Veterans Face Steep Financial Challenges When They Return Home
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Here's your Money Briefing for Wednesday, November 10th. I'm J.R.
What financial struggles do veterans commonly face when they return home?
Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. This week, we honor and celebrate the nation's veterans and their service in the military. But after facing some of the most intense challenges of their lives in a military setting or on the battlefield, when they return home... many face financial challenges.
The struggles of dealing with PTSD, traumatic brain injury, the medications that they're using to help cope with those, and suddenly every financial decision becomes a much bigger, much heavier weight to carry.
Coming up, we'll talk with author Frank Molinar. His upcoming book examines the personal finance challenges facing service people, veterans, and their families, and how they can apply lessons learned on the battlefield to rehabilitate their finances. That's after the break.
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For many military service people, the return home can be a time for celebration, but for others it can mean dealing with a mountain of economic hardship. So what lessons from the battlefield can vets apply to their personal finances to find their footing? I'm joined by Frank Molinar. He's the author of the forthcoming book, Financial Dominance, Your Battle Plan for a Richer Life. He's trained and counseled veterans on things like spending wisely and not falling victim to insurmountable debt. Frank, thank you so much for being here.
Pleasure to be here. Thank you.
So Frank, how widespread is this issue of financial challenges and hardship among service people and veterans?
Financial challenges among the ranks is much bigger than most of us realize. A couple recent surveys put it up at 90%. So in other words, 9 out of 10 service members, veterans, this is their single biggest concern. Just below that would be maybe required to move every two years, which is pretty disruptive and a financial challenge all in its own two.
So Frank, you've worked very closely with service people in this area. What was your role, and what were some of the biggest missteps or pitfalls that you saw that weighed on service people's finances?
My role at one point was under a Department of Defense contract, and I was a financial trainer and a counselor. So we did the group trainings and the briefings, but we also spent time in the one-on-one. And when you get into people's individual finances, you learn a lot about their challenges.
How widespread are financial problems among active duty service members and veterans?
A lot of the challenges could just be complete disengagement. So frequently what you'll find is just a little bit of an immaturity amongst the ranks where they can feel like a motorcycle, another gun, some more ammunition, or a truck. Everybody loves trucks. And those can have a higher priority than they really should have if they're trying to balance that with whether they can pay utility bills next month and their cell phone and their other credit card charges. Credit can be a big challenge for service members. And part of the risk of that is they know where they're going to work every day.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:38
2
What financial struggles do veterans commonly face when they return home?
0:38–3:17
3
How widespread are financial problems among active duty service members and veterans?
3:17–5:13
4
What common missteps and credit pitfalls do service members fall into?
5:13–9:31
5
Why are military personnel especially targeted by predatory lenders and scams?
9:31–12:16
6
How does redeploying to civilian life and deployment pay influence veterans' spending decisions?
12:16–12:41
Speakers
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