How to Make Your New Duty Station Feel Like Home

by a.ashford0410 | Jul 31, 2023 | Homemaking, Milspouse 101

You’ve finally gotten past your first PCS, and all the stress is behind you. Now your kids are at school, your husband is at work, and you’re in this new house that feels foreign and strange. How do you make your new duty station feel like home?

You Need a Routine

The first thing I recommend is establishing a routine. It’s important to get back to your schedule when you move. Begin doing the things that were familiar in the past. At your last duty station, if you ran errands on Wednesdays and went to the gym Tuesday and Thursday, try and keep those things consistent. Once those habits kick back in, you’ll start feeling familiar with your new home.

Decorate Your Home

Next, you need to decorate. Picture frames, pillows, blankets, rugs. Whatever you used before, try to incorporate in your new house. Of course, it’s fun to update your home with new items, but you want to recognize it as belonging to you and your family, and a simple way to do that is by bringing in aspects that feel familiar to you.

Explore the Community

If you want to feel at home, you’ll also want to get out into the community. Go out and explore your surroundings. Hike a trail, join the spouses’ club, volunteer at the USO. During the holidays, you can attend a local parade or potluck. See how your community operates and become a part of it.

Make Friends

My final tip is to try to make friends. I know it’s easier said than done, but whether or not you have a support network can make or break your experience. The fact is, your husband won’t be home all the time, and you need someone (or group of someone’s) who can come over for coffee, watch your kiddos while you get a pedicure, or just listen while you vent. Being a military spouse is tough, but we have a built in network of women with whom we can relate if we’re willing.

Moving is stressful, and moving often is difficult, but there are ways to feel comfortable and at home. If you can establish a routine, jazz up your home with some familiar decor, get out into the community, and make friends, then when it’s time to PCS, you’ll wonder how you’re ever going to leave this home you’ve created, that once felt so foreign.

New to the military life? Get my guide with 5 facts about the military and what your husband needs from you HERE

How to Live on ONE Income for Milspouses

by a.ashford0410 | Feb 28, 2023 | Homemaking, Milspouse 101

Many of us desire to stay home with our babies and to be keepers of our home, but we worry that we won’t survive off of one income. Its no secret, the military isn’t a get-rich career, and most service members don’t join for that reason anyway. The fact remains, with a family, one needs money.

First, you need to lay out every bill, monthly payment, and subscription. Total everything up, and decide what you can live without. I like the Every Dollar App for this. I recommend living significantly below your means in the beginning. Just because you can afford it, doesn’t mean you should purchase it.

A HUGE way to live below your means in the military is, if you choose to live in town, (off a military installation) find a modest home, where your rent is less than the service member’s BAH (housing allowance). You can save that extra money, and apply it to utilities, a monthly bill, or put it straight in your savings account.

Another great way to decrease your monthly spending is to make meals from scratch at home. If you’re not a cook, never fear. I could barely scramble eggs when I got married, but found tons of recipes on Pinterest, and gradually became for comfortable in the kitchen. Since the beginning of my marriage, I have made my husband’s breakfast and coffee at home, (no Starbucks), and packed leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, for his lunch.

Next, is your grocery budget. 95% of the foods we eat are made in our kitchen. So we buy LOTS of foods in bulk. If you have a larger family, you may want to consider a bulk store membership like Costco or Sam’s. Bulk buying is often more cost-effective, and your food will last longer in between grocery trips. Another grocery budgeting tip, is to have your groceries delivered. This way, you aren’t tempted inside the store to purchase foods that you don’t actually need. If delivery isn’t an option, just make a list of what you need and stick to it.

If you want to get ahead, and begin saving for the future, you can look into additional income streams. You can sell old items on FB Marketplace, or you can sell your own creations on Etsy. If you have a skill or can provide a service, offer to do it in your community a few times a week, and charge for your services. For info on how I earn an income while still bring home with my kiddos and husband fill out this form

Cutting back on spending and living on one income can seem daunting at first, but its a sacrifice thats SO worth it. When we are available to our families and have the opportunity to be present with our babies, we will be grateful that we took the steps to scale back and make time for the things that matter.

Why I Will Be a Housewife for Life

by a.ashford0410 | Feb 6, 2023 | Homemaking, Milspouse 101

When I graduated high school, I went straight to a 4-year university. My parents have degrees, and that was the natural progression. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, but I had time to figure it out. I came from a middle class family. My parents paid for most of my education, and I took out student loans to cover the rest.

As an A/B student, and student athlete in high school, I didn’t expect to struggle at all in college. Then I encountered something I’d never anticipated: distractions. I was still an athlete with morning workouts, evening practices and weekend games. But suddenly, there were mixers, and parties, and shows, and I began to favor those distractions over my classes. This went on for my entire sophomore year.

By the start of my junior year, I decided to buckle down, choose a major, and really focus on the reason I was there. I majored in mass communications with a concentration in public relations. I worked extremely hard, joined an organization within my major, went to networking conferences, and even landed an internship in the marketing department at my university. Those two years of hard work really paid off-I graduated at the end of my 4th year and my GPA within my major was a 3.5. Not bad.

About 6 months after graduating, having gone on several interviews to no avail, and even attempting to join the military as an officer, it occurred to me that my experience in college may not have been as necessary as I had once thought. Over the next few years, I worked part time in several different industries. None-that I loved, and none that I felt were using the gifts that I knew I had.

After meeting my husband, getting married, and having our first child, we decided that I’d stay home with her full time. I had always wanted to be a mother, and it just made sense to us, that I’d be home to raise them. The next few years brought financial stress as my husband was still new to the Marine Corps and his paychecks were meager.

We learned to save and to stick to a budget and year after year as our family grew, and he rose through the ranks, the burden became lighter and lighter.

New Territory

After getting stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and birthing our third child, I decided I wanted to do something new. The American Red Cross was offering training for a Dental Assistant position in several local military dental clinics. My husband agreed that it would be good for me, and I applied and got in! Over the next few months, while my children were in childcare, I went to class. My daughter began her first day of kindergarten, and I was in class. I felt guilty, but justified it by reminding myself that I needed to do this.

When I graduated and began working, I noticed a huge change. Not o my was I pregnant again, but I was exhausted. All my energy went to my job and when I came home, my family got what was leftover. I no longer looked forward to cooking dinner for my family and hearing about my husband’s day. I didn’t even both making my husband breakfast in the mornings, because I was rushing to get the kids to childcare to get to work on time.

Over the next few months a series of unfortunate events ensued. My husband ended up in ICU with septic pneumonia and I couldn’t leave work to visit him because I hadn’t accumulated enough leave time. One of my children had an allergic reaction to food he was given at childcare, and my other child was left outside when her care providers and classmates went back inside. Needless to say, being present at the job that I loved, was causing problems with the family that I had created.

Lesson Learned

After the birth of our fourth baby, we decided that I’d stay home from now on. It took time, stress, and a lot of guilt, but I finally realized that my primary job was to be a keeper of our home and a present mom to our children. I no longer desired to leave my home to feel accomplished. Or that I needed to contribute financially. Soon after, my job found a new dental assistant to fill my position. But I can never be replaced in my position at home. Who better to spend my time on, and share my gifts with, than my own family?

I know I’m a little radical in my thinking, but I strongly believe that women, especially those of us married to service members, are doing ourselves and our families a disservice by seeking to work outside the home, if it causes our family to suffer as a consequence. What if we all focused our talents and gifts on keeping tidy welcoming homes where our husbands and children could retire for the day? What if we could greet our husbands at the door with a hot meal prepared and a smile? What if we had time and energy to bake cookies for our children for their after school snack, help with their homework, and make sure their silly socks were clean for spirit week?

Since coming to this realization in Okinawa, my husband’s job has caused us to move twice, and no matter where we live in this world, my job remains the same. And I can tell you, I’ve never been more fulfilled.