- I inherited $110,000 in student loan debt when I married my husband and knew we had to pay it off.
- As a dual-military couple, we live one pay grade below our current grade and use the rest for debt.
- We also use just one of our Basic Allowances for Housing to pay our mortgage and save the other.
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When I married my husband, I inherited a not-insubstantial amount of debt in the form of his student loans. I accepted that this was pretty much par for the course; almost everyone I know has student loans (I was lucky to graduate without them). But our number horrified me.
After bloody dissection of our finances, it turned out that we owed $110,000, all student loans except for $5,000 in credit card debt. And even though we are both active-duty military officers, my husband would not qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness because the majority of his loans are Parent Plus loans in his father’s name, not his own.
I reasoned that, between our two military salaries and benefits, we could pay everything off in five years. But then, we found out we were expecting our first child. Suddenly “the money thing” took on a stronger sense of urgency.
We created an airtight budget, itemized every dollar we spent, made spreadsheets to track our progress, and forsook all unnecessary expenses. I read several books on personal finance (which I borrowed free from the public library) and scoured Military OneSource for opportunities to save more money.
A year has now passed since my husband and I had that first painful conversation about our finances, and we’ve paid off more than $40,000 in debt — twice as much as I’d predicted. Now we’re projected to pay the remaining balance by this time next year.
Here are some of the key ways we’ve maximized our military pay and benefits to accelerate our debt payoff.
We live one pay grade below what we currently make and save the rest
Basic military pay is determined by rank, grade, and time in service. The Department of Defense publishes charts that show the amount service members should receive each month based on this information. My husband and I use that chart to see what we would make at the next lower grade and plan our budget with that number in mind so that saving the remainder is automatic.
My last department head gave me this tip and it has saved my family hundreds of dollars a month. Plus, we only use one of our incomes for living expenses. The other goes to savings and debt payoff.
We use our Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) to our advantage
BAH is a tax-exempt, US-based housing allowance for service…
Read More: How a Dual-Military Couple Paid Off $40,000 of Student Loans in a Year