This episode is dedicated to the brave men and women who serve our country and dives into the unique financial considerations for military households. We explore topics ranging from housing to specialized financial services and offer insights into how military families navigate their financial landscape. Whether you are part of the military community or looking to support loved ones who serve, enjoy this action-oriented discussion with our special guest, a military money expert and Air Force veteran, Lacey Langford.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• How military households face unique financial challenges due to frequent moves and other factors.
• Strategies for military families to budget and save effectively as they navigate housing changes and unexpected expenses.
• The benefits of VA loans and how to use them effectively.
• The pros of joining a credit union focused on military households.
• How to take advantage of financial wellness tools like automatic savings¹ and Earned Wage Access to reach your goals.

Listen below or read the transcript that follows. 

Eric Rosenberg:

This is a friendly reminder that today’s episode is intended for education and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered legal or financial advice. Thank you.

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Good Cents by PayActiv Podcast. As always, I’m your host Eric Rosenberg, and today we have a special Memorial Day themed episode. As most of us know, Memorial Day is focused on the men and women who serve our country through the various branches of the armed forces, and military households often have unique financial concerns that everybody else doesn’t have. For example, military families often have to move more regularly than other families. They might have other unique financial needs and even special unique services available that can save them money. So if you are in a military household or you have any friends or family in the military and want to help them reach the best financial advice, you’ll want to stick around and enjoy this episode with our guest who is a military money expert and an Air Force veteran all in one. Let’s dive into this awesome conversation. All right, everyone, I am so excited to be here with Lacey Langford. Lacey, welcome to the show.

Lacey Langford:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Eric Rosenberg:

So before we dive too deep into the topic, could you share a little bit about your background and connection to the military and veterans world?

Lacey Langford:

Yes, so I’m actually the third generation of my family to serve. Both of my grandfathers were in the military and my father was in the army. I served in the Air Force. Some of my siblings also currently serve and have served. Come from a big military family, and that’s where my journey kind of military and money started. This is a community that I’ve been in all of my life and so it’s near and dear to my heart and kind of what I know in the space that I operate in, and then pursued finance after I got out of the military and started to mesh those two worlds. But it really comes from my family serving.

Eric Rosenberg:

Awesome. Yeah, I have a couple of grandpas who were in the military around World War II, so a while ago, and I’ve spent some time around military bases. Actually, I got to go camping at the Air Force Academy, speaking of the Air Force, and a big army base near Colorado, Springs as part of scouting growing up. So I’ve always had a lot of scout leaders with military backgrounds. One of my assistant scout masters was a Green Beret and he helped run our troop like he was a Green Beret. It was fun.

Lacey Langford:

I was going to say, I bet that was an intense troop, probably held to a much higher standard than other Boy Scouts, so that’s actually a little intimidating. You should brag a little bit more about your scouting experience.

Eric Rosenberg:

But to move forward and get into today’s topics, let’s start by diving into a military family tip that is more relevant to active duty, and that is housing. So I have a lot of friends who would call themselves military brats and they say they grew up in a lot of different places. They’ve moved every two or three years often, which as a kid, you think about changing schools and things like that, but for parents that means finding a new place to live. So if you were talking to any current military households, whether it’s a single or a family, what would be your biggest advice on preparing and knowing how to handle housing when you have to move so frequent?

Lacey Langford:

I think leaving room in your budget is really important for the military community, whether that’s housing, paying bills, that type of thing, but especially when it comes to housing because you never know when you’re going to move, where you’re moving to, what the cost of living is going to be in that location, military spouses, if you’ll be working in that location. And so you have to have some cushion there, some room to pivot. So that’s really important to always be ahead of your budget and making sure there’s space where if you need to have a little bit extra income for rent, then you’ll have that, if you need a little bit extra money because your housing is further away and you need that money for gas, that’s really important, because oftentimes you just don’t know. If you have children, you’re probably going to want to move to the place that has the best school district and that might be a longer commute. That also might be more per housing because it’s the better school district and everybody wants to be there.

So you have to be prepared, knowing what your budget is, but also what your goals are in your family. Oftentimes you know going into a new location if your spouse is going to deploy. Safety and security come top of mind for a lot of people. So you may want to pay more for a safer location. So that’s something to consider. So there’s a lot of factors that go down to the individual service member and their family on that decision, but leaving room in the budget, I think, is really important. And then building up your savings is a second component of that because, yeah, you might not have your budget maxed out, you have extra cash flow each month, but you might need a bigger deposit, or, again, a spouse might not be working in that new location for a little while. So having some savings to keep up your quality of life and make sure that you’re not going into debt is really important.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, that’s all really good advice. I hadn’t even thought so much about you don’t know where you’re going and it could be really expensive. So if you get moved to, let’s say, a base in rural Texas, you’ll probably have pretty low expenses, but if you get moved to the Washington, D.C. area, I know there’s a lot of military around there, you’re going to have really high expenses. And San Diego, not too far from me, Southern California really high expenses. So planning ahead for that, it sounds like it’s probably tricky when you don’t know that that might be coming. I really like that tip to have extra room in your budget and pad your savings because you just don’t know, and that’s really important to think about.

Lacey Langford:

Yeah, and the little stuff adds up. It sounds very odd, the people probably outside of the military community, but if you tell any military spouse, they laugh because they know it’s true. But you don’t know how many curtains you’re going to need. So oftentimes you’re re-outfitting a house. So you’ve been in one location. For most civilians it’s like, “Okay, yeah, we’re moving. There’s going to be some expenses.” But military spouses have a lot of extra rugs, a lot of extra curtains, because you want privacy, but you don’t want to have to buy those things over and over again when you move.

But sometimes you end up needing to buy some things to outfit your house. Like there might be extra baby gates that you’re buying because now this house is full of stairs versus the last one you were in. This one has a lot more cabinets you have to secure. So these little things start to add up that really eat away at your budget. So that’s why I say it’s really important not to max out, spend every dime that you make, and to make sure that you have savings because you do want to have a comfortable life, especially if you’re a military spouse and you’re going to be basically a single mom or dad for six months or a year.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, as you were talking about those little things, I was starting to think about those big things that we have to deal with when we move too, like appliances, a washer, or dryer, or refrigerator. Maybe you’re moving into a home where those are already there, maybe not. Maybe you are not able to move your old, let’s say, refrigerator and you’ll need to go buy a new one. Those are expensive. All sorts of things that you need to furnish a house. Whether you have a military connection or not, a lot of those will just come up again and again and again, more often when you have that moving around requirement.

Lacey Langford:

Absolutely.

Eric Rosenberg:

Staying on housing, I want to pivot a little bit. I know about the VA loan program. A lot of people have heard of VA loans, but they don’t know much about them. Even a lot of people in the military might not know everything they have available through the VA. So could you share a little bit just at a high level, what is a VA loan and what makes them special compared to more traditional loans?

Lacey Langford:

A VA loan is a benefit from military service. After a certain point, you’re eligible for the government basically to back you to buy a home. So you aren’t required to put down a down payment, which could be 20% or whatever other people would want to put down. That’s not to say that you don’t have to put money down, but you’re able to get a home loan and basically instead of buying mortgage insurance as like a civilian would have to do, you don’t have to do that as a veteran or an active duty service member. Now, something that people are not aware of is, yeah, you don’t have to pay a down payment, but you have to pay a VA funding fee. And that fee depends on if it’s your first time using a VA loan, how much the home is, but you are paying a little bit of money, so it may not be a down payment, but you are paying something and that’s often a surprise to a lot of people. And if you use your VA loan the second time, that funding fee goes up.

Now, if you are service disabled through the VA, depending over a certain percentage, you could not have to pay that funding fee, but for most people, they are going to have to pay a funding fee. And sometimes if you are married to a veteran, so like my husband and I, we both are eligible for your VA loan. And so our first home, we did it under his VA loan. The second home we did under mine so we could reduce the funding fee that we were going to pay instead of the second time. Now after that, then it started to go up. But it is a great way for you to become a homeowner, but again, goes back to the first point. You need to make sure you understand your budget, not spending every extra bit of money you have on a house and end up being house poor, not being able to furnish it, those type of things.

And then being mindful of, yes, you used your VA loan, you got a home, you bought it, but now you got orders to move, now what are you going to do with that house? So they become an accidental landlord or maybe selling it for less than it’s worth, or if you get lucky, selling it for a lot more than it’s worth. It just depends on the location and the timing and all of those things that go into selling a home.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, that’s all really important to think through. I also always like to point out to people that down payments, even if you have a lower down payment requirement, if you put a bigger down payment into the property, that lowers your monthly cost. But with our house, if we had put 20% down, we probably would not have been able to afford what the monthly payment would’ve been. So we’ve ended up putting a lot more down when we bought the house to bring the monthly payment into our budget. So if you have those savings and you’re able to put them into a home, even if you can do it with 0% down, you might want to put a little something into it, have a little more skin in the game, and that can be okay. That can help your monthly cash flow.

Lacey Langford:

Yes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. You’re going to pay for something. Using the VA loan, you don’t have to pay the down payment, but going to have a bigger monthly payment, that funding fee is going to be rolled in and included in your monthly payment. So it’s really about understanding the full cost of buying that home and what you can afford.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, definitely. And with interest, interest rates recently have been on the rise and you might have a little sticker shock when you move as well. You don’t pay interest on the amount that you’ve put for your down payment. You only pay interest on what you borrow. So if you’re moving regularly, you might have been in the same home for a few years and got one of those really low payments locked in at 2, 3% interest. I’m lucky, I think I paid three and a quarter percent, but if I moved right now, I’d be paying double, probably, that interest rate. So that’s important to think through and also plan ahead because your housing costs could change due to factors totally out of your control.

Lacey Langford:

Yes, and I think, especially it’s hard for first time home buyers not having that experience and that frame of reference under their belt because your property taxes could go up the following year. So you got a house, you’re like, “Yes, we can afford this. We’re just making it, but we got it.” Well, now your property taxes are going up, so now you’re going to have to fund that escrow deficit. And then there could be things like now that’s a bigger home for you. So electricity is more. So you may have been renting and it had been a lot less, like an apartment, for example, and you’re not accustomed to a higher electricity bill. And then just the dangers of moving that can impact your ability to make payments.

So I was just in Denver and, long story, I got some rotisserie chicken and salad. I like to save money when I travel and eat healthy. And so the same salad dressing that I love and buy here in North Carolina was $3 more a jar in Denver. And so yeah, you got a new location, you can afford the house, but then all of a sudden your groceries are a lot more expensive. So there’s all of these things to factor in when you’re making a decision to commit to a home.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah. And you also have those other little bills that might not be so little. When I moved to California, one of the biggest wows was the price of gas. It was way more than when I grew up in Denver, you just mentioned. One time when I was about 16, I’m going to date myself here, I filled up the car for, I think, 98 cents a gallon. I did it a couple times under a dollar. And nowadays, I have an electric car, so I don’t have to buy gas for my car, which I like, but I still notice those gas prices. They can pinch you. And I mentioned electricity, you might use the same amount of electricity when you move, but depending on where you live, the rates could be higher or lower. The same with water bills. Every bill changes when you move, especially over state lines or a whole new city. So that’s all stuff to keep in mind. That’s really great advice there you shared.

One last topic I want to pivot to. So long time listeners know if you have a Payactiv account with the Payactiv Visa^® Card*, you can get your direct deposit right to Payactiv. We have really cool tools like automatic savings and budgeting, all sorts of financial wellness good stuff, which definitely check out if you haven’t done that before. But I know for extensive banking and financial needs, some people have more complex needs, there are specific financial institutions and accounts just for military households and veterans. What do you think would be a benefit of, let’s say, joining a credit union that’s focused on military households versus a traditional bank?

Lacey Langford:

Well, I think if it’s a local credit union, a huge advantage is being able to take out money. But let’s say you want to buy a used car, getting the cash or cashier’s check to be able to go and do that transaction. So having a local bank, I think, has an advantage. And oftentimes service members and their families will have both. They’ll have a big bank and they’ll have a credit union too that they can do local transactions, change in coins, the things that you don’t think about until you don’t have a place to go and do those transactions. I do think that credit unions and banks that are familiar with the military community, it’s helpful because when certain issues come up, those banks know to handle it immediately.

So for example, if you call a major bank in the military community and say, “I’m getting ready to deploy,” they’re going to put some stuff on your credit. They’re going to make sure that there’s no transactions. They’re basically going to put an alert on your account that nothing funny should be happening because you’ll be in the Middle East. So that’s really helpful that they already know. Also, things like the Service Members Civil Relief Act, any credit or debt that you took out before you joined the military, they’re going to understand how that works and they’re going to lower your interest rate, those type of things. So there’s an advantage of having that community. But also too, often many of the people that work at those banks in credit unions are veterans or they’re military spouses. So they kind of understand the world too. So that’s really helpful to have somebody that understands your life so you don’t have to explain every little thing to them, like deployments, or schools, a PCS, that’s permanent change of station. So being able to just talk and not have to explain the whole process.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, there’s a lot of acronyms in the military world. Whenever I write about VA loans or any kind of military finance, I have to look up a lot of different acronyms, find out what everything means. So it’s nice when you work with people who already speak the same language.

Lacey Langford:

Yes. And you know what’s really confusing, Eric, is some of the branches have acronyms, but they mean different things. So that’s when it gets real tricky. Is that a marine saying that or is that Air Force? So sometimes we even trick ourselves.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s funny. I hadn’t thought about that. It probably comes up more often than you’d think. Thank you so much for sharing this wisdom. You had really helpful tips. And if you’re listening right when this is coming out, everyone out there, happy Memorial Day. We all appreciate the service that you’re doing for our country and giving us a safe place to be. So thank you all and thank you, Lacey, for your history of having served. We appreciate that.

Lacey Langford:

Thank you.

Eric Rosenberg:

So if somebody wants to learn more, we know you are The Military Money Expert. Where should they go and how can they connect with you?

Lacey Langford:

A great spot is milmo.co is my website where you can find information all about military and money there, and my podcast, The MILMO Show, and you can also connect with me on LinkedIn or any social accounts under itsmilmo.

Eric Rosenberg:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, everyone. If you are part of that military community, definitely check out Lacey’s things that she just mentioned. She is a great resource. And thank you so much for being here.

Lacey Langford:

Thank you for having me.

Eric Rosenberg:

Well, that one was full of facts and useful info. I hope if you are a military household or have military members in your life, you’re able to put this information to use to save money and improve your financial situation. And a lot of that advice applies to anybody. For example, having more savings on hand can always help. You never know when an emergency is going to rise and having a little extra cash available can always help. So put that cash away.

Remember, if you have a Payactiv account, you can set up automatic savings. So every payday or every month, whatever schedule you want, you can put a little bit of money away in an FDIC insured account, knowing that you’ll have quick access to that cash if need be. Also with Payactiv, our flagship feature is earned wage access, or EWA². With that feature, you can get part of your paycheck early. That’s right, get part of your paycheck before payday and you won’t have any loans to pay back or high interest rates. It’s an extremely affordable way to get access to funds right away. So thank you, everyone, for sticking with us till the end of today’s episode and we’ll talk to you next time. Until then, keep living the life you’ve earned.

¹ Goal-based saving is a set-aside account, and you will not receive interest or other earnings on the funds within the goal-based account.

² Earned Wage Access required employer participation.

* Central Bank of Kansas City does not administer, nor is liable for earned wage access. The Payactiv Visa Prepaid Card is issued by Central Bank of Kansas City, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Certain fees, terms, and conditions are associated with the approval, maintenance, and use of the Card. You should consult your Cardholder Agreement and the Fee Schedule at payactiv.com/card411. If you have questions regarding the Card or such fees, terms, and conditions, you can contact us toll free at 1-877-747-5862, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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