Best Personal Finance Books?

I imagine most people wanting to start their personal finance journey want to get all the information before they start. A lot of people just Google, “Best Personal Finance Books.” One of the best tips for getting rich is to make a book about getting rich. People spend a lot of money buying personal finance books all the time. People struggling with saving money often spend a lot of money on personal finance books. This is counter-productive and there are better ways to save money while still getting pertinent information. The first step is leveraging the internet. The internet has great places that have all kinds of information. I personally recommend reading my blog of course. But, www.fool.com and www.morningstar.com are great places for information. Actually, any Google search will give you text-book answers on any subject. I’m not a millionaire yet, but I do think some of the text-book information isn’t exactly correct; however, it’s better than doing nothing.

So the next time you reach for that expensive personal finance book, try going to the library or ask someone to borrow it. Also, your bank may have free information and resources that can assist you.

For military members your base, post or camp should have a family readiness or resources that are free that can help you. One of the bases that I’ve been to actually had some Certified Financial Planners that offered advice for free. Check it out before buying those expensive books.

Tips to Help with the Government Travel Card (GTC)

The Government Travel Card (GTC) is a credit card issued to military members and DoD civilians to pay for official travel expenses. We move around all the time. We PCS and go TDY frequently. The DoD mandates the use of the Government Travel Card for all expenses related to official travel. Here are a few notes to remember about the GTC and its usage:

The GTC regulation is DoD Financial Management Regulation (DoD FMR) Volume 9, Chapter 3.

The GTC is currently managed by Citibank and the credit card is issued to the member.

The GTC can and will affect your credit score.

Regardless of what happens, the card holder is ultimately responsible for paying off the card.

The card must be paid off in whole and not in payments like a standard credit card.

It is important to file your voucher immediately upon return from your travel. The military uses the Defense Travel System (DTS) for some travel vouchers. The Air Force has currently started using eFinance for non-DTS vouchers. The traveler has 5 duty days to completely file his or her voucher or some negative consequences can happen. For instance, if you don’t file your travel voucher upon returning from a deployment you will continue to be paid all the deployment entitlements. You will eventually need to pay back the government for those excess entitlements.

Always make sure that your travel voucher is split-disbursed to go to the GTC. The Air Force tries to keep a less than 2% delinquency rate.

Contact your finance office or your unit Agency Program Coordinator if you have any problems or questions about your GTC. As always, if you have a question, let me know.

Accrual Vouchers

An accrual voucher is a voucher that pays off travel expenses for TDYs more than 45 days. If your TDY or deployment is longer than 45 days, you are authorized to file an accrual voucher every 30 days. There are two types of accrual vouchers:

Initial accrual voucher – This voucher can be filed before the 30 day mark but can only be used to pay off reimbursable travel expenses. You can’t get per diem paid for the initial accrual voucher. These are mainly used if travel expenses were occurred several days before you actually departed. If you only incurred travel expenses right before and during your actual departure date, it is best just to wait to file the actual accrual voucher.

Normal accrual voucher – This is any accrual voucher that is not the initial accrual voucher. You are authorized to file an accrual voucher every 30 days and can be used to pay off travel expenses and get per diem reimbursed.

The accrual voucher’s main purpose should be used to pay off your Government Travel Card (GTC). The Department of Defense has mandated that the GTC be used for all travel expenses. You must use the accrual voucher to pay off your GTC every 30 days so you are not delinquent. I’ll go more into the GTC program next post, but YOU ARE ULTIMATELY responsible for payments. So if your local military finance work center isn’t great at timely processing of accruals, then it is still on you.

TIPS for filing an accrual voucher:

1. Try to use automated systems if they are available. The Air Force has several methods to file an electronic accrual voucher; i.e. eFinance and vMPF. They systems can eliminate a lot of human error that occurs with transaction processing.

2. Try not to use your GTC for per diem purposes such as food, ATM withdrawals, taxis, etc. Unless you are a careful steward of your per diem money, you may go over the dollar amount authorized and have a remaining GTC balance. Wait to get repaid for all the per diem at once when you file your travel voucher.

3. Keep all receipts for everything. The Air Force does not require receipts when filing an accrual voucher; however, when filing your final voucher you will need them. If you don’t have them, there is a possibility that that your total accruals will exceed your final voucher settlement amount and you will owe the government money.

4. Remember that your accruals are just advances on your final voucher amount. So when you file your final voucher, the accrual will be deducted from your final voucher. Some people have a hard time understanding this. You are only authorized a certain amount, so filing an accrual doesn’t give you less total. It is just an advance from the total used to pay off your GTC.

Again, if you ever have any questions, please let me know.

Financial Reform Will Affect USAA - Please Help

Here is a message from USAA that was originally addressed to me; however, you can replace the addressee with Money for Military Readers or Customers or Armed Forces Member. Please help USAA.

USAA is facing a serious challenge due to financial services legislation, known as S.3217, being considered by the U.S. Senate right now. We are reaching out to our members, employees and friends in an effort to share details about how the proposed legislation would impact USAA, and we are asking them to take action.

Given your relationship with USAA, I wanted you to know to know our members, employees and friends are enthusiastically responding to this call for an amendment.

As you can imagine, this is a very complex issue and we want everyone to fully understand the impact of this legislation. If you want to learn more, we have updated the content we have on USAA.com. Feel free to take a look: http://budurl.com/legislative and help us spread the word or take action yourself.

Thanks for any help you can provide to support this effort.

4 Ways to Improve Service at Your Military Finance Section

As I've mentioned before, I've infiltrated the military finance world and I've identified several ways you can take action to have a better experience the next time you have a pay issue.

1. Understand the personnel skill level - The customer service section is primarily comprised of E1 -E4s with limited knowledge because they lack experience. A lot of errors are made on their part because they aren't experienced enough to find them.

Your Action: Inform yourself. Make sure your orders are correct and the information you fill out is accurate. Make sure the information the customer service rep is filling out is accurate. Bring everything with you even though you might not need it. Receipts, orders, everything.

2. Make sure you follow-up - The sheer volume of paperwork that the finance customer service processes is daunting. There are walk-ins, e-mails and voice mails that technicians have to process and every document is 5 - 20 pages long. There is no grand way of tracking every detail of that volume. Individual posts or bases may try to track it but it's too much with limited resources and manpower.

Your Action: Follow-up with customer service. Don't assume its been processed. Normally, the cut-off date for actions is the 5th of the month for mid-month pay and the 24th for end-of-month pay. If you haven't seen anything in 10 business days, then call back or walk-in and find out.

3. Try not to use the walk-in method - The DoD is trying to create automated systems to handle military pay to, in the future, eliminate a local finance office. Think DTS for basic TDY's. There are multiple systems that your local finance office should be advertising. Using the walk-in method increases your chances of something going bad with your problem. I've noticed a significant decrease in problems using the automated systems.

Your Action: Be patient when learning new systems. Trust me when I say that using these systems will reduce mistakes.

4. Treat the finance clerk with respect - I've had the local finance office screw up my pay before and I understand how irritating it can be. However, if you go into the local finance office with the highest ranking person you can find and with guns blazing you will get less than satisfactory service. When your problem gets elevated or you act like a fool when you talk to a technician, it takes away from the problem at hand and refocuses attention elsewhere.

Your Action: Bring as much documentation as possible and make the facts be your back up. Bring e-mails and dates that you've tried to contact the local finance office. Take notes of who you talked to and when. Ask to speak to his or her supervisor or OIC (hey, wait a minute, that's me!).

Temporary Lodging Expense (TLE)

The Air Force, and military, pays a lot of money and offers great
allowances/entitlements when it moves military members. Knowledgeable
military members should maximize their entitlements by being educated.
Once great entitlement when PCSing CONUS-CONUS is the Temporary Lodging
Expense (TLE). Members are authorized 10 days of TLE when PCSing
CONUS-CONUS. During TLE, the member must use government quarters, or
must have a non-availability statement, to qualify. The 10 days can be
split up in any amount in the old or new base but only 10 days total can
be used. For example, one can spend 4 days at the old base and 6 days
at the new base.

For some reason, people do not take advantage of all 10 days because
they want to get into a house immediately. During your 10 days of TLE,
you receive full travel per-diem and full dependent (if applicable)
travel per-diem. I don't know why people don't use the full 10 days.
Before PCSing, make sure you listen at the finance briefings because
they are telling you how to make money.

Stop Loss Special Pay

Reposted from Air Force Personnel Center
Retrieved January 12, 2010 from http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/stoploss/index.asp

Approximately 39,000 current and former Airmen who were involuntarily held on active duty beyond an approved separation or retirement date as a result of stop loss between Sept. 11, 2001, and Sept. 30, 2009, may be eligible for a Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay compensation of $500 for each whole or partial month they were affected.

The 2009 War Supplemental Appropriation Act set aside $534.4 million for the Retroactive Stop-Loss Special Pay compensation authority. The Air Force used stop loss for Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and 2002 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The Stop Loss Program may have affected approximately 39,000 Airmen.

Airmen have until Oct. 21, 2010, to file their claim.

This site provides assistance in identifying eligibility, filing claims and answering your questions on Retroactive Stop Loss Special Pay.

http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/stoploss/index.asp