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 Military Saves campaign
battles debt
Story and Photo By Army Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy
National Guard Bureau
ANDREWS AFB, Md. (2/5/09) -
Servicemembers have been lulled into a false sense of financial
security by marketing campaigns that encourage them to overspend.
It's a real David vs. Goliath battle
that Air Force Chaplain (Maj.) Sarah Shirley is all too familiar with.
"We're this little guy with a
slingshot up against this big giant and we're saying, 'save money,
don't take out that other loan, buy a used car.'"
This is just some of the advice
offered by the Military Saves campaign, which helps military members
change their spending habits to achieve financial independence.
The campaign, which launched
throughout the Department of Defense in 2007, is a financial readiness
campaign designed to persuade and encourage servicemembers and their
families to reduce their personal debt and save money.
Fostering and encouraging military
members to save money comes about in several ways, said Shirley, the
campaign director, who is currently stationed here at the Air National
Guard Readiness Center.
Positive peer pressure is one method
of influence the campaign uses, she said. This is reinforced by units
pledging to become a Military Saves unit, whose members work with each
other to promote positive financial habits.
"Many of us just need support
from other folks," Shirley said. "So, if your unit becomes a
Military Saves unit, you intentionally throughout the year support each
other and encourage each other with saving money and getting out of
debt."
But the campaign also takes other
steps as well, such as holding Saver Drives, which encourage military
members to donate a portion of their paycheck each month to a savings
account or toward paying down existing debt.
Shirley said she saw many of the
effects of debt at her first duty station. "I was assigned to a
tech training base," she said. "(I did) lots and lots of
pastoral care and counseling. A lot of people were away from home for
the first time, homesick and (some had) family problems and things like
that.
"I came to notice very early on
that whether I was dealing with an E-2 or an O-5, there was one common
theme in the counseling cases, which was a lot of people had
significant financial problems."
As a result, Shirley began to offer
workshops in the chapel that focused on money management, but poor
financial habits were something she would continue to see.
"In 2003, I moved to Eglin Air
Force Base and guess what? Same deal, except more," she said.
"(More than) 90 percent of the people I saw for pastoral care and
counseling had a significant financial management problem."
While Shirley continued to offer
workshops in the chapel, she said she realized something more was
needed. "We had this fabulous program at the chapel and people
were changing their minds (about saving money), but they would go from
the chapel program to their offices or shops or to the flight line and
they'd be encouraged to overspend instead of being encouraged to build
wealth through savings and debt reduction."
The idea for the Military Saves
campaign came from a pamphlet she read in a realtor's office.
"I picked up a brochure for the
America Saves campaign," she said. "This is a social
marketing campaign to persuade Americans to get out of debt and save
money, and ultimately raise our personal savings rate and reduce our
personal debt load in this country.
"I ran back to my office. I was
so excited, because this was the social change we needed to support the
troops."
Though the America Saves campaign
wasn't specifically geared toward servicemembers, it did offer many
resources for those in uniform.
After contacting the program
managers, as well as working through her chain of command, Shirley
worked to establish a military-specific campaign toward debt reduction.
"Through a task force that was a
cooperative among the Department of Defense, all the military services,
defense credit unions, military banks and the nonprofit campaign
sponsor - the Consumer Federation - we determined that what we needed was
a purple campaign and we formed Military Saves," she said.
And as she worked to establish a way
for others to work toward saving, it caused her to re-examine her own
monetary habits.
"I started looking at myself and
I realized, wow, I've been kind of reckless about money and sort of
living paycheck to paycheck all these 40 years and maybe I needed to do
something about my financial situation as well," she said.
For Shirley, the cause of the high
debt load that many, both servicemembers and civilians, carry can be
attributed to one thing - marketing.
"Marketing works or companies
wouldn't have huge advertising budgets," she said. "Debt,
consumer debt, and consumption beyond our means have been marketed to
Americans for decades now and it's worked. We have an incredible level
of comfort with debt, with credit card debt, with car loans."
The campaign has won a few battles.
"Some (servicemembers) have bought rental houses, some have
eliminated credit card debt," Shirley said. "Others have
gotten rid of their car they were making payments on and gotten a car
they aren't making payments on, and others have simply started with the
basics by putting 10 percent of their check each month into savings
vehicles. It's pretty exciting."
And that translates to better unit
readiness and cohesion as well, especially when it comes to
deployments.
"I see it as a readiness boost
when people are happy to be deployed, because they've got their
finances in order and they can take advantage of the Savings Deposit
Program (see note below), they can put more money into (the Thrift
Savings Program) so then, they have a real bonus."
Financial readiness and sound choices
are just two of the goals of the campaign.
"(This) is a way to organize
lots of voices, at lots of different levels, from four-star generals to
E-1s that will all get on board and arm their slingshots with this
positive savings message," she said. "And you remember, David
won. So we can win this too."
Military
Saves was made possible in part through the generous support of the
FINRA Investor Education Foundation. Please visit www.SaveAndInvest.org.
Military
Saves is also supported by Wells Fargo Bank, Chase Bank, USAA
and Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University Military Edition.
Together, we can build wealth, not debt.
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