YES LIVE: Savings and Credit for Young Military Members

Sarah Shirley, Military Saves Director at the Consumer Federation of America, provided her perspective on the credit worthiness needs of a specific group within the demographic - young adults in the military. Even though the discussion was geared toward this specific group of young adults, there were broader ideas about saving and credit that apply to young adults in various life stages and situations.

Sarah's key points:

• Patriotism is important to many young people
• Just because we know young people are interested in their credit scores doesn't mean they are incapable of being interested in their net worth
• Helping others can be motivating to young people

My take:
(note that I lost a longer post on this session because my blogger account timed out before I posted - lesson to future live-bloggers: do everything in Word first.)

Where was Military Saves when I was in the service? It sounds really cool and is much needed.

When I was in the Army right after high school ('96-'99), I only knew how to balance my checkbook...nothing about money management, asset building, credit worthiness, or debt management. I was eager to do something more with my money, but didn't know where to go for guidance (I also was too busy to dig too hard). My only big transaction was someone sold me a bad life insurance policy, which somehow sounded good at the time (all those graphs with my money getting bigger). Naturally, it was a waste of my money (I already had a $200,000 Army life insurance...and I was single with no dependents!), but I didn't realize it for about five years and by that time, it was too late - the monthly payments I had put in didn't add up to much.

I was an "untapped market" for sure. I wish someone led me into the credit union on base instead during those three years!

Now if I only invested that money...

Resource Links:
www.MilitarySaves.org
www.AmericaSaves.org
www.AmericaSavesWeek.org