by Jorgy F. Gosby

Created on: February 07, 2010   Last Updated: February 08, 2010

It was the last formation of the weekend at "Charlie Battery", a field artillery unit in the Ohio National Guard and our Captain ended with these words, " . . . so let your families and employers know that our deployment is now imminent.  Start getting your affairs in order"!  As I drove home that Sunday evening, I started to think of all the things that would need to be taken care of before I deployed.

Over the next couple of weeks, my wife and I sat down and had many conversations about what we should do and how we should secure our finances for the upcoming deployment.  It was especially concerning for us because my income would be lower than I made in my civilian job.

We ended up getting prepared by taking the following actions:

* We put as many of our bills on auto payment as we could.
* We opened another checking account for me to use on our deployment.  We changed my military direct deposit so that most of my check went into the "home" checking account while a small stipend amount went into another checking account that I would use.  That way I knew what I could spend and I couldn't blow our monthly finances on a whim.

*  We had a "Power of Attorney" drafted that gave my wife the ability to pay bills or make changes to our finance on my behalf - this gave us the flexibility to adjust our financial strategy along the way.

* Since I had a nine month "heads up" that would be deployed, we systematically lowered our monthly bills by selling off a spare vehicle, allowing magazine subscriptions to run out, etc.  We basically tightened our belt ahead of time.

* We consolidated any outstanding monthly payments to lower our monthly payments.

*  I spoke with utility companies, etc about my deployment.  This resulted in one business covering the entire cost of my home and auto insurance while I was deployed.

Finally, my wife and I decided to lower our monthly discretionary spending (movies, restaurants) initially.  If things were going well, we figured we could slowly add more spending back into our monthly budget.

So how did it work out for us after I was deployed? Better than we thought!  We both sacrificed in the beginning and stayed on a strict, low spend budget. However, because of our good planning and a few sacrifices in the beginning, our financial condition stayed strong and we weathered the deployment with flying colors!  Also, some of the good habits we developed as a result of the deployment we still use today.

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