Well I am heading home from my deployment. I will have 'barely' met my financial goals I set while deployed but considering everything I am not at all disappointed.

I will have set aside enough $$ to pay off my Car Loan.

I continued to max out my IRAs for the year as well as put an additional 5K in my brokerage (before the recent drops but oh well).

I guess most of all I am happy and a bit anxious to be heading back to the 'real world'.

I made a bunch of good friends out there and will definitely miss the mission and the impacts we had on the strengthening of the Iraqi Security Forces.

Most of all I will be glad to reunite with my wife and son. It has been 7 mos since I last saw them and he went from being 5 mos to 12 mos old.

Wish me luck!

I am not sure about some of you in the military but I rather enjoy doing finances while deployed.

1. When you see your paycheck you notice there are no federal taxes withheld (except fica, ss, med).

2. You also add in all the combat pay. $250 for family seperation, $225 for Hostile Fire pay, $100 for Hazardous Duty pay.

3. You expenses back on the homefront drop (if you are lucky) since my wife is only spending for herself and my son.

This is where a lot of us in the military get ourselves back in line. I could easily pay off my car loan in the next couple months. But why pay off a 3.9% loan when I can put money in the SDP.

The Savings Deposit Plan is somewhere where deployed service men and women can put in up to $10K and get a guaranteed 10% interest from Uncle Sam.

I was also lucky enough to have internet available for my laptop so I can update Quicken and have easy access to my finances.

- D

Just got notified that I was deploying next week. Kind of a shocker seeing that I was already supposed to deploy in July. Anyway, now its time for last minute scrambling to make sure the wife is set for while I am gone. Least everything is on auto pay and there should be nothing much to take care of.

I felt bad for the wife and decided to move up car buying a year to make sure things are good and easy for her while I am gone. She is enjoying her new Odyssey. Anyway, wish us luck. More for her staying behind with our 4 mo old...