Money for Military A daily finance blog about finances for military members by a military member. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 17 0 73 2638

Articles from Money for Military

PMI - Private Mortgage Insurance 2007-08-23 22:18:00 When does PMI stop or when can I cancel PMI? First, you must understand what PMI is. PMI is private mortgage insurance. When a borrower doesn't have a 20% down payment, lenders charge a PMI to cover defaults. So you can cancel PMI when you've paid down 20% of the loan. The PMI should stop automatically at the 78% mark. PMI can be anywhere from $50 - $150 a month as is not tax-deductible. ...

PowerPay - Paying Down Debt 2007-08-19 11:40:00 This IS NOT a paid post. This is an actual site I have in my financial planning tool box. Power Pay is a site that is used to show people how to successfully pay down debt. This software was only available for puchase by financial planners. You could then pay a lot of money to find out how to stop spending a lot of money. A university bought out the liscence and now offers it for free. You have ...

ING Direct Contest First Prize is $10,000 2007-08-18 10:30:00 I entered the ING Direct, Adventures on the Road to Happiness contest. The goal is to write a 250 word essay. I wrote mine about how my family handled their money poorly and how it has driven me to start saving my money. You have to sumbit a photo too. I submitted one with my family all wearing orange shirts. My oldest son was making the picture difficult. However, we pressed through and have an ...

Another Stay-At-Home Opportunity 2007-08-11 17:19:00 So, a reader requested information about a site called DealBarbie Pays. This is a GPT site, or a "Get Paid To" online money-making site. It has an awesome payout and I trust them because a blogger that I respect has blogged about them. I signed up and made the initial $5 sign up bonus. I then made $4.95 on my first day. I will let you know when I actually get paid. The true power of this site is ...

VA Programs and Benefits 2007-08-09 20:22:00 Being discharged can be both a hectic time and an exciting one too. This may cause for some confusion as the discharged individual is bombarded with a vast amount of information concerning their benefits which are provided by the Veterans Association. Many of these benefits include the VA Home Loan program, GI Bill program, VA Insurance programs and much more. There are many great places ...

Tim Explains the Savings Deposit Program in Detail... 2007-08-05 15:57:00 Reader, Tim, left me a comment about the Savings Deposit Program. Instead of just publishing and letting no one see it, I decided to post it. So here in more detail, is Tim's contribution. Thanks Tim. His comments have not been edited; however, I made some capitilizations corrections. I did not make any spelling changes though. I think there needs to be some definite clarifications here about ...

July's Stock Market Really Knocked Me Down! 2007-08-01 13:48:00 In may, I had $32,500 in a taxable account and $21,721 in my IRA. July 31st, I had $29,385 in a taxable account and $19,385 in my IRA. That's about a $4,000 loss. If you take my high from July 15th, I have lost over $6,000. That's about a 10% loss in my net worth. You should track your net worth using NetworthIQ. It's a great site and you get a cool badge like the one at the bottom left of my ...

What Stocks am I Buying? LOOP 2007-07-30 21:07:00 I have a lot of people e-mailing wondering what stocks I'm buying. I usually run a filter on www.fidelity.com. I then research the companies thoroughly using www.morningstar.com and Yahoo! Finance. I don't look at individual sectors or what the market has been doing. I've made a lot of money in 2003 and 2006. However, I don't think I'm beating the market very well. In fact, with commisions ...

How to Subscribe to my RSS Feed? 2007-07-28 18:06:00 If you really like my site and want to be updated whenever I update the site, then please click on the little orange button on the right side of the page or click here: Then when a new page pops up, you can subscribe to my RSS feed. It will be added to your Favorites and automatically updated. ...

Reader Asks a Question about Budgeting... 2007-07-26 09:42:00 "Money for Military, I've read most of your articles and I've noticed you've never mentioned budgeting. Don't you think that most young people should start budgeting?" - Anonymous I thought that was a good question and a lot of people usually disagree with me on this. I don't think budgeting is effective unless you have solid iron will and are free from temptations. Most people spend a lot of ...

USAA Mutual Funds Highlights 2007-07-24 11:43:00 Here are some quick notes on USAA mutual funds. The information is found on www.morningstar.com under the Best & Worst link for the USAA family fund data. The information is from 17 Feb 07. Best 5-year Relative Performance - USAA Capital Growth (USCGX)Lowest Expenses - USAA S&P 500 Index Member (USSPX)Lowest Manager Tenure - USAA Precious Metals and Minerals (USAGX)Worst 5-year Relative ...

Savings Deposit Program (DSP) - Earn 10% Interest 2007-07-19 09:44:00 I'm not going to go into detail about...well, the details on the SDP. I'm going to go over the realities of the program. On the surface, we are told that if we are deployed in a combat zone we are eligible for a 10% savings rate for $10,000. This sounds great, $10,000 earning 10% a year. Unfortunately, like most things in the military, it's more complicated. You are eligible to make your first ...

12 FAQ's about COLA and How COLa is Calculated 2007-07-18 15:31:00 Here is a great list of 12 Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQ's)about how COLA is calculated. I look at the search results coming to my site and I can see that there are a lot of questions about the military COLA system. (Source: Per Diem, Travel and Transportation Allowance Committitee https://secureapp2.hqda.pentagon.mil/perdiem/) Q1. What is Overseas COLA? ANSWER: The Cost-of-Living Allowance ...

Enlistment Bonuses and Re-enlistment Bonuses 2007-07-14 10:09:00 Enlistment bonuses and the Selective Reenlistment Bonuses (SRB) work the same. It is a program that is used to entice people to join the military or an incentive to stay in the military. These bonuses can seem complicated but they aren't. Enlistment bonuses are given in a whole amount. For example, I received a $6,000 enlistment bonus. (Remember the Air Force bonuses are generally smaller ...

Scared of the Bull Market--How to Invest Defensevily 2007-07-09 20:10:00 Everyone talks about which stocks to pick and how to find the greatest stock. No one rarely talks about how to invest defensively. Here is a great article I found on Yahoo! Finance. Optionetics.com Understanding the Bear Market Psychology of the Investor Monday July 9, 1:45 pm ET By Jeff Neal With the Dow and the Standards and Poor's 500 doing quite well, it is important for the investor to ...