Working in the armed forces can be an extremely rewarding career. You defend your home country on behalf of (and for the benefit of) your fellow citizens, as well as maintaining peacekeeping and contributing to humanitarian efforts on a more global scale. You can experience job roles with authority and responsibility, and you can visit places you wouldn’t have ever otherwise seen. However, there are various circumstances where you can leave the armed forces and feel a little lost financially. While you may experience good pay while you are in your given job role, it’s extremely easy to experience financial difficulty should your leave the forces for any reason. But not to worry. Here are a few pieces of advice that could help you or a loved veteran to find financial stability in life.
Taking out a Mortgage
When you are in the armed forces, you don’t live a standard life. You generally aren’t engaging as much with the consumer market, taking out financial products such as credit cards and small loans, and building your credit score. This means that you can experience difficulty in taking out large scale loans when you leave the military. The majority of us want to become homeowners, but without a credit history, how can a veteran expect a standard mortgage lender to trust them with taking out a large enough loan to purchase a property? They won’t have sufficient proof that you are capable of borrowing and returning money on a smaller scale. This doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you will need to spend the foreseeable future slowly building your score though. Instead, search for VA loan limit in my area and find a suitable veteran-orientated loan to suit your mortgaging needs.
Setting up a Small Business
It takes a whole lot of courage to serve in the armed forces. Individuals working within this field also tend to naturally encapsulate characteristics such as dedication, fortitude, willpower, and flexibility. While they are willing to take risks, these risks tend to be extremely well thought out, and will only be acted on when there’s a good chance of success. While these skills help them to excel in battles to defend our country, they are also transferable, and can come in extremely useful for other pursuits when the individual becomes a veteran and starts to take their life in a different direction. One direction that veterans tend to prosper in is business. These skills can see a small start up grow from humble beginnings into a profound success. However, if you’re not sat on a pile of savings that you can use to kickstart a business, you could find difficulty setting up to start with! If you find yourself in this situation, make use of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Veteran Entrepreneur Portal. This will connect you with various federal services that can help to provide you with funding or to direct you to appropriate funding.
While veterans may feel a little lost when returning to the standard world outside of the military, it’s important that they don’t feel financially isolated. These are just a couple of pieces of advice that could serve to improve their lifestyle significantly!
