Family Matters Blog: Money App Puts Finances in Hand
By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2012 - Financial planners often talk about "being smart"
when it comes to your finances – where, when and how to save, spend, and invest
your money and how to manage your credit.
The ins and outs of getting and staying in good financial shape can feel like
a full-time job. From buying a house to researching tax breaks to asking about
lower interest rates on credit cards or auto insurance, getting smart about
finances takes effort.
That endeavor can be made easier, however, with a free website and app
created especially for military members by the Better Business Bureau and McGraw
Hill Companies. The consumer advocacy group's military division teamed up with
the global financial information company to create
militaryandmoney.com and its smartphone app, which is
available for the iPhone and iPad. There will also soon be an Android version
available, Brenda Linnington, director of the BBB Military Line, told me
today.
Linnington, wife of Army Gen. Mike Linnington, who commands the Military
District of Washington, creates curriculum for the Military Line's personal
finance workshops, which are given at military bases around the country as part
of the Defense Department and services' financial readiness outreach. BBB's
Military Line also is a partner in the Kipplinger/BBB Financial Field
Manual.
Linnington replaced Holly Petraeus last year as MilitaryLine's director when
Petraeus was appointed to head the military division of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau. Both have worked to ease personal finance for service members
and their families.
"We don't want it be laborious kind of thing," Linnington said of the website
and app. "They can just plug in their numbers, so they have their personal
financial situation in palm of their hands."
The digital aids came about after the bureau and McGraw Hill separately
pledged to help "Joining Forces," the campaign First Lady Michelle Obama and
Second Lady Jill Biden created last year to support military families,
Linnington said. The campaign fostered the partnership, merging the bureau's
military financial acumen with McGraw Hill's global financial reach.
The website and app provide "basic training" in personal finance with video
instructions on budgeting and managing credit. They also offer an "action
center" with a calculator for entering your own financial information to help
with building savings -- you can set a reminder for regular installments -- and
reducing debt.
"The great thing about the app is it's very user-friendly, and it puts that
person's financial situation in the palm of their hands," Linnington said "They
can have it with them wherever they go."
The website and app can help families through the financial shift of
deployments and how to ease the burden when combat and hazard pay go away, she
noted.
"That reunion period, as wonderful as it is, especially during the
honeymoon period, also is full of a lot of stressors," she said. "Add in the
changes to your financial situation -- now you have less income, your children
are getting older, and becoming more expensive -- that can cause more stress on
an already stressful situation."
The website and app are tailored to enlisted members at the E6 level and
below, Linnington said, because that is who the bureau found needs it most. Most
complaints of financial problems from service members come from the E5 and E6
level, she said. Unlike junior service members, they – most in their mid-20s –
are beginning to develop credit and make enough money to pay off debt and save.
And they are starting families.
"They have more money than they had before, but they also have more expenses
and they're getting into larger purchases," she said.
