Keep in mind, too, that what you see on the news is always the worst cases. Active duty pay in the lower ranks is not great, but after E-5 or so (and adding in the allowances) it isn’t bad, either. Below E-5, it’s a lot rougher (even with allowances) but still doable, with sacrifices. My husband was an E-6 when we married. I never worked outside the home and we got along fine – admittedly, my husband advanced in rank quite quickly after we were married, though. He made E-7 after 3 years or so and was commissioned an officer a year after that.
Still, I’ve known lots of guys E-5 and above who were raising families and most – really the vast majority – of them got along fine.
It’s harder without the allowances. My son is an E-4, not married, and he brings home about $1800 a month. He can’t get BAH because they don’t give it to single guys on his base below E-5. He recently moved into his own place (nice rented house with a roomate) and picked up a second job as a bouncer in a bar to pay his share of the rent. If he makes E-5 later this time (he should find out soon, I think) he’ll get a nice raise & be able to apply for the housing allowance and be able to quit the second job if he wants to.
I do agree, though, that the military should do a better job of educated its troops about money management. Of course, this is equally true of the private sector. My daughter is in college right now and, according to her, your average college student is no better of a money manager than your average young enlisted person. And (her college, at least) doesn’t have any better system in place than the military does to educate its students about money mangement.
One last thing – military medicine rules. The only time we were ever out of pocket was when my daughter was born (3 months early) while we were on leave in a non-military area. The hospital where she was born and spent her first 3 months was not a Tricare (then Champus) provider. Our share of the bill for her hospital stay should have been $75,000 – a lot of money back in 1987. Tricare/ Champus worked with the hospital to reduce what we had to pay. We ended up paying about $10,000. I can’t imagine any private medical insurance would have done better than that, given that her total hospital costs were in the hundreds of thousands.
Other than that, both my kids were raised on military medical care, which has always been excellent. My daughter, in particular, being disabled (with CP) has had an unusual amount of medical intervention, and it has always been superlative. Next year she will age out of Tricare and she’s already a little nervous about changing health care. I can’t imagine that she would have had any better care anywhere, or under any other system, at any price.
