Life on a military budget: Extra challenges, extra resources

By Kathy Adams

Amber Reeves was on a mission.

Grasping a handwritten list, she browsed the aisles at the Food Lion near her Chesapeake home on payday last Friday, comparing prices and filling her cart with necessities: white bread, canned vegetables, ground beef. She stood firm when her two children reached for junk food.

"No, sir. Put it back," she told her 9-year-old son, Larry, as he grabbed a box of Twinkies.

Only one extra item made it into the cart: a bag of Bugles.

For Reeves, staying within her family's budget, which allows only $250 per month for groceries, takes careful planning, smart shopping and discipline.

And some key help from the military.

Reeves said it would be almost impossible to make ends meet if her husband, Petty Officer 2nd Class Thomas Reeves, weren't in the Navy.

The military offers resources and benefits that, in these tough economic times, give families a vital financial buffer: comprehensive medical and dental benefits; reduced-price, tax-free groceries at the commissary; and housing with fixed-price utilities.

Reeves shops at Food Lion and Wal-Mart, looking for sales and generic brands because there isn't a commissary nearby. But living in military housing and having good medical benefits for her two children, who both have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder, makes all the difference for her family.

"It does help a lot because if we didn't have the base housing, I don't think we could make the bills that we have," Reeves said. "So that makes it a very big blessing to be able to have that."

Military housing saves the family money on rent and utilities and gives them some extra room in their budget for emergencies or the occasional luxury, such as a recent trip to the movies to see Disney's "WALL -E," Reeves said. They're also careful to avoid debt and put aside money each month for extra expenses, such as frequent repairs on her husband's 2001 Oldsmobile Alero.

"Fortunately we don't have a lot of bills because we've been very careful about that," Reeves said. "It's a lot about budgeting and planning. It really helps a lot."

Other military families also are feeling the pinch.

"Money's been tight. Really, really tight," said Latoya Haywood as she and her husband, Army Spc. Ramon Haywood, loaded groceries into their car outside the Oceana Commissary on July 1, a payday. "We're trying to stretch the dollar."

She recently began a home child care business to bring in extra income, she said.

Though military families have additional resources and benefits available to them, the rising costs of gas, food and utilities are pushing more of them to seek extra help. That's where military aid organizations such as the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society and Army Emergency Relief come in. They offer emergency financial assistance and education to service members and their dependents.

From January to June in Hampton Roads, the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society handled 74 percent more cases and gave out 22 percent more aid than during the same period last year. This aid totaled more than $2.7 million in grants and loans for basic living expenses, transportation needs and emergencies, such as a death in the family.

During that time period, assistance doubled for transportation expenses such as gas and insurance, said Kathy Nelson, director of the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society in Norfolk.

"We see a number of sailors or Marines and their families who are living very close to the margins," she said. They just might be "squeezed" financially or they "may have made poor choices," so when prices increase or emergencies arise, they have no extra room in the budget to absorb the costs.

The society's appointments are booked solid almost every day.

The Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society does more than just dole out money. Its volunteers create a detailed budget for each client.

"Sometimes our best assistance for them may not be money," Nelson said. "The reason people come to us is because they need money, but our best help may be doing a budget."

Teaching the relief society's clients financial responsibility plays a big role, she said. The organization provides classes and counseling on how to budget, save, use credit responsibly, and avoid payday lending and high-interest debt.

"We find that many people did not have good training or education or role models, and so they've made financial choices that have not always been very wise," Nelson said, "and that has put them in a situation where they could not pay for some of their basic living needs."

The Navy's Fleet and Family Support Centers of Hampton Roads offers pre-deployment briefings, one-on-one counseling, money-management classes and a Spouse Employment Assistance Program.

These resources are essential for preventing financial problems that can distract service members and hurt their performance at work, said Jamie Forrest, financial educator for the Fleet and Family Support Center at Little Creek Navy Amphibious Base.

"A lot of the emphasis that we give is on education and preventative measures," she said. "We want to give them the skills to build wealth and not debt."

Various community organizations also help military families in need.

Operation Homefront, for example, offers school supplies, home appliance and auto repair, moving assistance, and other services. One of its programs donates computers to families so they can better communicate with deployed service members.

That's how Amber Reeves got involved with the nonprofit. Operation Homefront gave her a computer so she could e-mail her husband during deployments when he was stationed on the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. Now she volunteers with the organization to help struggling families in her neighborhood.

While civilian families are also feeling the pinch, military life can provide extra financial challenges, Forrest said. Deployments and frequent relocations often make it difficult for a service member's spouse to find work and build a career, and maintaining a two-income household can be especially difficult when one spouse is deployed and child care costs are high.

"Just with the tempo of deployments and all the demands that are put upon the military because of everything that's going on in the world... that has an impact on the family and finances," Forrest said. "It may be left up to one person in the couple to make a decision about the family's finances."

Reeves said one of the hardest sacrifices is being unable to afford a home.

It's "really sad because we'd like a home of our own, but that's not an attainable goal right now," she said.

But she's thankful for what her family has and for the help the military community provides.

"It's not that bad. We don't feel like we're missing out on anything. We're not going without. We're not starving," Reeves said. "God blesses us in many ways."

Kathy Adams, (757) 446-2583, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com