Emergency Savings Page
Emergency Savings: How saving a little now can save you a lot in the future
The military lifestyle is unique and presents financial challenges for service members that their civilian counterparts may not face. Military families are extremely mobile—they get deployed frequently for months at a time—and are financially challenged because military pay is lower than its civilian counterparts. Both of these situations can cause expenses beyond those of a civilian household.
Cash flow difficulties for military families are also further aggravated by emergencies that arise. A death or serious illness in the family for example, can be extremely expensive for a military family because they usually must travel greater distances to resolve a family issue.
To help alleviate the typical use of credit in these circumstances every military family should have an emergency savings account of at least $1,000. With money set aside for emergencies, a military family can be prepared for unplanned expenses and prevent the need to get a military payday loan or pay day advance.
Many younger service members simply don't have the credit history to walk into a bank and open an account, and many of them don't receive the kind of financial education they should. An emergency savings account would let them put a small amount aside at a time (perhaps has little as $50 a month). Over time that amount adds up. And if every one of the 1.4 million active duty military families opened an account, and just saved $1,000 each, that would be $1.4 billion set aside, preventing that much money from having to be borrowed.