needsrepair said:
Good Luck young MAN. Dont worry about the candy asses remarks. Do whats best for you. I think the military would have been best for me and many others. It should be mandatory. Learn everything you can. I used to have friends tell me "YOUR LUCKY". NO I wasnt LUCKY......... I was under Dodge power wagons all night with salt water dripping in my face and fixing fork trucks during the day. I wasnt sitting in the bar all the time. Keep your head down, NO drugs, dont drink too much, AND keep your dick in your pants, any moron can go screw, a man can control himself. Dont destroy yourself with a short lived gratification and 18 years of child support. There are gold diggers all over. The woman in the bar may just be sizing you guys up as to see if you have health care and a steady pay check, not because of what service you joined. A gal in a local bar told a bunch of us mechanics that they would recognize the high paid/skilled trades guys by the blue coveralls we had on. Gees, us being a bunch of dumb guys thought it was our GOOD LOOKS, lol. Prepare yourself for the future. Education/skill, Good job, decent woman, own home, kids. The colleges are full of liberals pumping young peoples heads full of crap. Piss on them. Remember A is A and B is B, dont fool yourself or make excuses in life, dont look back, keep moving forward. If you want to talk to people that actually know something talk and hang with older guys, they have been there and done that.Old dosent equal smart, you have to sort them out. When you talk to the school boys, they dont know anything they are young too and dont know shit. You heard the one about the young bull and the old bull.....young bull wanted to run down to the pasture and screw one of the cows........the old bull said lets walk down and screw ALL of them. Good Luck.
There is a lot of common sense in those statements, set up a bank account in your home town, when it comes time to do the pay allotments send $100-$200 a month at least to that account and leave the debit card home as well as the checkbook, just leave it alone and forget about it for 4 years or however long you decide to stay in and buy a $100 savingsbond and have that sent home, live off the rest. Take advantage of the college courses that are taught on base, they are free while you are in and you can knock alot of the 101 course requirements in english, math, psych, etc out of the way and be that much further ahead if you decide to go to college when you get out and the course will also help in your military advancement, those points add up. The military uses only direct depost now, you will have to setup an account to have it deposited to, have the hometown bank for one allotment and the federal credit union as the other, like I said, leave the hometown card/checks home, get the card for the credit union and use that for living on. I still have my navy federal credit union account and stick whatever I can in it towards my new jeep 4 door wrangler, it's tough to get at [I don't have the card and don't want it] which keeps me from pulling it out for 'emergencies' like if you blow your money on a weekend binge.
A tougher thing is stay out of the bars with your buddies, going out and having a few beers is one thing but partying is a total waste of money not to mention the gold digging bar hogs looking for a meal ticket.
I wasted a boatload of bucks when I was stationed at the sub base in Groton Ct, I was from Randolph NJ, I'd go home on weekends, drive 2 hours on friday and 2 hours on sunday, $55 a weekend in gas/tolls, total waste of resources for 3 years. I totally ignored the stuff available in the area and on base, I kick myself now but never even thought about it back then though I did work for a van customizer for a while and made some decent bucks on the evenings and weekends I couldn't go home, too bad the light bulb never went off.
When you do get out, convert the life insurance, convert the life insurance and I'll say again, CONVERT THE LIFE INSURANCE do not blow that off, go price it yourself and you will see why.
Good luck, my son heads for Paris Island and USMC boot camp in january after he graduates from college in dec, I'm proud of him though worried at the same time, I wish he had picked the Navy but at least I know he'll be well trained before they send him over to the sandbox.
*when you do go to bootcamp, take a deposit slip and a check with you from your home account, mark the check 'void', they will need it to setup the direct deposit, sometimes a blank check works and sometimes a deposit slip works, depends on who is setting it up.
One last thing, DO NOT get your parents or any body else's names on that home town account. Trust me on this, no matter the good intentions there is a good chance it will turn around and bite you in the ass, money can be very touchy thing, this way there is no temptation to 'borrow' any and get into arguments later, there is nothing worse than getting a statement and finding it a few thou short...
atriot: :us:
