Thursday, April 06, 2006

Another 6 Years

Today my husband just reenlisted in the military for another six years. This pretty much guarantees that he will be going career since you either invest 20 years in the military or you get no retirement. My husband was very much on the fence about this pre Evan. He had this thought that there was this perfect job out there where no one would annoy him and the working position would be perfect.

Reality, in the form of Evan's heart defect, convinced him that it is best for the family that he stay in. Evan's heart defect means that insurance will be a huge problem for us. He could make more money on the outside but then we would have to pay insane premiums for bad coverage which would eat up any gains we would make in salary. We would also most likely be making too much money to qualify for state aide, which I would not even want my son on unless we really had to. I don't want him to be treated like a charity case.

We also get a nice bonus which will be saved for the day when we move to a state without insane housing prices. My husband longs for a house of his own, he has since we got married. He was a real estate agent pre-military but he is such a nice guy that he only managed to sell one house and it was to his sister. The funny thing is that house was only a few houses away from my parents so they keep in better contact with them that we do. He had us looking at houses when all we could qualify for was a $60, 000 loan. Even in a place without the insane prices of California (we were in Utah at the time) that much does not buy you a lot.

I think that all in all the military is a good place for our family right now. We will have to be moving around a lot, but I kind of like the thrill of moving to a place I have never seen before and finding housing in 10 days. I have met a lot of neat people and with the internet I do not have to loose contact with them. I love that this job provides enough money for the family that I am able to stay at home with the kids. Here's to another six years!!! Cheers!

2 comments:

Gina said...

Best of luck to all of you, Melissa.

chichimama said...

Good luck! My sister's husband is career military as well. She agrees that email is great for keeping in touch. And they frequently land up with someone they already know, or a friend of friend. And military familys are great at welcoming newcommers, she thinks.