin130,

ummmm.....you can't post outside links to another website Marcin. It's against TOS rules on mil.com

roger, I removed the link.

You would be doing a soldier a favor by typing "Enlisted Savings" into google and telling me what you think.

quote:

Enlisted Savings

I think your off to a great start myself. Before I get started with advice I ETS'd in 1987 but I do financial stuff (I'm a Trustee for a CRUT). My B.B.A. is in Finance from the University of Wisconsin. Not a lot of financial background but here is my advice for additional areas to cover.

A lot of Soldiers pay list for lots of things they do not have to. Negotiation should be an area you both research and cover in your blog, IMO.

New Car example:

I paid $20k for my 2006 Buick Lucerne, the list was $27k. So I waited until the last week of December 2006 and then started to look on Internet websites for the model, color and amenity package. Then I visit 2-3 dealerships that I knew had the car in stock and started to talk how much I was willing to pay and that I had financing. If the dealer knows you have financing already, it's as good as cash. The trick is not to tell them how much but to make it sound like your going to fall short of the price they are asking for the new car but that your not willing to switch to a lower cost model or package. Work the salesperson from there.

New Home Example:

With any real estate purchase first rule of thumb is location. Your best friend here is not the person selling you the house. Rather it is the city clerk of the city your going to buy the house in. She knows everything about the city and is the NEXUS at city hall and she usually has insight into future city plans. So some brief conversations with the city clerk is adviseable once you have a few key locations pinned down. Then what you do is look for subdivisions that are either near close out OR just starting a new phase. In both these instances the builder is willing to deal on price and options to get the houses starting to sell OR to finish the subdivision and leave.

Travel / Hotel:

If you ask Soldiers in Afghanistan with you I'll bet some of them do not even know they qualify for the government rate when traveling on orders. Further, I'll bet the ones that are VFW or American Legion members don't even bother to take advantage of their discounts. I worked in a hotel during college. What they advertise on the Internet or in travel publications you can sometimes best in person at the Front Desk before you check in. If they know your willing to walk out the door for the hotel across the street or the one next door they are willing to lower the price.....in some cases substantially to fill the room. The trick here is make sure your ready if they call your bluff.

Airline Fares:

Best deals are all about timing. My advice here is to sign up for the mail alerts on your favorite Airline website for travel deals. Learn over time how the fares go up and down and what the cheapest months are of the year to buy tickets. Just takes a little time watching the airline websites. Definitely there are patterns and you don't really need Expedia.com or travel.com or whatever.

Death in the Family....

When someone dies in your immediate family, you can claim a bereavement exemption to any fees airlines charge when changing your tickets. In some cases a bereavment fare is available. You MUST have to have a Death Certificate or a copy of such. So you need to be near a FAX machine or someone needs to scan the Certificate in at a Kinkos and Email it to you. The savings here are worth the trouble, IMO. Usually you can save $150 or more. It sounds cold hearted to ask for a Death Certificate from a grieving Parent but in my case, when it happened to me it wasn't a issue on either side of the phone.

So there are some ideas for you to think about for today.

Thank you, that was great information! I've never bought a home nor have I researched buying one so that was all very helpful. The problem that I find with flying while in the army is that its usually on short notice(I've never had more than 4 days notice of when I've needed to fly) I've found SATO to be helpful on more than one occasion(they found me tickets from alaska to chicago for $260 on two days notice once, which was about $400 cheaper than what I could find on the internet!)

And like I've said in another post this website is my answer to all of the frustration that army finance has caused me and my buddies over the last year.

SATO was pretty good when I was in uniform. Still I hear these stories where they try to combine mutiple modes of travel between Point A and Point B and it does not work out well. They did that when I was in too.....just every once in a while, luck of the draw....I guess.

Army Finance has always been focused on making sure that the Army was not taken advantage of and that their paperwork was correct. I've never seen them with any other focus.

Marcin130 is this site still up? I want to talk with you about a link exchange. I am building a site for infantry soldiers call: 11B "The Infantry Network". Please let me know if you can do this.