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04-05-2008, 12:59 PM
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#1
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Hi! Military Spouse Here :-D
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Newbie
Last Online: 04-19-2008 04:37 PM
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 2
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New here and just wanted to say hi!!
A bit about us....hubby is US military, I am UK citizen, we're living in US right now after several years in sunny Italy. A daughter aged 2 1/2 and a son aged 6 months.
Our finances have been all over the place since we got married 4 years ago....soon after the wedding I found out hubby had over $20K in defaulted loans and student debts - now *that* was an interesting dinnertime conversation, I can tell you :-/ Two years on and we had repaid all of that plus socked away $25k in savings...........unfortunately the military then moved us back stateside so the entire nest egg went on move-related expenses plus I was out of work for several months *and* we found out I was expecting our son at that time.
Now we've been stateside for 18 months; I found work and we've repaid all the small debts we ran up during the move and my time out of work. My employer puts 15% into a retirement plan for me every year plus we're funding hubby's TSP and my Roth IRA each at 6% of gross income (aiming eventually for 10% but we need to work up to that as salary raises etc kick in!). I was lucky to get a job at a mutual fund comany so not only have I learned an enormous amount about the financial services industry but I can also buy our mutual funds at NAV. So life is looking good at the moment.
BUT (isn't there always a 'but?!) hubby retires in 4 years' time and our plan has always been for us to move back to Europe to be close to my family. And I estimate that even with the military paying some contribution towards his final move, we're going to need around $75K to cover additional costs of relocating and 6 months'-worth of rent and expenses (for the time when we will initially *both* be out of work). Doesn't help that we're aiming for the UK, and the exchange rate right now is horrible (approx $2 to the pound).
So, here I am to learn more from you ladies and to try and stay motivated! Luckily hubby is extremely passive about money and lets me get on with it - he asks me how much he can have for spends every month and he doesn't usually go over that amount. I'm working all the overtime I can get and have managed to get around $2K in a savings account as our 'short-term emergency' savings and am now starting to think about how/where to save the money for our 'move'...
Anyway, that's me. I'm looking forward to learning more about and from you all!
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