Being apart from your loved ones can be an agonizing ordeal when you are serving in the military. This may be particularly true for personnel when their military families endure their own challenges back home. Perhaps they are in debt, or suffering crippling job losses? Unfortunately, finance problems do not wait for a convenient time to show up, so it might be that you will be tasked with balancing your military duties with providing input on matters back home.
Of course, you may sadly feel powerless to do anything. Here is why that does not need to be true, along with some suggestions about what you can be doing to help with matters like these.
Call in Favors
Do not be afraid to call in a few personal favors if possible. Consider that your loved ones will highly respect your service and be extremely empathetic to any challenges you experience either overseas or at home. Set aside your proud and ask family members or trusted friends to pitch in if possible. Promise to one day pay them back, if necessary.
Try not to let pride or embarrassment stop you from reaching out. Let the precedent set by other veterans in asking for help inspire you somewhat if necessary. Respect yourself, and the fact that there is great value in the sacrifices you are making, whether they are of the monetary kind or not. Recognize that your loved ones will help you, just as you likely would for them.
Utilize the Right Home Loans & Perks
Explore all the financial perks that are available to you exclusively as a veteran, including VA home loans and VA Disability. A good VA Disability calculator can be found here.
Utilize the VA home calculator from Hero Loan, and you and your military family can determine your payments for assurances and/or a plan of action. Follow their processes and you can be pre-approved for a more cost-effective loan in minutes, which may provide your family with more peace of mind.
Communicate the perks of these programs to your family too – it may help to calm them in times of great stress or doubt. Make a list with your family of all the concerns you wish to address with the Home Loan officer also. Allow them to respond to your queries uninterrupted, and record or document their answers to questions also if your family needs reassuring in future.
Provide Inspiration
Use your words articulately and bravely as they may hold extra weight. For instance, you could stir up motivation for your loved ones to create their own business for extra income, perhaps even centered around helping other struggling military families if ideas are sparse. Suggest that, like you in your service, that they need to come up with a plan of action to fix things.
Appreciate that though your physical presence may be limited, your influence is not. Focus on solutions, not despair. Providing useful benefits is one thing, but your military family must be able to fight their own wars, to a degree. Prepare them for that before your deployment, or even during over email, phone calls, or video conferencing software.
