• Base your spending plan on your base pay – not on additional duty pay.
• When your military member does get additional duty pay, put these monies toward paying down consumer debt or to build up savings.

Retail Therapy
One of the most frequent problems I hear from those who have faced long military separations is that credit card bills have soared during this time. When your spouse is gone, it’s really easy to turn to the comfort of retail therapy – whether you have the money or not. I remember when Bob was gone for an extended time and I had five children ages 7 and younger. It was a lot easier to go buy a meal than to stay at home as a “single mom” and cook.

Whether you are racking up debt through shopping at the mall or paying for convenience food, it’s very easy to find yourself haunted by maxed out credit cards.

Too much consumer debt can also put your military member at risk because it may keep them from getting the security level clearance they need for their dream job. In some cases, it may also get them discharged from the service.

To combat this villain:

• Use cash instead of credit cards.
• Put allotted money in envelopes marked accordingly (shopping, food, gas, etc) to serve as a visual reminder as to how much money you have left for the pay period.

Silly Spooks
A common mistake consumers make is to fall for the “introductory offers” from credit card companies. These are not good deals. Every time you open a new line of credit in order to get 15 percent off that day’s purchase, you incur a hit on your FICO or credit score. A higher FICO means you pay more for APRs, car loans, mortgage loans, security deposits, automobile insurance and more. You can seriously damage your credit score by falling for the “no payments and no interest for a year” when you buy a flat screen TV routine. Don’t do it!

To combat this villain: 

• Make it a habit to minimize new lines of credit.
• Don’t accumulate new store cards. Store cards do not build better credit, they diminish your credit score.

Show Me the Mama!
Loving your mom is important, but not to the extent that you go visit every time your spouse is on a six-month or longer deployment. The cost of airline tickets, other travel expenses, lost employment time, meals eaten out, gifts for family (as a way of saying thank you for having me) can be scary.

To bring balance to this issue, break the habit of running home to mama every time your spouse deploys. Instead, realize that you are a purposeful, powerful woman who can handle separations from your spouse with the help of your military sisters and community. By following these ideas, you’ll keep the scary images up on the movie screen where they belong and out of your finances.

Ellie Kay is a national radio commentator, a frequent media guest on Fox News, ABC and CNBC, a popular international speaker, and the best-selling author of twelve books including her newest release, The Little Book of Big Savings (Waterbrook, 2009) For money savings links, or to view Ellie’s blog, go to www.elliekay.com.