Hi everyone, I'm just wondering if any of you can shed some light on how things will change for us. My husband was ARNG and is now going AD. His packet should be done by Mon or Tues then off to MEPS where we will know exactly what's going on.

If we're able to have a choice on duty station I'd love to know what you all think would be some of the best places. We currently live in Nebraska so would love to go south for better weather! We have 3 kids also so good schools, neighborhoods are definitely something for us to keep in mind.

Thanks in advance, any info appreciated.

lol...Nebraska....came from there after being AGR for a spell ourselves.
Everything will change--yet some things will feel familiar, depending on how involved you've been.
You can expect the unexpected, first of all. You won't know where you're going until Orders are in-hand or on paper. Then you'll call Transport and arrange for your HHG's to be picked up, packed, and taken away.
As soon as you know where you're going--jump online and decide if you're going to stay on post or try to live off post. Depending on where you go--you have to decide what's in your budget, stay off or on. Research online---I did this to death! lol...I went to www.onestop.army.mil and checked out the housing.
www.ahrn.com is another great site if you're looking for off-post housing.

Hours are going to be one of your biggest changes. Our day starts at 4-something. My love gets up and is out by 5:15am, high school starts at 7:20am so me and the Girl are up by 5:30/6am. Love could come home for lunch if he wanted to, but most times he takes a lunch. He can come home anywhere between 4pm and 7pm. I think the latest he's stayed was around 7:30-ish.
Your neighbors will vary in age, education, employment, and # of children...and kids' ages. On my street...I think there's only 2 kids that are my girls' age--and she's one of them! She's also the oldest out of the children in our unit as well.

When my love went AD...they were going to make him change his MOS. Said there wasn't a need for his MOS with his rank....there was a bunch of other drama mixed in there, he was gone much longer than he should have been, but he ended up with his MOS and rank intact....and by the grace of God (and a WO1 pulling some strings and having a fit), we did get the post that we wanted---much to the delight of my parents.
So, a lot of things change, there's more things that just don't make a heap of sense to us, but they do to someone else. lol...
Be loose, be flexible, be ready for anything....and research everything!

Thanks! And as far as researching, already been doing so much of that my head is spinning but I want to know things, I want to TRY and be ahead of the game as much as possible.

My kids are 17, 14 and 9 so this should prove to be a challenge!

What seems to be more affordable, on base or off? And I realize that if there's a wait, which it sounds like there usually is we'll be living off which is our preference.

I know when we do get orders in hand I'll be back asking all sorts of questions about the post we're going to.

As far as getting up early, we do that anyway, just have to get used to moving it back a bit.

I have a hard time being loose, flexible, etc. but I think it will be much easier for me if I give in to that way of being.

Affordability is really going to depend on where you go. Coastal areas tend to be outrageously expensive--like WA,CA,VA,MD,NY, etc. Inland of course tend to be more reasonable in their housing costs--like NE. We didn't pay over $700 for our place the entire time we were there. Cost of living was CHEAP compared to where we are now, which is Ft Lewis.---We're talking double the cost of everything that you're paying now...it's insane. We tried living off post--add in a couple of snafu's and yep, we're living on post now. A year in 2 weeks. Having never lived on a post before---I dig the hell out of it.
The convenience of having everything I need within 2-3 miles of my home, wonderful. My Girl gets bused to&from school every day. If I had an elementary school aged kid--school is like right down the street from me. Not more than 3-4 blocks.
Yeah, they take your BAH, but I have no bills other than paying for the cable/phone/internet. Apparently I never go over the allotted amount for electricity since I've never received a bill from them. And if repairs need to be made to the house for whatever reason, I call housing, they come out and handle it all for me.

So yeah...I like living on post.
So financially, it's kind of a crap shoot--just all depends on where you get stationed at.

Just a couple of things-its fairly common for Guard soldier coming on active duty to loose a paygrade-be prepared for that-although it doesnt always happen. I dont think he will be asked to reclass since the 13 series is still a bonus MOS on the active side.
Like BAW said-living is going to depend on where you go-and there is the possibility that he will get an unaccompanied assignment in Korea or germany ( unlikely you will get unaccompanied OCONUS orders with 3 kids-i know guys who have not been allowed to come back on active duty with at all with 4) If that happens you and the kiddos will just stay where you are while he goes and does his thing-and it wont be a whole lot different than when he was deployed in the Guard.

Orchid, thanks for the heads up. He is actually trying to get in under the ACASP since he is a licensed electrician but not sure if that's gonna be a possibility.

I'm anxious for him to get his packet finished and get to MEPS so we can see where we're at and possilby where were headed.

Yeah....we had to really fight to keep my husband's rank when he went AD. I think it just required a waiver of some sorts.
Once he hit that MEPS station though, things went really fast. Next thing I knew he was out the door, heading for a MOS reclass for a job he really did not want to begin with--but it was the lesser of two evils as far as we were concerned.
Then of course once he got there, about 3 weeks into his class, he pulled him out for some drama that his recruiter created, then there was a lot of him doing a bunch of stuff that you would normally assign to an E2-3...ticked him off a lot and frustrated us both. Took about 4 months for people to get their shnit together, a congressional inquiry before he finally got out of there and off to another another post. Almost ended up there too! As soon as he got there--there was a 'fight' over him! lol...literally Jackson and Lewis were all vying for him. Obviously, Lewis won.

Most transitions are not all that dramatic--honest! lol...but there's always that possibility that things don't go as smoothly as it should. Ours should have been a very smooth and easy transition...just didn't turn out that way. Once we found out that we got Lewis--then everything went smoothly though.

quote:

Coastal areas tend to be outrageously expensive--like WA,CA,VA,MD,NY, etc. Inland of course tend to be more reasonable in their housing costs--like NE. We didn't pay over $700 for our place the entire time we were there.

True, housing can be less in the midwest, but thats why BAH rates are lower here. E-6s w/dep pulled almost 1600 a month in BAH in CT. Here in Lawrence, the rate is a little over a grand because it's a college town with cheap rentals.......but to live on that renting you either have to live with tons of college kids (not something I'm not willing to do with 4 small children) or you have to live outside of town. Only reason we could afford a house here (housing rates are outrageous for the middle of KS) is because the lady who owned it was about to foreclose and we just paid off her note. In CT we had numerous options with the housing rate we got.

In CT you dont pay sales tax on essential food items. Just crap like chips and such. My food bill went up a lot since I've moved here based on that, combined with a higher sales tax rate than I'm used to (here they allow the county and city to tack on their own taxes, so I paid 6% in CT and pay 8% here). Beef here is more expensive than it was on the coast (cant for the life of me figure that one out) and food sale prices I found much better in CT.

Sales tax is non-existant in NH

BAW-That's crazy and I really hope we don't have that much drama through all this. Under ACASP you are supposed to get upped your rank so what I'm hoping for is at aleast he keeps his same rank. Who knows though!

Catherine-I figure as soon as we know where were headed I'm going to research the "you know what" out of everything as far as housing, tax rates, etc. and I'm assuming once we do know where we're going I'll be posting to find out whose already there to answer questions I'll have. That's why I love these forums! Otherwise I'd be clueless.