December 19, 2024 • 60 mins
What if the journey from military service to podcasting could teach you invaluable financial lessons? Join us for a riveting episode featuring Tony Hollinsworth, the voice behind "Inside the Hoosier Mind," as we explore his transformation from an Air Force serviceman tangled in debt to a successful podcast host. Alongside financial expert Joey Laswell, Tony opens up about his Indiana pride, military challenges, and the financial strategies that turned his life around.
We'll navigate the often-turbulent waters of military Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves, unraveling the financial chaos and unexpected burdens they can bring. Tony's personal anecdotes reveal a landscape of logistical nightmares and mounting debts, tempered by life-saving connections and clever financial maneuvers. Discover how he leveraged housing allowances, tax rebates, and credit card rewards to claw his way back to financial stability in record time, offering fellow veterans a roadmap to reclaim their own fiscal balance.
The transition from military to civilian life is fraught with hidden financial pitfalls, but preparation is key. As we dissect the psychological aspects of spending habits and the virtues of living within one's means, you'll gain insights into the critical importance of early planning and resources like the Transition Assistance Program (TAPS). Tony's story serves as a testament to the power of resilience and proactive financial management, providing veterans with a platform to share their stories and support each other on the path to long-term financial wellbeing. Tune in and honor our veterans by learning from their experiences.
Please join me on my different platforms and follow along my journey towards FIRE.
https://laswell.veteran.cards/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Isis, Al-Qaeda.
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Speaker 1 (00:57):
Our military should not be mistaken for our cable
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We don't care what you looklike.
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We don't care who you voted for, who you worship, what you
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We have been honed into a machine of lethal moving
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Speaker 6 (01:56):
Military Broadcast Radio military broadcast radio,
the station that's givingveterans a voice.
Find us on the web at mvradious military.
Um, I'm a certified financialsocial worker.
Um, I was in the Air Force for14 years and then I paid off
$20,000 of debt while I wasactive duty within three years
as an E3.
So that's kind of like I gotreally into personal finance and
so I've been really passionateabout that ever since, and that
(02:20):
was 10, 12 years ago now.
So since then I became a socialworker and now I'm a certified
financial social worker.
So we kind of get into, youknow, dealing with finances, but
then also kind of dealing withthe psychology behind finances,
like the you know, the mentalside of things.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
So Ladies and gentlemen, your battle buddy
when it comes to finances.
Please welcome the fire socialworker, joey Laswell.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
All right, hey, hello , hello, hello everybody.
This is Money in the Militaryon Military Broadcast Radio.
Just wanted to say I'm excitedto be here today.
Got a special guest, acontinuation from the last
session that we had Our goodfriend, tony Hollinsworth from
another co-host or a host of hisown show Inside the who's your
(03:16):
Mind on Military Broadcast Radio.
So, tony, how's it going?
Man Good, how are you.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
Appreciate you having me on.
I know we haven't really got totalk a whole lot as far as like
one-on-one conversation, sothis yeah this is kind of a good
introductory path oh yeah, Ilike it.
Speaker 7 (03:30):
I like it.
You know, I really appreciateyour sense of humor.
You've jumped in on just a fewof my streams, added some nice
color commentary, so I reallyappreciate that.
So, uh, just real quick tell usa little bit bit about your
podcast and what time can wecatch you on that show.
Speaker 8 (03:47):
So I primarily do a sports podcast here on MBR.
I primarily cover the NFL,college football and college
basketball even though I've beena terrible college basketball
fan because I have not watchedmuch of the games this season so
far.
But you can catch me just aboutevery Tuesdayuesday night at 6
pm eastern uh here on mbr allright, and uh, I'm guessing
(04:11):
inside the hoosier mind.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
So you're a big hoosiers fan, I'm assuming uh,
not necessarily, but I am.
Speaker 8 (04:17):
So it's kind of weird whenever, whenever I would meet
people from across the worldprimarily when I was across the
world and I'd meet somebody fromindiana they're like eh, I'm
kind of shy about being a, beinga Hoosier, cause we're, we're a
flyover state, like I'll admitit.
There's not a whole lot here inIndiana other than the Indy 500
once a year, um, but I wanted tokind of highlight that I'm I'm
proud to be from Indiana.
(04:37):
Like I don't feel like a thestory of where does the term
Hoosier really come from, andthere's two stories, but none of
it, neither one of them, aretruly like confirmed.
Speaker 7 (04:49):
So oh, okay, yeah, I just remember, was it the Gene
Hackman movie Hoosiers.
Is that pretty accurate?
As far as is it capture the the?
Speaker 8 (04:58):
the Hoosier spirit.
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
Yeah, a hundred percent Awesome.
So that was Tuesdays at 6 pmEastern, correct.
Yep, okay, all right.
So, everybody, if you'rechecking in listening to this
show, this is kind of like acrossover show, like in the
comic books.
And so Tony had chimed in onthe previous stream and had
(05:24):
commented on a story that he hadwhere he basically paid off a
good amount of debt in a veryshort period of time, and I was
just like, well, we got to haveyou on the show and kind of have
you tell the story.
I'm really curious to learnabout that.
But before we get into that,let's let's just get a little
bit to know you, to know myaudience, to get to know you a
little bit.
(05:45):
Tell us a little bit about yourmilitary background and then I
guess, how did you get intopodcasting?
Speaker 8 (05:53):
So I was in the Air Force for eight years.
I was active duty, so I joinedin 2014 and I just got out in
2022.
And when I first joined Ijoined in a very unique way.
So I was originally supposed tobe a 2t2.
For anybody who doesn't knowair force jobs, I'm supposed to
be air transportation andinitially, when I first heard it
(06:14):
, I'm like so this is kind ofthe air force's version of like
ups, fedex, like they handle alot of logistics, a lot of cargo
, a lot of boxes, and I was like, ah, I'm looking for something.
Maybe potentially I could dobetter on the outside.
That isn't, you know, ups,fedex or Amazon.
So in order to kind of relievemyself of that, I happened to
get lucky and the Air the uhlittle little honey that they
(06:34):
brought out to you know, try toattract you to join was you
could pick any afsc that didn'thave a prerequisite that needed
to be met beforehand.
So as long as I didn't need tohave like a top secret clearance
(06:55):
or, you know, be an absolutelike computer genius or anything
like that, I could.
I could uh pick that job.
So I joined the air force HonorGuard for my first four years.
I did funerals at ArlingtonNational Cemetery for two years
of my time while I was there, soMonday through Friday I would
be doing funerals.
And then, while I was there, Igot the opportunity to do public
(07:17):
affairs for the Secretary ofDefense's office.
So all I did was publicspeaking and it was essentially
I had to memorize a 33 pagescript verbatim.
I had to learn how to say itwhile walking backwards
throughout the entire Pentagonand be able to pick up and, uh,
be able to pick up where I leftoff.
You know, just haveconversations with people, just
(07:39):
make them feel as comfortable aspossible and teach them about
the military, how it worked, allthe branches.
And then I ended up crossingover, becoming a medic in 2018,
which is where my financialstory starts to kick into place,
but we'll, we'll touch on that.
And I got into podcasting rightbefore COVID started.
(07:59):
Okay, because I thought, wow, Ihear all these people like
they're working from home, likeyou know, they're going to have
a lot of spare time and me,being a goober, I'm like, oh,
I'll have time to do this.
Little did I forget I'm a medicand in the military.
I have no time for that Rightright.
I started technically in 2020,but I didn't really start
(08:19):
getting more consistent with ituntil 2021.
I had a really good friendbefore I joined that he and I
would just talk sports all thetime and it was we would talk
sports from like a very neutralperspective.
You know he was a fan of a teambut he liked and appreciated
other players and how otherteams did things and kind of
enjoyed watching them, and sothat that's kind of where I
(08:40):
adopted it, and I didn't reallymeet a whole lot of people like
that in the military, so I waslike well, I want to podcast
about it, I want to meet otherpeople that like to talk about
this too, and it's just been,it's just took off since then
that's awesome, man.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
So when?
When did you join mbr?
Speaker 8 (08:55):
uh, I joined mbr uh april of this year, actually so
april of 2024 all right.
Speaker 7 (09:01):
So, yeah, you're actually not too far ahead of me
.
I think I joined in.
My first broadcast was in juneon mbr, so all right.
So, yeah, you're actually nottoo far ahead of me.
I think I joined in.
My first broadcast was in juneon mbr, so all right.
Well, that's, that's cool, andI mean it sounds like from your
air force experience.
Like you know, I guesspodcasting is a natural
transition.
You know, like you seem to begood at talking and and, uh, you
know, so that's, that's reallyawesome and it sounds like that
(09:22):
was a really cool experience, aone-of-a-kind experience that
very few people can say the uh,they had the similar experience,
so oh, 100 I'll I'll neverforget, like the memories, the
connections I made from that.
Speaker 8 (09:36):
And yeah, I will say, as somebody, believe it or not,
outside of podcasting, I am athousand percent a massive
introvert like if you catch meoutside, I will probably not say
a word to hardly anybody we'renot.
Speaker 7 (09:49):
We're not that far apart from each other because,
uh, yeah, I'm pretty much thesame way, um, but uh, well, yeah
, thanks for kind of giving ussome backstory.
Um, so you, we had mentionedyour um, your, your financial
story.
It's kind of got some ups anddowns and some crazy stuff, it
sounds like, but I haven't heardit yet, but I'm really excited
(10:12):
and curious to learn more aboutit.
So, yeah, just give us a littlebit of background of what set
up this whole journey and thenwe can kind of just take it from
there.
Speaker 8 (10:23):
So really the background is so kind of like I
said, I didn't start off with anormal Air Force job.
I started out as the Air ForceHonor Guard and you can only do
that for roughly about fouryears.
You can maybe give or take alittle bit, just depending on
circumstances and situations, ifyou're waiting to retrain and
for us coming out of bootcamp wehave to retrain into something
(10:43):
different, to have a technicalskill.
Now if you come in um what theycall prior service so say you
were a senior airman with like aline number to staff or you
know you were an officer and youcome in, uh, you still do it
just for four years, because anylonger than that you're
considered, you know, basicallylike stale out of your current
AFSC and they're like, yeah, we,you've been out of the game a
(11:05):
little bit too long.
I don't know if we could stilluse you right.
Um, so my time for retrainingcame and uh, to kind of help set
it up for anybody who doesn'tknow the air force, if you
retrain into a job that is lessthan six months cumulatively,
then you are supposed to be sentTDY or temporarily You're
(11:26):
supposed to be able to get yourhousing for the base that you're
currently stationed at, andobviously the Air Force would
cover all your hotel expenses,everything like that Instead of
sending me TDY.
My chief, who was also mycareer field manager, was not my
biggest fan by any stretch, soI was actually PCS to the
(11:48):
schoolhouse filling ininstructors billet for a job
that I had never officially donefor the military, so I was
never properly in processed andas a result, I had to pay for
all of my hotels, all of mytravel costs, my storage costs,
everything out of my own pocket.
Couldn't use my gtc, which I'llget into that a little bit later
(12:11):
, but yeah that?
Uh, that is essentially what,what started the the spiral a
catalyst.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
Wow, that was that.
So that's the origin story ofthe of the event.
So, wow, okay, so, um, so itsounds like, yeah, you, you
pcs'd instead of tdy and route,and you know a lot of this is
going to be just complete jargonfor most people that might be
listening.
If you're not a military memberor veteran, then you probably
(12:38):
were like I don't know whatyou're talking about.
But essentially you knownormally the, the military, will
cover your costs for moving andthen, if not up front, they'll
reimburse you for it after thefact.
So you may come out of pocket alittle bit, but then eventually
you get reimbursed and you'rewhole again.
So what actually happened herein this situation?
(13:03):
As far as like, um, where didthe, the debt come into play?
Speaker 8 (13:08):
uh, so basically it, it really all started, uh, when
I got my notification to retrain, um, I had filled out the
paperwork I needed to to fillout and I submit it back.
And they, um, they gave me my,my date of when I was supposed
to be at school.
Uh, then, shortly after I gotmy notification of, hey, this is
where you're going to bestationed at, of when I was
supposed to be at school, uh,then, shortly after I got my
notification of, hey, this iswhere you're going to be
stationed at, and I said I wasgoing to be stationed at
Lackland, I'm like, oh, don'tnecessarily want to stay in
(13:30):
Texas, but that is what it is.
Um, but then I looked at thedates and the dates were the
exact same.
So I was supposed to bestationed there at, like, my
unit training manager, my UTM atthe time.
She's like I don't know what totell you.
I don't know what to do.
Luckily, I had made friends witha master sergeant at the
(13:54):
Pentagon who, at the time, hisjob was to only deal with the
PCS assignments of all of thechiefs across the entire force.
That was his job.
So I was like, hey, I reallyhate to ask this.
I said but I'm getting no helpfrom my leadership.
Can you look into what?
What am I supposed to do?
Like, am I going there forschool?
Am I living there?
What am I doing?
Um, he couldn't really get anyanswers, but he got my, my date
pushed back to October.
(14:15):
Um, and he said, look, you know, just save your money as best
as you can, you know, causeyou're you're probably going to
end up having to owe them moneyback.
So just just save it aside asmuch as you can do what you need
to do.
But in the meantime, you know,you can get your stuff packing,
kind of get, hopefully geteverything figured out on the
way there.
Um, well, I come, I come downto Texas with my orders and my,
(14:36):
my school, my paperwork sayingI'm there for school, the the uh
coordinator there for the phasetwo, which essentially that's
all the secondary schooling of,like your hands-on training.
So you go some places you havephase one to go for your
hands-on or not hands-on, yourlike book, like your book, and
actual class training.
And then you have your phasetwo for more of the hands-on and
(14:57):
your technical skill proficient, your proficiencies.
So I go there and I'm like, hey, I here, here's the paperwork
he's looking at.
He's like, oh, that's kind ofweird and it didn't really seem
to fully register with him.
But he's like I'll send it upto the civilian, he'll figure it
out.
Yeah, in the meantime I hadalready paid for my hotel that
I'm, that I was staying in atthe time and I had already paid
(15:19):
for my storage.
Uh, I used a storage pod, so Ipaid the initial deposit on that
.
Then I was paying a monthly,monthly rate on it so it would
stay in an indoor climatecontrolled area.
Um, so all this is accruing andI'm like, hey, is there, is
there any update as to whatwe're doing so I can stop paying
all this?
And they're like we don't knowwhat you're talking about.
(15:39):
Just keep, just keep doingwhatever you're doing.
I'm like but this, this reallyhurts my wallet, this yeah, this
is starting to hurt a littlebit absolutely, and this accrued
all the way up through phaseone, when I was in texas, all
the way through phase two, whenI was in ohio, and then, when I
finally got stationed in ohio, Ifinally had to stop paying for
hotels, but then I had to startworking, then I had to start
(16:02):
paying off the debt that I hadaccumulated throughout that
entire time.
Speaker 7 (16:06):
Wow, man, that's, that's.
It's.
I mean like just knowing theins and outs and how complicated
, you know, pcs it can be.
You know, it doesn't surpriseme that that happened, but it's
still pretty, pretty odd thatthat happened.
But but that's, that's reallycool.
Cool, we're gonna, um, we'regonna take a quick little break,
(16:27):
um, a musical break, and thenwe'll get back into you know
like what you're like when thedust settles.
You know like what, what wasyour game plan?
How did you, you know?
And then maybe we can talk somenumbers and stuff too.
But uh, but yeah, we're gonnajump into um, my usual intro
musical um guest, which is NoahPeterson, us Marine Corps
(16:49):
veteran in San Antonio.
So here is Noah Peterson, we'llbe right back.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
The Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Thank you, military broadcast radio, the station
that's giving veterans a voicefind us on the web at mbradious
opinions expressed in thisprogram are those of the
speakers and do not necessarilyreflect the views or positions
of any entities they representfind us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 7 (19:23):
All right, we are back.
This is Money in the Military.
We are live on MilitaryBroadcast Radio talking with
fellow MBR host, tony fromInside the who's your Mind, who
has a show Tuesdays at 6 pm onthe multiple platforms for mbr,
(19:44):
and uh, yeah, just uh glad tohave you on.
We were, before the break.
We were talking about his umroller coaster of a financial
journey.
That was basically not, it wasnot his fault, but he had to
kind of deal with it, uh.
So, yeah, yeah, before we leftoff, you were telling us about
how, you know, basically you hadto, finally didn't have to stop
(20:07):
paying for, you didn't have topay for the hotels and stuff
anymore, but you were left withthe bill, right?
So what was the damage?
What was your initial thoughtsand what was your game plan at
that stage?
Speaker 8 (20:23):
So I kind of took some pre-measured steps that I
didn't expect to really help me,but it ended up being a pretty
major tool later on.
So right before I left, usaahad actually sent me an offer
for a $10,000 limit credit cardwith 0% interest for two years
and I was like that would bereally nice for right before I
(20:46):
move, because again I was like,okay, I'm going to pay for my
moving and stuff up front.
So I was like that'll be niceto kind of have.
I can reimburse it, pay it offand then everything will be
great, come to find out.
That helped me overall becausethat's what I had started to put
the hotel bills and everythinglike that on um.
(21:07):
So ultimately, what I ended updoing um was I.
When you first moved down totexas for anybody who doesn't
know, uh, you have to kind ofpay what, what is similar to a
state tax in texas for the first30 days.
After 30 days you're considereda resident of Texas and then
you essentially get what is likea state tax return from them of
all the taxes that you paid.
So the hotel I was staying at,I stayed at the same one the
(21:31):
entire time.
I just kept extending my staylike another month and another
month and another month, so itwould all hit at once.
As far as my payment for it, Igot a little bit of that back
thanks to um, thanks to thetaxes, and luckily this credit
card also gave me cash backrebates, so I was able to pay a
little bit of that off.
Essentially, what all thismoney, where all this money was
(21:53):
coming from, was because I wasstationed in dc.
Originally, I was still gettingdc bah, but I was living in
station in Texas and I wasproperly in processed.
So, they never changed my BAHrate from DC to Texas.
Speaker 7 (22:10):
Oh gotcha.
Speaker 8 (22:11):
So now I'm sitting there, I'm like, okay, well, now
I'm going to have to probablyback pay them money, because
they're like overpaying me.
BAH from like this should cancelout, though, because I'm having
to pay for all this out ofpocket um, so essentially what I
did was I would get the, Iwould get the credit card racked
up pretty significantly and Iwould put about because bah was
(22:35):
about 1700 a month, I would putabout 500 a month in my savings
and then I'd put the rest alltowards that bill and I would
just start hitting it each andevery month that I could save a
little bit, pay a little bit ofit off.
Save a little bit, pay a littlebit off.
I ate pretty cheaply.
It was there a lot of, a lot ofpackets of tuna, a lot of
(22:55):
vienna sausages out of a can, alot of, uh, microwavable mac and
cheese and like white castlebites, but, um, yeah, all total
with the moving costs, the hotelcosts in both texas and ohio
and the storage cost you werelooking at roughly anywhere
between about 25 to 30 thousanddollars.
Yeah that I had to that, I hadto eat yeah, man, that's I mean
(23:21):
as an e4 as an e4.
Speaker 7 (23:23):
Yeah, that's 84 um, and where you were single at the
time or you uh yeah, yeah, sothat makes it a little bit
easier, but then you're notmaking as much money as the
married people, you know, right.
But, um, okay, so that's pretty.
I mean it sounds like a prettysolid plan, um, in general.
(23:43):
But like, um, what were some ofthe?
You know?
You said you kind of cut downon food costs, but was there
anything else that you did tokind of like kind of grease the
wheels or get the, get the youknow the money coming in?
Speaker 8 (23:56):
I.
I guess what really helped mewas the, because the hotel costs
kind of fluctuates because ofthe fact of the time I went
there.
So I went there in early.
I went there actually lateOctober, early November, so I
kind of had to deal a little bitwith the holiday prices cause
they would upcharge a little bit.
But then after December, so Iwas there from, um, basically
(24:20):
beginning of november throughapril, you know to just uh,
january through april isactually not that bad and
everything you have to remembertoo.
I didn't have an internet bill.
The only, the only bills Ireally had was a car payment, my
insurance, uh, and my cellphone bill.
Other than that, everythingelse was basically all included
with the hotel that I was livingat.
(24:42):
Uh, now I did have my two petswith me, but that was any.
I had already kind ofstockpiled on up on food for
them before I left, because Iwas like I'll be able to get
this when I get there, so I'llat least have me a little bit of
supplies prepared before I dothat.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
Wow, that's, that's crazy.
So how long did it take for youto actually kind of get the
debt knocked out prettyrelatively quickly, right?
Speaker 8 (25:09):
Yeah, it took me about eight months to to really
get it, to really get it knockeddown, and a lot of that was due
to the fact of I was stillgetting that DCBAH and, luckily,
moving from Texas to Ohio.
The cost of living wassignificantly cheaper in Ohio
than it was there, so I was ableto put a little bit more money
towards that.
I did dip a little bit into thesavings just to get it knocked
(25:33):
out quicker, but that was alsokind of the advantage of having
that 0% interest.
I didn't have to worry aboutthat.
And because I had been rackingup so much but then paying so
much off, I actually got a lotof that cash back value from
that USA rewards.
So I was able to knock about2,500, 3000 off just in, like
the cash back rewards and stufftoo.
(25:54):
So that that helped alsotremendously.
Speaker 7 (25:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's all those little things add
up for sure, and I mean that'sone of those things too A lot of
.
If you use credit wisely, youcan you know if you're going to
spend that money anyways on gasand groceries, things like that.
You pay it off at the end ofthe month.
That's essentially like freemoney.
But I caution some people tothink of it like that.
You know, like if you'remanaging your credit smartly and
(26:22):
you know with, with focus, thenyes, you know you might as well
, you know, put it on credit andthen pay it off at the end of
the month.
So, yeah, so that's uh, that'spretty uh, man, I'm just still
blown away by the numbers andthe dedication that that
probably took for you.
Um, so it sounds like you alsohad some good financial habits,
maybe prior to that, where youhad a savings account, like you
(26:45):
had some decent financial habits.
So did you learn that on yourown, or did you have that kind
of coming into the military, orwhere did you learn that?
Speaker 8 (26:57):
Funny enough, I had like zero dollars in my savings
prior to all of this.
So this actually kind of forcedme to be like, okay, you have
to save money, you can't justuse this to play with.
And it was also one because I Ihad actually learned it a
little bit from mom.
Uh, you try to pay off and shelearned it from, I believe, dave
(27:18):
Ramsey, or is it?
Whoever gives the really goodfinancial advice?
That's a big radio guy, daveRamsey, is it Dave Ramsey?
Pay off your small things first, that way you can start hitting
your real big things.
Like I said, my cell phone billwas pretty low.
(27:39):
I did have a car payment, butthat wasn't that wasn't a huge
chunk of my paycheck.
Luckily I had refinanced thatum to actually a lower payment
Um, but I was still paying likenormal, so that way I could pay
it off quicker, um and that, andthat's really just how I kind
of treated it of.
You know, I need to put alittle bit back to to save.
I ended up actually savingabout five to six grand out of
(28:04):
that Cause again that that DCBAHhelped and like I said, those
help, those hotel fluctuatingprices and whatnot helped me
pretty tremendously too.
Plus, I had a 2012 Ford fusion,so gas really didn't hurt me too
bad either.
But, like I said that, thathaving to maybe get a little bit
lower quality in food butsaving the cost of I'm not
eating out as much, I'm notspending as much money.
(28:25):
I really didn't have a kitchento cook in, so I'm not having to
pay a whole lot as far asgroceries and whatnot go either.
So that that kind of helped mequite a bit too.
As far as basically nickel anddiming it to you know the lowest
bit and I had, I had alwaysbeen raised to as much as name
brand usually, you know, looksbetter or maybe it tastes a
little bit better off brandstuff usually tastes really
(28:47):
close, if not just as good.
Speaker 7 (28:49):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Uh, that's one of those costsaving things that people, you
know, they probably don't eventhink about it, you know, but
they just think, oh, I'm goingto get the name brand stuff.
But really, yeah, like, thegeneric stuff is usually just as
good, if not, you know, thesame as the name brand stuff,
just way cheaper, yeah.
So we got a couple of comments.
(29:11):
I got some emojis comingthrough Alien ghost, alien ghost
, alien ghost.
Okay, so that's from Into theweeds.
Yep, amber deets co-host.
There.
We got joel, some fire droppingsome fire and some money emojis
.
Terry lynch says hello, another, uh, mbr host for the tracer
(29:33):
rounds podcast, and she confirmsthat.
Yeah, we were talking aboutdave rabsey with the debt
snowball method.
Um, so, man, like, um, I guessI'm curious to think about like,
so this was kind of like a verydifficult time period for you,
um, financially speaking.
Oh, yeah, um, but, uh, what aresome of the good, I guess, the
(29:56):
good things that came out ofthat, that um, that you kind of
take into your current, um,financial situation?
Speaker 8 (30:02):
Honestly, I think this is what taught me probably
the best as far as how to budget.
Um, and literally all it waswas I took.
What do I all total with BAH,bas and my base pay?
You know what do I earn eachand every month?
Okay, you know, here's my total.
And then, all right, let mesubtract how much is this month
from the hotel bill?
(30:23):
Okay, now, this is how much Ihave left.
This is from the car payment,this is from the phone, and it
was a mixture of, like I said,putting about 500 bucks away in
savings and then, okay, now Ihave this much money to go to
everything else.
Now, how much do I have out,left out of?
And then, whatever that numberwas, I would usually cut that in
half and that would be theextra bit of money that I would
(30:45):
pay to the credit card to alsohelp kind of knock that out a
little bit quicker too, that Ithat I still use to this day.
It's like I take, I take all myincome that I get, I take all
of my you know my income eatersaway, and then I see, okay, this
is how much money I have left.
This is what I can put intosavings.
This is what I can put to anyother credit cards and again,
(31:08):
just learning from mom, like yousaid, if you use credit wisely,
it can be a great tool to kindof help you stretch your money.
You're not eating away at it.
Uh, I was never one.
I never tried to get myself ina whole lot of debt.
I say that as I have a fifty,six thousand dollar jeep, um,
that I'm having to pay off butuh but, but that was that's kind
of what I've always grown up onis you know, don't, don't
(31:30):
always put yourself in debt.
If you, if you feel that youdon't have the money to spend
right now, like in hand cashvalue, just the same then don't
put it on a credit card and, youknow, dig yourself into that
hole yeah, because it's like adeath by a thousand cuts.
Speaker 7 (31:45):
you know, like those little, those little purchases
that really the sneaky onesreally can add up really quickly
.
And it's a lot of times peoplerationalize it because it's like
, oh, it's just nine dollarsfrom amazon.
Or you know like they just havetheir card linked to their
Amazon account and I've beenguilty of this too.
But you know, it's just like amindless thing where you're just
(32:06):
like, oh yeah, we need thisthing, so I'll just go on Amazon
and then it'll be here in twoor three days.
you know Right, but yeah, it'sone of those things you got to
be really careful about debt,because it's uh, it's very
sneaky, um, sometimes not sosneaky, sometimes it's just
right up in your face it's like,hey, yes, a buttload of debt,
but uh, um, but uh, yeah, we gota comment from mj, another host
(32:31):
, uh, um, from mbr, thanks forsharing a good uh, got some good
, um good interaction from theaudience tonight.
Um, so I guess, uh, I did wantto, um, kind of talk to you a
little bit more about what, whatis it?
Oh, we'll have to take a littlebreak after this, but, um, but
(32:51):
maybe we could talk about, um,some of the like if you could do
it over again, or if you werecounseling an airman who was
going through your situation,maybe some some tips and tricks
that you learned along the way,cause you know this is money in
military.
You know this is a realisticfinancial situation that
military members can findthemselves in.
So you know, any way that wecan help.
(33:14):
That's that's kind of.
You know that's what we're herefor.
So that's kind of what we'rehere for.
And then, if anyone has anycomments or questions for us,
please shoot us some questionsand we'll answer them on air.
And in the meantime we're goingto play.
Let's see Andrew Roborow.
That's kind of like my secondalways pick.
So lead, red, white and blue.
(33:34):
So we'll be right back afterthis musical interlude.
Speaker 9 (33:52):
Since I'd seen his face, not much had changed, just
a different time, differentplace.
When I shook his hand, I knewsomething had changed.
(34:23):
This was a different man Fromthe one I knew back then.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
That's when it's said we do the goals.
Yes, I stand in line.
Speaker 9 (34:36):
And watch the flag wave and drag.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
You see, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed Red white and blue.
Speaker 9 (34:55):
He told me the tales Of his journeys far away, three
times gone and the land mostonly seen on the front page With
honor and glory.
(35:16):
He stood so tall.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Honor and glory.
He stood so tall and fought foryou and I so we could be free
from it all.
Speaker 9 (35:40):
That's when he said we do the goals.
Yes, I stand in line and watchthe flag wheels fly you see,
this is what I do.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yes, I bleed.
Red, white and blue when dutycalls.
Yes, I stand in line and watchthem weep and pray.
You see, this is what I do.
(36:13):
Yes, I bleed.
This is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Oh, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
You know, I know military broadcast radio, the
(36:50):
station that's giving veterans avoice find us on the web at
mbradious opinions expressed inthis program are those of the
speakers and do not necessarilyreflect the views or positions
of any entities they represent.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Find us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
All right, we are back.
This is Money in the Militaryon Military Broadcast Radio.
This is Money in the Militaryon Military Broadcast Radio.
I'm here with Tony from Insidethe Hoosier's Mind podcast, also
on Military Broadcast Radio,streaming on Tuesdays at 6 pm
Eastern Central Time or EasternTime.
There we go.
(37:38):
So he's been telling us a littlebit of a story about his
financial rollercoaster ridethat he had while he was in the
Air Force, something that anyonewho's been in the military and
had to deal with militaryfinances can attest.
That a lot of times thepaycheck, it could take months
and months and months for it totruly finalize and solidify,
(37:59):
because there's so many thingschanging going up and down and
you know, um.
So yeah, it can be, it can bechallenging balancing, um, that
kind of fluctuating income,especially if you're overseas
too.
You got colo that changes a lotof times.
So, yeah, so, um.
So we did get a comment overthe break, uh, from Terry.
She's giving us someinformation about if you stay in
(38:21):
a hotel for over 30 days inTexas, they rebate the taxes and
the hotel will give you along-term rate.
Speaker 8 (38:28):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (38:29):
Okay, some good travel hacking there.
Um, you know, I was thinkingabout it like um, did you get
any kind of like crazy pointsfor, like the hotel that you
stayed at?
Speaker 8 (38:43):
so, funny enough, the , the because again, I was
paying all this out of pocketand I was like, like I don't
really have luxury hotel typemoney, so I gotta live I stayed
in um called the extended staysokay and and depending on state
state you go, those are reallynice um the ones I stayed in.
(39:03):
My first couple months I had tospend a lot of money on
anti-cockroach products.
Oh, it's not great but Icouldn't really afford anything
else.
And the other, uh, there's acouple other like sergeants and
ty's that were there.
Um, they were staying in thishotel that like super nice, you
know, 25, 30 minutes away.
They're like why don't you pay,why don't you stay here?
Speaker 7 (39:24):
and I'm like I can't afford those prices right,
because I mean you're paying outof your own pocket at that
point right you know.
So that's, that's different,it's a, it's a different
calculus that you had to make.
Um, right, so so, yeah, so Iguess, knowing what you know now
, is there anything that youwould do differently?
Or if you had to, like you know, basically talk to a young
(39:45):
airman or a young soldier and belike, hey, this is a situation
that I'm in like because I don'tknow, it didn't sound like you
had a lot of help from thissituation, so, like I guess
would probably be the firstthing you would do is have some
somebody that can vouch for you,like a first sergeant or
something.
Speaker 8 (40:02):
Yeah, I, I think if I and it's, it's going to sound
really bad.
And again, I don't know, Idon't know what would have
happened if I went back and doneit now, but honestly, I think I
would have just denied thoseorders and said, look, I'm not
leaving until I have a better,clarified answer, or until
everybody is at least on thesame page of what we're supposed
(40:25):
to do, right, because, yeah, I,so funny enough.
Um, so I, I had been mentioningthis every time I was in the
schoolhouse to differentinstructors, to pretty much any
anybody that was an NCO orhigher.
I'm like, look, I'm, I'm likefloating just barely above water
here.
Somebody helped me, right, andit was.
(40:47):
It was really aggravating as anE4 because, you know, while
while I was the only person inocps at the time, the you know
operational camouflage patternand everybody else was in the
tiger stripe, abus.
You know, I'm like, look, I'mobviously different, like I'm
not your usual pipeliner, like Ikind of somewhat know what I'm
doing.
Like, help me.
(41:08):
Um, yeah, I.
Eventually they ended up havingme write a report while I was
there because I had failed.
I had failed four out of fivetests, and you can only fail it
to five.
And they were like well, nowyou have to write a report of do
you want to be washed back intoa class that is a little
(41:28):
earlier in the subjects or doyou want to retrain into
something else?
But, like I mentioned at thebeginning, my everything in my
pers, everything through afpcsaid I'm already a four and oh,
whether I graduate or not, I'm afour and oh wow
and I'm sitting there thinking,well, it's going to take you all
a lot of paperwork to crosstrain me again and you can't
(41:52):
just force that.
So you know what I want tocross train, put me into
something different, becauseobviously you guys just don't
care.
Um, luckily I had a techsergeant who was she would been
selected for master sergeant, soshe was getting a lot more of
those responsibilities while shehad read my report before it
went to the commander andluckily she caught that and she
(42:13):
goes.
Wait a minute, what is this e4?
This, this man is.
He's mad, he's 20 in debt, he'smad.
So she pulled me out of classand she talked to me and so I
explained everything thathappened from day one to then.
She said, okay, give me, giveme a couple hours, I'll be right
back, and when she she goes,you are in air force limbo.
(42:35):
The only things that aredefinitive is you belong to the
air force.
Yeah, we're here at Fort SamHouston, stationed at a Lackland
air force base.
It's like cool, I didn't.
I didn't have a supervisor, um,the first sergeant at the time
who I had a really big issuewith him, to kind of derail the
(42:56):
story, and this is where I tellany uh any airman, soldier,
marine sailor, space forceguardian or coast guards.
Coast guardsmen do not do whatI did.
And um, the first sergeant wasdoing an internal investigation
about a other individual who wascross-training, who was a
(43:17):
sergeant, and he was having whatthey considered an
inappropriate relationship witha pipeliner.
Everything was completelyconsensual, but it broke
schoolhouse rules that theywould have an inappropriate
relationship.
When I was questioned about thisfrom the first sergeant, I
essentially told him look, Idon't really care about two
consensual adults doing whatevertwo consenting adults do.
(43:38):
Uh, I am $20,000 in debt.
Why will you not do your job?
Speaker 4 (43:44):
and fix me being $20,000 in debt.
Speaker 8 (43:49):
That was not met with a very good response.
Speaker 7 (43:52):
So, Ooh yeah, that's tough, I mean the one in one
hand.
You gotta you gotta advocatefor yourself, you gotta you know
but, you know, yeah, that's,that's a tricky one, that's a
tricky one and that was.
Speaker 8 (44:02):
That was essentially the where I was at.
It was I didn't have anybodythere as far as a supervisor or
command to really fight for me.
So, yeah, it was, I had to.
I had to fight for myself, Ihad to to rely a lot on previous
senior NCOs, previous NCOs andfamily, friends and whatnot of.
Okay, look, this is thesituation I'm in.
What would you guys do andthat's what I would tell anybody
(44:26):
who would potentially be inthat same situation of you know
go, like you said, advocate foryourself, ask anybody and
everybody that you can.
If you feel that they are anytype of smart and you said
advocate for yourself, askanybody and everybody that you
can if you feel that they areany type of smart.
Um, and I honestly I feel likethat's one of the positives of
social media.
Like you mentioned earlierabout how, for the military,
there's a lot of times that youknow those paychecks can take
(44:46):
months to get through.
Um, I don't know if you saw iton TikTok there is a Marine that
was stationed down in Pensacola.
Uh, he had joined the marinesback in september.
He has been in pensacola fortwo months now.
He has not received a paychecksince september his entire time
and he, they, his mom, reachedout to a marine on tiktok who
was a sergeant major and thatsergeant major got it pushed all
(45:09):
the way up to a three star andhe immediately got his money
like that.
Speaker 7 (45:14):
So yeah, that's crazy , and you know it's funny, like
I've I've come across this andwhen I was, and when I was
active duty too where sometimesyou just got to find the right
person, you know like the rightperson at the right time that's
willing to to do that littleextra step, or or you just got
to connect to that right personthat can make make the moves
(45:34):
happen.
Because I've I've seensituations where you know
there's some problem is going onfor months and months and
months and then all it takes islike that one supervisor or that
one nco that basically you knowgoes like a bull in a china
shop kind of thing, and justraises, raises, all kind of
craziness, but uh, but yeah, Imean I really I really feel I
(45:57):
feel bad for you honestly.
I mean it sounds like it was areally tough situation.
It wasn't your fault and youreally were kind of like in in
this like almost like apurgatory limbo situation in the
air force, which sadly doeshappen sometimes.
People fall through the cracks,you know.
But yeah, I would imagine doingit over again.
(46:18):
Or if you were in, you know, asupervisor's shoes, that you
would have handled that waydifferently, you know as a
supervisor the first things theywould try to do, because you
know, I will say, you know, whenI was in the air force there
(46:39):
were some programs to helppeople with their finances.
Uh, there was like the loaneagle eagle loan or something
like that.
And you know, you can go toyour first sergeant and explain
your situation.
You have to do a whole budgetand, um, you know, like you have
to work, work for it.
But I mean, it was like a loan,uh, um, uh, like a uh an
emergency loan, basically thatthe air kind of.
(47:00):
Um, I mean, you just had to payit back out of your paycheck.
So yeah, there are someresources out there.
Uh, I think I give the DOD alittle bit of a hard time, you
know, just because I saw so manyfinancially illiterate people
and I was like surely there'ssomething that can be done for
the active duty members.
But yeah, it really kind ofcomes down to that personal
(47:24):
touch having a direct supervisoror a mentor or somebody that
you trust, and it sounds likeyou at least had some people in
your orbit that, uh, that wereable to give you some advice,
sounding board and things likethat.
But, um, man, such a crazystory and um, I guess, well, you
(47:44):
know, if you were I alreadysaid we could do it over again.
But, like um, had those any ofthose habits kind of carried
over, or, um, you do you have?
Did you build a savings musclefrom that, how you feel?
Speaker 8 (47:57):
okay, so yeah, yeah, I, uh, I definitely, I
definitely started saving a lotmore, because it was like you
know what, in case anything doescrazy happen, and finances like
actually you owe us all thismoney back, and then, right,
then you know, eight years downthe line they'll be like
actually we, we owe you thismoney back, and then they'll pay
it to me on my deathbed,basically because that's how
(48:18):
finance loves to work.
They take forever, but no, Imean that that did help me as
far as, like, my savings, like Isaid, even even how I budget to
this day is like OK, what's mytotal cumulative money, what all
is coming out, what all iscoming in, what can I afford and
never spending over my means.
It is kind of funny and I don'tknow if you've ever heard this.
(48:38):
I've always heard the mostsuccessful, rich and wealthy
people always act as if theyhave no money to keep that money
.
Speaker 7 (48:48):
Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah, I think I mentioned thatin another stream, the
Millionaire Next Door.
Yeah, I think I mentioned thatin another stream, the
Millionaire Next Door.
It's a really good book.
I talk about it a few times,but yeah, they interviewed a
bunch of millionaires andstatistically it showed that
they drove modest cars, they hadmodest houses, they were just
(49:10):
consistent savers and they spentwithin their means or below
their means and put that extramoney away.
It's really not rocket scienceif you really get down into it.
It's that psychology piece ofit, the shiny object syndrome.
There's just so much temptationout there now that I totally
(49:31):
understand Marketing advertising.
Their whole job is to take yourmoney.
You know, yes, they're reallygood at that.
So you kind of at you're alreadyup against the wall you know,
in some sense, that that youhave this whole machine that's
trying to take your money fromyou.
But you know, that's just oneof those things we got to.
(49:52):
We got to no-transcript.
(50:27):
Know, like, I kind of like, Ikind of like it's a kind of
aggressive but, um, you know, Ithink it's also goes into
finding that balance of, youknow, spending versus saving.
You know, enjoying the momentwhile also preparing for the
future.
You know, so that that's that'sa tricky balance, and not not
everyone, you know not everyonehas the um, the patience or
(50:51):
self-control to put money awayfor the future, and that's a
muscle that you have to build.
So, since you've been out,how's your transition been with
your finances?
Like, as a veteran, would yousay finances are better off or
(51:12):
about the same, or was there atransition period that was
really tough for you?
Speaker 8 (51:17):
They're definitely better.
I will say the first, the firstfew months when I got out.
Because when I and I would saythis to any veteran, if you're
about to get out, regardless ofrank when I was first getting
out, when I was looking at allthe different jobs, when I
factored in how much do I needto make, I didn't just take my
(51:41):
base pay of what I get everymonth for my paycheck.
I took, you know, I added inthat BAS and that BAH of okay,
this is what you're cumulativelyactually making.
So say, for numbers sake, sayyou make $4,500 a month, you
need to figure out out of $4,500dollars a month.
Let's say you want to work anormal eight to five.
Okay, divide that by five days,divide that by eight hours a
(52:01):
day.
This is your, this is your, yourrate that you want to try to
hit to keep you about in themeans that you're making.
You know, as it stands rightnow.
So that one that was a littlebit rough because, uh, I had
done that, it was ended up beinga little bit less than, uh,
what I initially planned for.
But then, luckily, um, I wasfortunate enough to get a
disability rating from the va,so that kind of supplemented a
(52:23):
lot of that.
Um, so then I was back tomaking okay, this is about what
I was making when I got out tomake things a little little
easier and whatnot yeah, yeah,well, that's the other thing too
.
Speaker 7 (52:33):
I always caution veterans or military members who
are about to get out and, youknow, factor in healthcare costs
too, because unless you have ahundred percent disability or
you have retirement, you know,try Care for Life.
You know most veterans don'thave those benefits.
So you know you're going tohave to go into either the
(52:56):
healthcaregov portal and getyour insurance or get it through
your employer, but that's notfree.
So it's like you've got tofactor that in, because there's
a lot of sticker shock.
When I talk to veterans theythink, oh man, I'm only making
like $30K, like 30 K a year, um,taxable, Um.
But then when they actually dothe math like you were doing, uh
(53:19):
, when you, when you really,when you really add up all the
benefits, um, it's, it's a lotmore than people realize.
So, um, but yeah, that's that'sgood advice to to kind of, like,
you know, crunch the numbersbefore you get out, don't wait
until until you're about out thedoor, or already out the door,
(53:41):
to to be like oh wait, you knowI didn't factor this in, or I
didn't think about this, and andI know, taps, uh, they do have
a finance portion and it's.
It was when I did it in 2020.
It was, it was decent.
You know, like I think it, ithad the right components to kind
of get people thinking about it.
(54:02):
But, honestly, they could do awhole week's worth of finance
stuff just for transitioningservice members.
Um, maybe three days.
Three days, we'll split thedifference, because a week might
be overkill.
You might might, you know, havesome people pulling their hair
out, but um, yeah but I meanit's a necessary thing, you know
.
I just think that more peoplecoming out of the service, um,
(54:23):
just need a little bit moreeducation or they need a little
bit of a push, because they'rein that mindset of I've got all
these things taken care of, butyou don't have a price tag on
them sometimes.
Speaker 8 (54:32):
So right and that and that's why, even for me like
because I, because after thatwhole fiasco I was like, okay,
I'm kind of dead set on gettingout.
So from that point forward, Iwas like all right, I got a plan
on getting out.
You know what do I what I haveto make, what I have to do.
And I would tell any, anyservice member that if you're
about to get out and uh, becausesame thing, when I TAPS was
(54:53):
really good, I felt like theygave a lot of really good base
information, but you only had aweek and then, especially if
you're doing it close to whenyou're getting out, you're
getting bombarded with so muchinformation.
You're only required to takeTAPS at least once a year.
Before you separate, you cantake that TAPS class as many
times as you feel necessary toget through that, as many times
(55:13):
as you feel necessary to getthrough that.
And that's what I wouldrecommend.
People you know, give yourself agood timeline of.
You know kind of start puttingfeelers out there for jobs as
far as what you feel your resumeneeds to be worked on.
You know what do you need tofit, where do you feel like jobs
are going to fit at.
You know the cost of livingarea.
You know the, the overall costof living.
You know, like you said, withwith the health care benefits,
with the um, with the bah andthe bas, you know what, what is
(55:36):
going to be able to fit in yourmeans financially.
Do that as early as possible.
That way you know if you're sixmonths into this you're like
actually things aren't reallylining up the way I want to, I
maybe I ought to re-enlist justto, just to save myself the
headache.
It may not be what you want todo, or maybe you do the, maybe
you do the um, the, the guard orthe reserve, as kind of a
(55:57):
transition in between.
That way you can at least keepyour, keep your tenure, keep
your time and everything likethat.
You're not completely cuttingties, so that yeah that's
another route that people coulddo and I would I'd strongly
recommend the earlier planningthe better yeah, yeah, because I
mean you're, you're basicallygonna throw a whole monkey
wrench in your financial world.
Speaker 7 (56:17):
Um, plus, you're, you know you got steady paychecks,
you've got.
You know it's just, it's justso it's.
It works so smoothly well, notalways in your case, but it
generally works smoothly um, but, yeah, so that's some really
good advice.
Um, we could probably do awhole show on just transitioning
out of the military forfinances, because that's, like I
(56:40):
said, it's a lot, it's a lot toprocess, but I mean, it's also
one of the things that you do atonce for most people and then
that's it.
You know, and you, you just,yeah, you're just kind of
winging it sometimes, eventhough you have all these people
trying to give you really goodadvice.
But but, man, so Tony, I reallyappreciate it.
(57:01):
Like we're getting gettingclose to time.
Any last minute pearls ofwisdom that you got from, from
your situation, or anything youwant to just tell the world.
Speaker 8 (57:13):
Well, to give you a closer, I ended up not getting
any of that money back because Iluckily had a really good first
sergeant.
I had a chief atWright-Patterson that helped me
get stationed there.
He heard the thing.
He was like you said bull in achina shop.
Irate that that had happened.
He's like, thank goodness youhandled that better than most
E7s that he knew would probablyhandle it.
I had a first sergeant, youknow, put in the package but
(57:37):
then COVID hit so they tooktheir, took their very sweet
time and then right before I gotout there's another first
sergeant, took it over and hedropped the ball.
So I ended up not gettinganything but my, my, my biggest
thing to people.
You know control what you cancontrol in the moment.
You know there's a lot of stuffthat's always going to psych
(57:58):
you out, whether it's financial,whether it's personal.
You know, just do what you canto keep yourself happy and
healthy.
You know again, you know, ifall it is is, you know, I can
budget a little bit better and Ican make this work you know, do
that to be able to keepyourself going.
Don't let something like thatcompletely overwhelm and
overpower you, to keep you fromenjoying life.
(58:20):
You know, make you miserable,because if we know anything
about life once one thing pileson on you, everything piles on
after.
So just control what you cancontrol and do what you can do
on your end, and you will.
You'll definitely be muchhappier.
Speaker 7 (58:39):
Nice, I love it.
That's some great advice.
You know you turned up adifficult situation and you
overcame and you know you'rehere to tell the tale and I
really do appreciate you comingon and telling your story
because, who knows, you mightactually help some you know
young airman or soldier in thesimilar situation.
They'd be like oh yeah, I sawthis and now I need to talk to
(58:59):
my first sergeant.
You know something like that,so hopefully it it will resonate
with some people.
Um, but uh, you know just thanks, thanks for jumping on the
stream and um know, we'll, uh,we'll have you on again, uh, if
you want to come on and we'lltalk some money again.
But, um, that's pretty much allI got.
Uh, that's going to be the endof the end of the stream for the
(59:21):
night.
But once again, thanks for tonyjumping in telling his story
and, uh, tuesdays at 6 pmeastern um, check out some some
great color commentary about, uh, the, the sporting world, so,
uh.
So thanks everybody for jumpingin, thanks for all the NBR
people and we'll catch you guys,um, on the next stream.
Speaker 5 (59:47):
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to
military broadcast radio.
As we wrap up today's show, wewant to remind you that the
podcast of today's episode willbe available right after we go
off the air, so if you missedany part of the show or want to
listen again, be sure to checkit out.
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Speaker 2 (00:35):
This entire military is one cohesive, dedicated force
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And the threats to our nations?
They don't sleep.
They're watching our every moveIran, russia, china, north
Korea.
Isis, Al-Qaeda.
They may be watching this rightnow.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Our military should not be mistaken for our cable
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We don't care what you looklike.
We don't care who you voted for.
We don't care who you voted for, who you worship, what you
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Speaker 2 (01:16):
We have been honed into a machine of lethal moving
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Speaker 4 (01:25):
We will not be intimidated.
We will not back down.
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We don't want war.
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Speaker 6 (01:56):
Military Broadcast Radio military broadcast radio,
the station that's givingveterans a voice.
Find us on the web at mvradious military.
Um, I'm a certified financialsocial worker.
Um, I was in the Air Force for14 years and then I paid off
$20,000 of debt while I wasactive duty within three years
as an E3.
So that's kind of like I gotreally into personal finance and
so I've been really passionateabout that ever since, and that
(02:20):
was 10, 12 years ago now.
So since then I became a socialworker and now I'm a certified
financial social worker.
So we kind of get into, youknow, dealing with finances, but
then also kind of dealing withthe psychology behind finances,
like the you know, the mentalside of things.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
So Ladies and gentlemen, your battle buddy
when it comes to finances.
Please welcome the fire socialworker, joey Laswell.
Speaker 7 (02:52):
All right, hey, hello , hello, hello everybody.
This is Money in the Militaryon Military Broadcast Radio.
Just wanted to say I'm excitedto be here today.
Got a special guest, acontinuation from the last
session that we had Our goodfriend, tony Hollinsworth from
another co-host or a host of hisown show Inside the who's your
(03:16):
Mind on Military Broadcast Radio.
So, tony, how's it going?
Man Good, how are you.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
Appreciate you having me on.
I know we haven't really got totalk a whole lot as far as like
one-on-one conversation, sothis yeah this is kind of a good
introductory path oh yeah, Ilike it.
Speaker 7 (03:30):
I like it.
You know, I really appreciateyour sense of humor.
You've jumped in on just a fewof my streams, added some nice
color commentary, so I reallyappreciate that.
So, uh, just real quick tell usa little bit bit about your
podcast and what time can wecatch you on that show.
Speaker 8 (03:47):
So I primarily do a sports podcast here on MBR.
I primarily cover the NFL,college football and college
basketball even though I've beena terrible college basketball
fan because I have not watchedmuch of the games this season so
far.
But you can catch me just aboutevery Tuesdayuesday night at 6
pm eastern uh here on mbr allright, and uh, I'm guessing
(04:11):
inside the hoosier mind.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
So you're a big hoosiers fan, I'm assuming uh,
not necessarily, but I am.
Speaker 8 (04:17):
So it's kind of weird whenever, whenever I would meet
people from across the worldprimarily when I was across the
world and I'd meet somebody fromindiana they're like eh, I'm
kind of shy about being a, beinga Hoosier, cause we're, we're a
flyover state, like I'll admitit.
There's not a whole lot here inIndiana other than the Indy 500
once a year, um, but I wanted tokind of highlight that I'm I'm
proud to be from Indiana.
(04:37):
Like I don't feel like a thestory of where does the term
Hoosier really come from, andthere's two stories, but none of
it, neither one of them, aretruly like confirmed.
Speaker 7 (04:49):
So oh, okay, yeah, I just remember, was it the Gene
Hackman movie Hoosiers.
Is that pretty accurate?
As far as is it capture the the?
Speaker 8 (04:58):
the Hoosier spirit.
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
Yeah, a hundred percent Awesome.
So that was Tuesdays at 6 pmEastern, correct.
Yep, okay, all right.
So, everybody, if you'rechecking in listening to this
show, this is kind of like acrossover show, like in the
comic books.
And so Tony had chimed in onthe previous stream and had
(05:24):
commented on a story that he hadwhere he basically paid off a
good amount of debt in a veryshort period of time, and I was
just like, well, we got to haveyou on the show and kind of have
you tell the story.
I'm really curious to learnabout that.
But before we get into that,let's let's just get a little
bit to know you, to know myaudience, to get to know you a
little bit.
(05:45):
Tell us a little bit about yourmilitary background and then I
guess, how did you get intopodcasting?
Speaker 8 (05:53):
So I was in the Air Force for eight years.
I was active duty, so I joinedin 2014 and I just got out in
2022.
And when I first joined Ijoined in a very unique way.
So I was originally supposed tobe a 2t2.
For anybody who doesn't knowair force jobs, I'm supposed to
be air transportation andinitially, when I first heard it
(06:14):
, I'm like so this is kind ofthe air force's version of like
ups, fedex, like they handle alot of logistics, a lot of cargo
, a lot of boxes, and I was like, ah, I'm looking for something.
Maybe potentially I could dobetter on the outside.
That isn't, you know, ups,fedex or Amazon.
So in order to kind of relievemyself of that, I happened to
get lucky and the Air the uhlittle little honey that they
(06:34):
brought out to you know, try toattract you to join was you
could pick any afsc that didn'thave a prerequisite that needed
to be met beforehand.
So as long as I didn't need tohave like a top secret clearance
(06:55):
or, you know, be an absolutelike computer genius or anything
like that, I could.
I could uh pick that job.
So I joined the air force HonorGuard for my first four years.
I did funerals at ArlingtonNational Cemetery for two years
of my time while I was there, soMonday through Friday I would
be doing funerals.
And then, while I was there, Igot the opportunity to do public
(07:17):
affairs for the Secretary ofDefense's office.
So all I did was publicspeaking and it was essentially
I had to memorize a 33 pagescript verbatim.
I had to learn how to say itwhile walking backwards
throughout the entire Pentagonand be able to pick up and, uh,
be able to pick up where I leftoff.
You know, just haveconversations with people, just
(07:39):
make them feel as comfortable aspossible and teach them about
the military, how it worked, allthe branches.
And then I ended up crossingover, becoming a medic in 2018,
which is where my financialstory starts to kick into place,
but we'll, we'll touch on that.
And I got into podcasting rightbefore COVID started.
(07:59):
Okay, because I thought, wow, Ihear all these people like
they're working from home, likeyou know, they're going to have
a lot of spare time and me,being a goober, I'm like, oh,
I'll have time to do this.
Little did I forget I'm a medicand in the military.
I have no time for that Rightright.
I started technically in 2020,but I didn't really start
(08:19):
getting more consistent with ituntil 2021.
I had a really good friendbefore I joined that he and I
would just talk sports all thetime and it was we would talk
sports from like a very neutralperspective.
You know he was a fan of a teambut he liked and appreciated
other players and how otherteams did things and kind of
enjoyed watching them, and sothat that's kind of where I
(08:40):
adopted it, and I didn't reallymeet a whole lot of people like
that in the military, so I waslike well, I want to podcast
about it, I want to meet otherpeople that like to talk about
this too, and it's just been,it's just took off since then
that's awesome, man.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
So when?
When did you join mbr?
Speaker 8 (08:55):
uh, I joined mbr uh april of this year, actually so
april of 2024 all right.
Speaker 7 (09:01):
So, yeah, you're actually not too far ahead of me
.
I think I joined in.
My first broadcast was in juneon mbr, so all right.
So, yeah, you're actually nottoo far ahead of me.
I think I joined in.
My first broadcast was in juneon mbr, so all right.
Well, that's, that's cool, andI mean it sounds like from your
air force experience.
Like you know, I guesspodcasting is a natural
transition.
You know, like you seem to begood at talking and and, uh, you
know, so that's, that's reallyawesome and it sounds like that
(09:22):
was a really cool experience, aone-of-a-kind experience that
very few people can say the uh,they had the similar experience,
so oh, 100 I'll I'll neverforget, like the memories, the
connections I made from that.
Speaker 8 (09:36):
And yeah, I will say, as somebody, believe it or not,
outside of podcasting, I am athousand percent a massive
introvert like if you catch meoutside, I will probably not say
a word to hardly anybody we'renot.
Speaker 7 (09:49):
We're not that far apart from each other because,
uh, yeah, I'm pretty much thesame way, um, but uh, well, yeah
, thanks for kind of giving ussome backstory.
Um, so you, we had mentionedyour um, your, your financial
story.
It's kind of got some ups anddowns and some crazy stuff, it
sounds like, but I haven't heardit yet, but I'm really excited
(10:12):
and curious to learn more aboutit.
So, yeah, just give us a littlebit of background of what set
up this whole journey and thenwe can kind of just take it from
there.
Speaker 8 (10:23):
So really the background is so kind of like I
said, I didn't start off with anormal Air Force job.
I started out as the Air ForceHonor Guard and you can only do
that for roughly about fouryears.
You can maybe give or take alittle bit, just depending on
circumstances and situations, ifyou're waiting to retrain and
for us coming out of bootcamp wehave to retrain into something
(10:43):
different, to have a technicalskill.
Now if you come in um what theycall prior service so say you
were a senior airman with like aline number to staff or you
know you were an officer and youcome in, uh, you still do it
just for four years, because anylonger than that you're
considered, you know, basicallylike stale out of your current
AFSC and they're like, yeah, we,you've been out of the game a
(11:05):
little bit too long.
I don't know if we could stilluse you right.
Um, so my time for retrainingcame and uh, to kind of help set
it up for anybody who doesn'tknow the air force, if you
retrain into a job that is lessthan six months cumulatively,
then you are supposed to be sentTDY or temporarily You're
(11:26):
supposed to be able to get yourhousing for the base that you're
currently stationed at, andobviously the Air Force would
cover all your hotel expenses,everything like that Instead of
sending me TDY.
My chief, who was also mycareer field manager, was not my
biggest fan by any stretch, soI was actually PCS to the
(11:48):
schoolhouse filling ininstructors billet for a job
that I had never officially donefor the military, so I was
never properly in processed andas a result, I had to pay for
all of my hotels, all of mytravel costs, my storage costs,
everything out of my own pocket.
Couldn't use my gtc, which I'llget into that a little bit later
(12:11):
, but yeah that?
Uh, that is essentially what,what started the the spiral a
catalyst.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
Wow, that was that.
So that's the origin story ofthe of the event.
So, wow, okay, so, um, so itsounds like, yeah, you, you
pcs'd instead of tdy and route,and you know a lot of this is
going to be just complete jargonfor most people that might be
listening.
If you're not a military memberor veteran, then you probably
(12:38):
were like I don't know whatyou're talking about.
But essentially you knownormally the, the military, will
cover your costs for moving andthen, if not up front, they'll
reimburse you for it after thefact.
So you may come out of pocket alittle bit, but then eventually
you get reimbursed and you'rewhole again.
So what actually happened herein this situation?
(13:03):
As far as like, um, where didthe, the debt come into play?
Speaker 8 (13:08):
uh, so basically it, it really all started, uh, when
I got my notification to retrain, um, I had filled out the
paperwork I needed to to fillout and I submit it back.
And they, um, they gave me my,my date of when I was supposed
to be at school.
Uh, then, shortly after I gotmy notification of, hey, this is
where you're going to bestationed at, of when I was
supposed to be at school, uh,then, shortly after I got my
notification of, hey, this iswhere you're going to be
stationed at, and I said I wasgoing to be stationed at
Lackland, I'm like, oh, don'tnecessarily want to stay in
(13:30):
Texas, but that is what it is.
Um, but then I looked at thedates and the dates were the
exact same.
So I was supposed to bestationed there at, like, my
unit training manager, my UTM atthe time.
She's like I don't know what totell you.
I don't know what to do.
Luckily, I had made friends witha master sergeant at the
(13:54):
Pentagon who, at the time, hisjob was to only deal with the
PCS assignments of all of thechiefs across the entire force.
That was his job.
So I was like, hey, I reallyhate to ask this.
I said but I'm getting no helpfrom my leadership.
Can you look into what?
What am I supposed to do?
Like, am I going there forschool?
Am I living there?
What am I doing?
Um, he couldn't really get anyanswers, but he got my, my date
pushed back to October.
(14:15):
Um, and he said, look, you know, just save your money as best
as you can, you know, causeyou're you're probably going to
end up having to owe them moneyback.
So just just save it aside asmuch as you can do what you need
to do.
But in the meantime, you know,you can get your stuff packing,
kind of get, hopefully geteverything figured out on the
way there.
Um, well, I come, I come downto Texas with my orders and my,
(14:36):
my school, my paperwork sayingI'm there for school, the the uh
coordinator there for the phasetwo, which essentially that's
all the secondary schooling of,like your hands-on training.
So you go some places you havephase one to go for your
hands-on or not hands-on, yourlike book, like your book, and
actual class training.
And then you have your phasetwo for more of the hands-on and
(14:57):
your technical skill proficient, your proficiencies.
So I go there and I'm like, hey, I here, here's the paperwork
he's looking at.
He's like, oh, that's kind ofweird and it didn't really seem
to fully register with him.
But he's like I'll send it upto the civilian, he'll figure it
out.
Yeah, in the meantime I hadalready paid for my hotel that
I'm, that I was staying in atthe time and I had already paid
(15:19):
for my storage.
Uh, I used a storage pod, so Ipaid the initial deposit on that
.
Then I was paying a monthly,monthly rate on it so it would
stay in an indoor climatecontrolled area.
Um, so all this is accruing andI'm like, hey, is there, is
there any update as to whatwe're doing so I can stop paying
all this?
And they're like we don't knowwhat you're talking about.
(15:39):
Just keep, just keep doingwhatever you're doing.
I'm like but this, this reallyhurts my wallet, this yeah, this
is starting to hurt a littlebit absolutely, and this accrued
all the way up through phaseone, when I was in texas, all
the way through phase two, whenI was in ohio, and then, when I
finally got stationed in ohio, Ifinally had to stop paying for
hotels, but then I had to startworking, then I had to start
(16:02):
paying off the debt that I hadaccumulated throughout that
entire time.
Speaker 7 (16:06):
Wow, man, that's, that's.
It's.
I mean like just knowing theins and outs and how complicated
, you know, pcs it can be.
You know, it doesn't surpriseme that that happened, but it's
still pretty, pretty odd thatthat happened.
But but that's, that's reallycool.
Cool, we're gonna, um, we'regonna take a quick little break,
(16:27):
um, a musical break, and thenwe'll get back into you know
like what you're like when thedust settles.
You know like what, what wasyour game plan?
How did you, you know?
And then maybe we can talk somenumbers and stuff too.
But uh, but yeah, we're gonnajump into um, my usual intro
musical um guest, which is NoahPeterson, us Marine Corps
(16:49):
veteran in San Antonio.
So here is Noah Peterson, we'llbe right back.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
The Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Thank you, military broadcast radio, the station
that's giving veterans a voicefind us on the web at mbradious
opinions expressed in thisprogram are those of the
speakers and do not necessarilyreflect the views or positions
of any entities they representfind us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 7 (19:23):
All right, we are back.
This is Money in the Military.
We are live on MilitaryBroadcast Radio talking with
fellow MBR host, tony fromInside the who's your Mind, who
has a show Tuesdays at 6 pm onthe multiple platforms for mbr,
(19:44):
and uh, yeah, just uh glad tohave you on.
We were, before the break.
We were talking about his umroller coaster of a financial
journey.
That was basically not, it wasnot his fault, but he had to
kind of deal with it, uh.
So, yeah, yeah, before we leftoff, you were telling us about
how, you know, basically you hadto, finally didn't have to stop
(20:07):
paying for, you didn't have topay for the hotels and stuff
anymore, but you were left withthe bill, right?
So what was the damage?
What was your initial thoughtsand what was your game plan at
that stage?
Speaker 8 (20:23):
So I kind of took some pre-measured steps that I
didn't expect to really help me,but it ended up being a pretty
major tool later on.
So right before I left, usaahad actually sent me an offer
for a $10,000 limit credit cardwith 0% interest for two years
and I was like that would bereally nice for right before I
(20:46):
move, because again I was like,okay, I'm going to pay for my
moving and stuff up front.
So I was like that'll be niceto kind of have.
I can reimburse it, pay it offand then everything will be
great, come to find out.
That helped me overall becausethat's what I had started to put
the hotel bills and everythinglike that on um.
(21:07):
So ultimately, what I ended updoing um was I.
When you first moved down totexas for anybody who doesn't
know, uh, you have to kind ofpay what, what is similar to a
state tax in texas for the first30 days.
After 30 days you're considereda resident of Texas and then
you essentially get what is likea state tax return from them of
all the taxes that you paid.
So the hotel I was staying at,I stayed at the same one the
(21:31):
entire time.
I just kept extending my staylike another month and another
month and another month, so itwould all hit at once.
As far as my payment for it, Igot a little bit of that back
thanks to um, thanks to thetaxes, and luckily this credit
card also gave me cash backrebates, so I was able to pay a
little bit of that off.
Essentially, what all thismoney, where all this money was
(21:53):
coming from, was because I wasstationed in dc.
Originally, I was still gettingdc bah, but I was living in
station in Texas and I wasproperly in processed.
So, they never changed my BAHrate from DC to Texas.
Speaker 7 (22:10):
Oh gotcha.
Speaker 8 (22:11):
So now I'm sitting there, I'm like, okay, well, now
I'm going to have to probablyback pay them money, because
they're like overpaying me.
BAH from like this should cancelout, though, because I'm having
to pay for all this out ofpocket um, so essentially what I
did was I would get the, Iwould get the credit card racked
up pretty significantly and Iwould put about because bah was
(22:35):
about 1700 a month, I would putabout 500 a month in my savings
and then I'd put the rest alltowards that bill and I would
just start hitting it each andevery month that I could save a
little bit, pay a little bit ofit off.
Save a little bit, pay a littlebit off.
I ate pretty cheaply.
It was there a lot of, a lot ofpackets of tuna, a lot of
(22:55):
vienna sausages out of a can, alot of, uh, microwavable mac and
cheese and like white castlebites, but, um, yeah, all total
with the moving costs, the hotelcosts in both texas and ohio
and the storage cost you werelooking at roughly anywhere
between about 25 to 30 thousanddollars.
Yeah that I had to that, I hadto eat yeah, man, that's I mean
(23:21):
as an e4 as an e4.
Speaker 7 (23:23):
Yeah, that's 84 um, and where you were single at the
time or you uh yeah, yeah, sothat makes it a little bit
easier, but then you're notmaking as much money as the
married people, you know, right.
But, um, okay, so that's pretty.
I mean it sounds like a prettysolid plan, um, in general.
(23:43):
But like, um, what were some ofthe?
You know?
You said you kind of cut downon food costs, but was there
anything else that you did tokind of like kind of grease the
wheels or get the, get the youknow the money coming in?
Speaker 8 (23:56):
I.
I guess what really helped mewas the, because the hotel costs
kind of fluctuates because ofthe fact of the time I went
there.
So I went there in early.
I went there actually lateOctober, early November, so I
kind of had to deal a little bitwith the holiday prices cause
they would upcharge a little bit.
But then after December, so Iwas there from, um, basically
(24:20):
beginning of november throughapril, you know to just uh,
january through april isactually not that bad and
everything you have to remembertoo.
I didn't have an internet bill.
The only, the only bills Ireally had was a car payment, my
insurance, uh, and my cellphone bill.
Other than that, everythingelse was basically all included
with the hotel that I was livingat.
(24:42):
Uh, now I did have my two petswith me, but that was any.
I had already kind ofstockpiled on up on food for
them before I left, because Iwas like I'll be able to get
this when I get there, so I'llat least have me a little bit of
supplies prepared before I dothat.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
Wow, that's, that's crazy.
So how long did it take for youto actually kind of get the
debt knocked out prettyrelatively quickly, right?
Speaker 8 (25:09):
Yeah, it took me about eight months to to really
get it, to really get it knockeddown, and a lot of that was due
to the fact of I was stillgetting that DCBAH and, luckily,
moving from Texas to Ohio.
The cost of living wassignificantly cheaper in Ohio
than it was there, so I was ableto put a little bit more money
towards that.
I did dip a little bit into thesavings just to get it knocked
(25:33):
out quicker, but that was alsokind of the advantage of having
that 0% interest.
I didn't have to worry aboutthat.
And because I had been rackingup so much but then paying so
much off, I actually got a lotof that cash back value from
that USA rewards.
So I was able to knock about2,500, 3000 off just in, like
the cash back rewards and stufftoo.
(25:54):
So that that helped alsotremendously.
Speaker 7 (25:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's all those little things add
up for sure, and I mean that'sone of those things too A lot of
.
If you use credit wisely, youcan you know if you're going to
spend that money anyways on gasand groceries, things like that.
You pay it off at the end ofthe month.
That's essentially like freemoney.
But I caution some people tothink of it like that.
You know, like if you'remanaging your credit smartly and
(26:22):
you know with, with focus, thenyes, you know you might as well
, you know, put it on credit andthen pay it off at the end of
the month.
So, yeah, so that's uh, that'spretty uh, man, I'm just still
blown away by the numbers andthe dedication that that
probably took for you.
Um, so it sounds like you alsohad some good financial habits,
maybe prior to that, where youhad a savings account, like you
(26:45):
had some decent financial habits.
So did you learn that on yourown, or did you have that kind
of coming into the military, orwhere did you learn that?
Speaker 8 (26:57):
Funny enough, I had like zero dollars in my savings
prior to all of this.
So this actually kind of forcedme to be like, okay, you have
to save money, you can't justuse this to play with.
And it was also one because I Ihad actually learned it a
little bit from mom.
Uh, you try to pay off and shelearned it from, I believe, dave
(27:18):
Ramsey, or is it?
Whoever gives the really goodfinancial advice?
That's a big radio guy, daveRamsey, is it Dave Ramsey?
Pay off your small things first, that way you can start hitting
your real big things.
Like I said, my cell phone billwas pretty low.
(27:39):
I did have a car payment, butthat wasn't that wasn't a huge
chunk of my paycheck.
Luckily I had refinanced thatum to actually a lower payment
Um, but I was still paying likenormal, so that way I could pay
it off quicker, um and that, andthat's really just how I kind
of treated it of.
You know, I need to put alittle bit back to to save.
I ended up actually savingabout five to six grand out of
(28:04):
that Cause again that that DCBAHhelped and like I said, those
help, those hotel fluctuatingprices and whatnot helped me
pretty tremendously too.
Plus, I had a 2012 Ford fusion,so gas really didn't hurt me too
bad either.
But, like I said that, thathaving to maybe get a little bit
lower quality in food butsaving the cost of I'm not
eating out as much, I'm notspending as much money.
(28:25):
I really didn't have a kitchento cook in, so I'm not having to
pay a whole lot as far asgroceries and whatnot go either.
So that that kind of helped mequite a bit too.
As far as basically nickel anddiming it to you know the lowest
bit and I had, I had alwaysbeen raised to as much as name
brand usually, you know, looksbetter or maybe it tastes a
little bit better off brandstuff usually tastes really
(28:47):
close, if not just as good.
Speaker 7 (28:49):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Uh, that's one of those costsaving things that people, you
know, they probably don't eventhink about it, you know, but
they just think, oh, I'm goingto get the name brand stuff.
But really, yeah, like, thegeneric stuff is usually just as
good, if not, you know, thesame as the name brand stuff,
just way cheaper, yeah.
So we got a couple of comments.
(29:11):
I got some emojis comingthrough Alien ghost, alien ghost
, alien ghost.
Okay, so that's from Into theweeds.
Yep, amber deets co-host.
There.
We got joel, some fire droppingsome fire and some money emojis
.
Terry lynch says hello, another, uh, mbr host for the tracer
(29:33):
rounds podcast, and she confirmsthat.
Yeah, we were talking aboutdave rabsey with the debt
snowball method.
Um, so, man, like, um, I guessI'm curious to think about like,
so this was kind of like a verydifficult time period for you,
um, financially speaking.
Oh, yeah, um, but, uh, what aresome of the good, I guess, the
(29:56):
good things that came out ofthat, that um, that you kind of
take into your current, um,financial situation?
Speaker 8 (30:02):
Honestly, I think this is what taught me probably
the best as far as how to budget.
Um, and literally all it waswas I took.
What do I all total with BAH,bas and my base pay?
You know what do I earn eachand every month?
Okay, you know, here's my total.
And then, all right, let mesubtract how much is this month
from the hotel bill?
(30:23):
Okay, now, this is how much Ihave left.
This is from the car payment,this is from the phone, and it
was a mixture of, like I said,putting about 500 bucks away in
savings and then, okay, now Ihave this much money to go to
everything else.
Now, how much do I have out,left out of?
And then, whatever that numberwas, I would usually cut that in
half and that would be theextra bit of money that I would
(30:45):
pay to the credit card to alsohelp kind of knock that out a
little bit quicker too, that Ithat I still use to this day.
It's like I take, I take all myincome that I get, I take all
of my you know my income eatersaway, and then I see, okay, this
is how much money I have left.
This is what I can put intosavings.
This is what I can put to anyother credit cards and again,
(31:08):
just learning from mom, like yousaid, if you use credit wisely,
it can be a great tool to kindof help you stretch your money.
You're not eating away at it.
Uh, I was never one.
I never tried to get myself ina whole lot of debt.
I say that as I have a fifty,six thousand dollar jeep, um,
that I'm having to pay off butuh but, but that was that's kind
of what I've always grown up onis you know, don't, don't
(31:30):
always put yourself in debt.
If you, if you feel that youdon't have the money to spend
right now, like in hand cashvalue, just the same then don't
put it on a credit card and, youknow, dig yourself into that
hole yeah, because it's like adeath by a thousand cuts.
Speaker 7 (31:45):
you know, like those little, those little purchases
that really the sneaky onesreally can add up really quickly
.
And it's a lot of times peoplerationalize it because it's like
, oh, it's just nine dollarsfrom amazon.
Or you know like they just havetheir card linked to their
Amazon account and I've beenguilty of this too.
But you know, it's just like amindless thing where you're just
(32:06):
like, oh yeah, we need thisthing, so I'll just go on Amazon
and then it'll be here in twoor three days.
you know Right, but yeah, it'sone of those things you got to
be really careful about debt,because it's uh, it's very
sneaky, um, sometimes not sosneaky, sometimes it's just
right up in your face it's like,hey, yes, a buttload of debt,
but uh, um, but uh, yeah, we gota comment from mj, another host
(32:31):
, uh, um, from mbr, thanks forsharing a good uh, got some good
, um good interaction from theaudience tonight.
Um, so I guess, uh, I did wantto, um, kind of talk to you a
little bit more about what, whatis it?
Oh, we'll have to take a littlebreak after this, but, um, but
(32:51):
maybe we could talk about, um,some of the like if you could do
it over again, or if you werecounseling an airman who was
going through your situation,maybe some some tips and tricks
that you learned along the way,cause you know this is money in
military.
You know this is a realisticfinancial situation that
military members can findthemselves in.
So you know, any way that wecan help.
(33:14):
That's that's kind of.
You know that's what we're herefor.
So that's kind of what we'rehere for.
And then, if anyone has anycomments or questions for us,
please shoot us some questionsand we'll answer them on air.
And in the meantime we're goingto play.
Let's see Andrew Roborow.
That's kind of like my secondalways pick.
So lead, red, white and blue.
(33:34):
So we'll be right back afterthis musical interlude.
Speaker 9 (33:52):
Since I'd seen his face, not much had changed, just
a different time, differentplace.
When I shook his hand, I knewsomething had changed.
(34:23):
This was a different man Fromthe one I knew back then.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
That's when it's said we do the goals.
Yes, I stand in line.
Speaker 9 (34:36):
And watch the flag wave and drag.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
You see, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed Red white and blue.
Speaker 9 (34:55):
He told me the tales Of his journeys far away, three
times gone and the land mostonly seen on the front page With
honor and glory.
(35:16):
He stood so tall.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Honor and glory.
He stood so tall and fought foryou and I so we could be free
from it all.
Speaker 9 (35:40):
That's when he said we do the goals.
Yes, I stand in line and watchthe flag wheels fly you see,
this is what I do.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yes, I bleed.
Red, white and blue when dutycalls.
Yes, I stand in line and watchthem weep and pray.
You see, this is what I do.
(36:13):
Yes, I bleed.
This is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Oh, this is what I do.
Yes, I bleed.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
You know, I know military broadcast radio, the
(36:50):
station that's giving veterans avoice find us on the web at
mbradious opinions expressed inthis program are those of the
speakers and do not necessarilyreflect the views or positions
of any entities they represent.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Find us on the web at mbradious.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
All right, we are back.
This is Money in the Militaryon Military Broadcast Radio.
This is Money in the Militaryon Military Broadcast Radio.
I'm here with Tony from Insidethe Hoosier's Mind podcast, also
on Military Broadcast Radio,streaming on Tuesdays at 6 pm
Eastern Central Time or EasternTime.
There we go.
(37:38):
So he's been telling us a littlebit of a story about his
financial rollercoaster ridethat he had while he was in the
Air Force, something that anyonewho's been in the military and
had to deal with militaryfinances can attest.
That a lot of times thepaycheck, it could take months
and months and months for it totruly finalize and solidify,
(37:59):
because there's so many thingschanging going up and down and
you know, um.
So yeah, it can be, it can bechallenging balancing, um, that
kind of fluctuating income,especially if you're overseas
too.
You got colo that changes a lotof times.
So, yeah, so, um.
So we did get a comment overthe break, uh, from Terry.
She's giving us someinformation about if you stay in
(38:21):
a hotel for over 30 days inTexas, they rebate the taxes and
the hotel will give you along-term rate.
Speaker 8 (38:28):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (38:29):
Okay, some good travel hacking there.
Um, you know, I was thinkingabout it like um, did you get
any kind of like crazy pointsfor, like the hotel that you
stayed at?
Speaker 8 (38:43):
so, funny enough, the , the because again, I was
paying all this out of pocketand I was like, like I don't
really have luxury hotel typemoney, so I gotta live I stayed
in um called the extended staysokay and and depending on state
state you go, those are reallynice um the ones I stayed in.
(39:03):
My first couple months I had tospend a lot of money on
anti-cockroach products.
Oh, it's not great but Icouldn't really afford anything
else.
And the other, uh, there's acouple other like sergeants and
ty's that were there.
Um, they were staying in thishotel that like super nice, you
know, 25, 30 minutes away.
They're like why don't you pay,why don't you stay here?
Speaker 7 (39:24):
and I'm like I can't afford those prices right,
because I mean you're paying outof your own pocket at that
point right you know.
So that's, that's different,it's a, it's a different
calculus that you had to make.
Um, right, so so, yeah, so Iguess, knowing what you know now
, is there anything that youwould do differently?
Or if you had to, like you know, basically talk to a young
(39:45):
airman or a young soldier and belike, hey, this is a situation
that I'm in like because I don'tknow, it didn't sound like you
had a lot of help from thissituation, so, like I guess
would probably be the firstthing you would do is have some
somebody that can vouch for you,like a first sergeant or
something.
Speaker 8 (40:02):
Yeah, I, I think if I and it's, it's going to sound
really bad.
And again, I don't know, Idon't know what would have
happened if I went back and doneit now, but honestly, I think I
would have just denied thoseorders and said, look, I'm not
leaving until I have a better,clarified answer, or until
everybody is at least on thesame page of what we're supposed
(40:25):
to do, right, because, yeah, I,so funny enough.
Um, so I, I had been mentioningthis every time I was in the
schoolhouse to differentinstructors, to pretty much any
anybody that was an NCO orhigher.
I'm like, look, I'm, I'm likefloating just barely above water
here.
Somebody helped me, right, andit was.
(40:47):
It was really aggravating as anE4 because, you know, while
while I was the only person inocps at the time, the you know
operational camouflage patternand everybody else was in the
tiger stripe, abus.
You know, I'm like, look, I'mobviously different, like I'm
not your usual pipeliner, like Ikind of somewhat know what I'm
doing.
Like, help me.
(41:08):
Um, yeah, I.
Eventually they ended up havingme write a report while I was
there because I had failed.
I had failed four out of fivetests, and you can only fail it
to five.
And they were like well, nowyou have to write a report of do
you want to be washed back intoa class that is a little
(41:28):
earlier in the subjects or doyou want to retrain into
something else?
But, like I mentioned at thebeginning, my everything in my
pers, everything through afpcsaid I'm already a four and oh,
whether I graduate or not, I'm afour and oh wow
and I'm sitting there thinking,well, it's going to take you all
a lot of paperwork to crosstrain me again and you can't
(41:52):
just force that.
So you know what I want tocross train, put me into
something different, becauseobviously you guys just don't
care.
Um, luckily I had a techsergeant who was she would been
selected for master sergeant, soshe was getting a lot more of
those responsibilities while shehad read my report before it
went to the commander andluckily she caught that and she
(42:13):
goes.
Wait a minute, what is this e4?
This, this man is.
He's mad, he's 20 in debt, he'smad.
So she pulled me out of classand she talked to me and so I
explained everything thathappened from day one to then.
She said, okay, give me, giveme a couple hours, I'll be right
back, and when she she goes,you are in air force limbo.
(42:35):
The only things that aredefinitive is you belong to the
air force.
Yeah, we're here at Fort SamHouston, stationed at a Lackland
air force base.
It's like cool, I didn't.
I didn't have a supervisor, um,the first sergeant at the time
who I had a really big issuewith him, to kind of derail the
(42:56):
story, and this is where I tellany uh any airman, soldier,
marine sailor, space forceguardian or coast guards.
Coast guardsmen do not do whatI did.
And um, the first sergeant wasdoing an internal investigation
about a other individual who wascross-training, who was a
(43:17):
sergeant, and he was having whatthey considered an
inappropriate relationship witha pipeliner.
Everything was completelyconsensual, but it broke
schoolhouse rules that theywould have an inappropriate
relationship.
When I was questioned about thisfrom the first sergeant, I
essentially told him look, Idon't really care about two
consensual adults doing whatevertwo consenting adults do.
(43:38):
Uh, I am $20,000 in debt.
Why will you not do your job?
Speaker 4 (43:44):
and fix me being $20,000 in debt.
Speaker 8 (43:49):
That was not met with a very good response.
Speaker 7 (43:52):
So, Ooh yeah, that's tough, I mean the one in one
hand.
You gotta you gotta advocatefor yourself, you gotta you know
but, you know, yeah, that's,that's a tricky one, that's a
tricky one and that was.
Speaker 8 (44:02):
That was essentially the where I was at.
It was I didn't have anybodythere as far as a supervisor or
command to really fight for me.
So, yeah, it was, I had to.
I had to fight for myself, Ihad to to rely a lot on previous
senior NCOs, previous NCOs andfamily, friends and whatnot of.
Okay, look, this is thesituation I'm in.
What would you guys do andthat's what I would tell anybody
(44:26):
who would potentially be inthat same situation of you know
go, like you said, advocate foryourself, ask anybody and
everybody that you can.
If you feel that they are anytype of smart and you said
advocate for yourself, askanybody and everybody that you
can if you feel that they areany type of smart.
Um, and I honestly I feel likethat's one of the positives of
social media.
Like you mentioned earlierabout how, for the military,
there's a lot of times that youknow those paychecks can take
(44:46):
months to get through.
Um, I don't know if you saw iton TikTok there is a Marine that
was stationed down in Pensacola.
Uh, he had joined the marinesback in september.
He has been in pensacola fortwo months now.
He has not received a paychecksince september his entire time
and he, they, his mom, reachedout to a marine on tiktok who
was a sergeant major and thatsergeant major got it pushed all
(45:09):
the way up to a three star andhe immediately got his money
like that.
Speaker 7 (45:14):
So yeah, that's crazy , and you know it's funny, like
I've I've come across this andwhen I was, and when I was
active duty too where sometimesyou just got to find the right
person, you know like the rightperson at the right time that's
willing to to do that littleextra step, or or you just got
to connect to that right personthat can make make the moves
(45:34):
happen.
Because I've I've seensituations where you know
there's some problem is going onfor months and months and
months and then all it takes islike that one supervisor or that
one nco that basically you knowgoes like a bull in a china
shop kind of thing, and justraises, raises, all kind of
craziness, but uh, but yeah, Imean I really I really feel I
(45:57):
feel bad for you honestly.
I mean it sounds like it was areally tough situation.
It wasn't your fault and youreally were kind of like in in
this like almost like apurgatory limbo situation in the
air force, which sadly doeshappen sometimes.
People fall through the cracks,you know.
But yeah, I would imagine doingit over again.
(46:18):
Or if you were in, you know, asupervisor's shoes, that you
would have handled that waydifferently, you know as a
supervisor the first things theywould try to do, because you
know, I will say, you know, whenI was in the air force there
(46:39):
were some programs to helppeople with their finances.
Uh, there was like the loaneagle eagle loan or something
like that.
And you know, you can go toyour first sergeant and explain
your situation.
You have to do a whole budgetand, um, you know, like you have
to work, work for it.
But I mean, it was like a loan,uh, um, uh, like a uh an
emergency loan, basically thatthe air kind of.
(47:00):
Um, I mean, you just had to payit back out of your paycheck.
So yeah, there are someresources out there.
Uh, I think I give the DOD alittle bit of a hard time, you
know, just because I saw so manyfinancially illiterate people
and I was like surely there'ssomething that can be done for
the active duty members.
But yeah, it really kind ofcomes down to that personal
(47:24):
touch having a direct supervisoror a mentor or somebody that
you trust, and it sounds likeyou at least had some people in
your orbit that, uh, that wereable to give you some advice,
sounding board and things likethat.
But, um, man, such a crazystory and um, I guess, well, you
(47:44):
know, if you were I alreadysaid we could do it over again.
But, like um, had those any ofthose habits kind of carried
over, or, um, you do you have?
Did you build a savings musclefrom that, how you feel?
Speaker 8 (47:57):
okay, so yeah, yeah, I, uh, I definitely, I
definitely started saving a lotmore, because it was like you
know what, in case anything doescrazy happen, and finances like
actually you owe us all thismoney back, and then, right,
then you know, eight years downthe line they'll be like
actually we, we owe you thismoney back, and then they'll pay
it to me on my deathbed,basically because that's how
(48:18):
finance loves to work.
They take forever, but no, Imean that that did help me as
far as, like, my savings, like Isaid, even even how I budget to
this day is like OK, what's mytotal cumulative money, what all
is coming out, what all iscoming in, what can I afford and
never spending over my means.
It is kind of funny and I don'tknow if you've ever heard this.
(48:38):
I've always heard the mostsuccessful, rich and wealthy
people always act as if theyhave no money to keep that money
.
Speaker 7 (48:48):
Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah, I think I mentioned thatin another stream, the
Millionaire Next Door.
Yeah, I think I mentioned thatin another stream, the
Millionaire Next Door.
It's a really good book.
I talk about it a few times,but yeah, they interviewed a
bunch of millionaires andstatistically it showed that
they drove modest cars, they hadmodest houses, they were just
(49:10):
consistent savers and they spentwithin their means or below
their means and put that extramoney away.
It's really not rocket scienceif you really get down into it.
It's that psychology piece ofit, the shiny object syndrome.
There's just so much temptationout there now that I totally
(49:31):
understand Marketing advertising.
Their whole job is to take yourmoney.
You know, yes, they're reallygood at that.
So you kind of at you're alreadyup against the wall you know,
in some sense, that that youhave this whole machine that's
trying to take your money fromyou.
But you know, that's just oneof those things we got to.
(49:52):
We got to no-transcript.
(50:27):
Know, like, I kind of like, Ikind of like it's a kind of
aggressive but, um, you know, Ithink it's also goes into
finding that balance of, youknow, spending versus saving.
You know, enjoying the momentwhile also preparing for the
future.
You know, so that that's that'sa tricky balance, and not not
everyone, you know not everyonehas the um, the patience or
(50:51):
self-control to put money awayfor the future, and that's a
muscle that you have to build.
So, since you've been out,how's your transition been with
your finances?
Like, as a veteran, would yousay finances are better off or
(51:12):
about the same, or was there atransition period that was
really tough for you?
Speaker 8 (51:17):
They're definitely better.
I will say the first, the firstfew months when I got out.
Because when I and I would saythis to any veteran, if you're
about to get out, regardless ofrank when I was first getting
out, when I was looking at allthe different jobs, when I
factored in how much do I needto make, I didn't just take my
(51:41):
base pay of what I get everymonth for my paycheck.
I took, you know, I added inthat BAS and that BAH of okay,
this is what you're cumulativelyactually making.
So say, for numbers sake, sayyou make $4,500 a month, you
need to figure out out of $4,500dollars a month.
Let's say you want to work anormal eight to five.
Okay, divide that by five days,divide that by eight hours a
(52:01):
day.
This is your, this is your, yourrate that you want to try to
hit to keep you about in themeans that you're making.
You know, as it stands rightnow.
So that one that was a littlebit rough because, uh, I had
done that, it was ended up beinga little bit less than, uh,
what I initially planned for.
But then, luckily, um, I wasfortunate enough to get a
disability rating from the va,so that kind of supplemented a
(52:23):
lot of that.
Um, so then I was back tomaking okay, this is about what
I was making when I got out tomake things a little little
easier and whatnot yeah, yeah,well, that's the other thing too
.
Speaker 7 (52:33):
I always caution veterans or military members who
are about to get out and, youknow, factor in healthcare costs
too, because unless you have ahundred percent disability or
you have retirement, you know,try Care for Life.
You know most veterans don'thave those benefits.
So you know you're going tohave to go into either the
(52:56):
healthcaregov portal and getyour insurance or get it through
your employer, but that's notfree.
So it's like you've got tofactor that in, because there's
a lot of sticker shock.
When I talk to veterans theythink, oh man, I'm only making
like $30K, like 30 K a year, um,taxable, Um.
But then when they actually dothe math like you were doing, uh
(53:19):
, when you, when you really,when you really add up all the
benefits, um, it's, it's a lotmore than people realize.
So, um, but yeah, that's that'sgood advice to to kind of, like,
you know, crunch the numbersbefore you get out, don't wait
until until you're about out thedoor, or already out the door,
(53:41):
to to be like oh wait, you knowI didn't factor this in, or I
didn't think about this, and andI know, taps, uh, they do have
a finance portion and it's.
It was when I did it in 2020.
It was, it was decent.
You know, like I think it, ithad the right components to kind
of get people thinking about it.
(54:02):
But, honestly, they could do awhole week's worth of finance
stuff just for transitioningservice members.
Um, maybe three days.
Three days, we'll split thedifference, because a week might
be overkill.
You might might, you know, havesome people pulling their hair
out, but um, yeah but I meanit's a necessary thing, you know
.
I just think that more peoplecoming out of the service, um,
(54:23):
just need a little bit moreeducation or they need a little
bit of a push, because they'rein that mindset of I've got all
these things taken care of, butyou don't have a price tag on
them sometimes.
Speaker 8 (54:32):
So right and that and that's why, even for me like
because I, because after thatwhole fiasco I was like, okay,
I'm kind of dead set on gettingout.
So from that point forward, Iwas like all right, I got a plan
on getting out.
You know what do I what I haveto make, what I have to do.
And I would tell any, anyservice member that if you're
about to get out and uh, becausesame thing, when I TAPS was
(54:53):
really good, I felt like theygave a lot of really good base
information, but you only had aweek and then, especially if
you're doing it close to whenyou're getting out, you're
getting bombarded with so muchinformation.
You're only required to takeTAPS at least once a year.
Before you separate, you cantake that TAPS class as many
times as you feel necessary toget through that, as many times
(55:13):
as you feel necessary to getthrough that.
And that's what I wouldrecommend.
People you know, give yourself agood timeline of.
You know kind of start puttingfeelers out there for jobs as
far as what you feel your resumeneeds to be worked on.
You know what do you need tofit, where do you feel like jobs
are going to fit at.
You know the cost of livingarea.
You know the, the overall costof living.
You know, like you said, withwith the health care benefits,
with the um, with the bah andthe bas, you know what, what is
(55:36):
going to be able to fit in yourmeans financially.
Do that as early as possible.
That way you know if you're sixmonths into this you're like
actually things aren't reallylining up the way I want to, I
maybe I ought to re-enlist justto, just to save myself the
headache.
It may not be what you want todo, or maybe you do the, maybe
you do the um, the, the guard orthe reserve, as kind of a
(55:57):
transition in between.
That way you can at least keepyour, keep your tenure, keep
your time and everything likethat.
You're not completely cuttingties, so that yeah that's
another route that people coulddo and I would I'd strongly
recommend the earlier planningthe better yeah, yeah, because I
mean you're, you're basicallygonna throw a whole monkey
wrench in your financial world.
Speaker 7 (56:17):
Um, plus, you're, you know you got steady paychecks,
you've got.
You know it's just, it's justso it's.
It works so smoothly well, notalways in your case, but it
generally works smoothly um, but, yeah, so that's some really
good advice.
Um, we could probably do awhole show on just transitioning
out of the military forfinances, because that's, like I
(56:40):
said, it's a lot, it's a lot toprocess, but I mean, it's also
one of the things that you do atonce for most people and then
that's it.
You know, and you, you just,yeah, you're just kind of
winging it sometimes, eventhough you have all these people
trying to give you really goodadvice.
But but, man, so Tony, I reallyappreciate it.
(57:01):
Like we're getting gettingclose to time.
Any last minute pearls ofwisdom that you got from, from
your situation, or anything youwant to just tell the world.
Speaker 8 (57:13):
Well, to give you a closer, I ended up not getting
any of that money back because Iluckily had a really good first
sergeant.
I had a chief atWright-Patterson that helped me
get stationed there.
He heard the thing.
He was like you said bull in achina shop.
Irate that that had happened.
He's like, thank goodness youhandled that better than most
E7s that he knew would probablyhandle it.
I had a first sergeant, youknow, put in the package but
(57:37):
then COVID hit so they tooktheir, took their very sweet
time and then right before I gotout there's another first
sergeant, took it over and hedropped the ball.
So I ended up not gettinganything but my, my, my biggest
thing to people.
You know control what you cancontrol in the moment.
You know there's a lot of stuffthat's always going to psych
(57:58):
you out, whether it's financial,whether it's personal.
You know, just do what you canto keep yourself happy and
healthy.
You know again, you know, ifall it is is, you know, I can
budget a little bit better and Ican make this work you know, do
that to be able to keepyourself going.
Don't let something like thatcompletely overwhelm and
overpower you, to keep you fromenjoying life.
(58:20):
You know, make you miserable,because if we know anything
about life once one thing pileson on you, everything piles on
after.
So just control what you cancontrol and do what you can do
on your end, and you will.
You'll definitely be muchhappier.
Speaker 7 (58:39):
Nice, I love it.
That's some great advice.
You know you turned up adifficult situation and you
overcame and you know you'rehere to tell the tale and I
really do appreciate you comingon and telling your story
because, who knows, you mightactually help some you know
young airman or soldier in thesimilar situation.
They'd be like oh yeah, I sawthis and now I need to talk to
(58:59):
my first sergeant.
You know something like that,so hopefully it it will resonate
with some people.
Um, but uh, you know just thanks, thanks for jumping on the
stream and um know, we'll, uh,we'll have you on again, uh, if
you want to come on and we'lltalk some money again.
But, um, that's pretty much allI got.
Uh, that's going to be the endof the end of the stream for the
(59:21):
night.
But once again, thanks for tonyjumping in telling his story
and, uh, tuesdays at 6 pmeastern um, check out some some
great color commentary about, uh, the, the sporting world, so,
uh.
So thanks everybody for jumpingin, thanks for all the NBR
people and we'll catch you guys,um, on the next stream.
Speaker 5 (59:47):
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to
military broadcast radio.
As we wrap up today's show, wewant to remind you that the
podcast of today's episode willbe available right after we go
off the air, so if you missedany part of the show or want to
listen again, be sure to checkit out.
(01:00:09):
And remember we're here tosupport and honor our veterans.
Your stories and experiencesmatter and we are committed to
giving you a platform to sharethem.
That's right.
We're here to give our veteransa voice, so don't forget to
(01:00:29):
catch the podcast and stayconnected with us Giving our
veterans a voice.
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