Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

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Planning Vacations as a Military Family

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I have received compensation for this post from TravelCenters of America. All opinions and work are my own.

Planning Vacations as a Military Family

 

Planning Vacations as a Military Family

“They took away my weekend pass.” He said.

“What? How is that possible? We are leaving tomorrow!”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying. We had been in Germany just about two months and we had planned our first trip. We were going to take the train to Salzburg and meet up with a friend of mine that live in Austria. We would spend two nights in Salzburg exploring the city. Salzburg was the first city on my Germany bucket list. And now my husband tells me he can’t go.

Little did I know that this can happen. In our case, I was able to put my son in hourly for the next day. My husband picked him up after work and stayed with him while I went on ahead and met my friend in Austria. My friend and I had a great time but we lost money on the train tickets and I always wonder what that trip could have been like.

Months later I was sitting at the base travel agent getting ready to buy tickets to California. I had probably asked my husband about ten times if it was okay to buy them. He was coming home from deployment and then we were going to fly to California for a month. If I bought the tickets and the dates changed, we would be out money. I was so worried that his homecoming date would change yet again. He assured me that they had assured them that this is when their leave would be and we were okay to buy tickets. So I did, I worried the whole time but I did and we were able to go to California as planned.

One of the truths about military life is that plans are never set in stone until they happen.

There are many reasons why there could be delays. Leave can be canceled or changed. So what can a military family to in order to plan a vacation? How can you make plans for anything without running the risk of losing money? What are you to do?

So what can a military family do in order to plan a vacation? How can you make plans for anything without running the risk of losing money? What are you to do?

Over the years I have learned the hard way about what you can do and what you should do when you are a military family who wants to plan a vacation. I hope these tips can help you to military proof your vacation plans…

1. Know that things can change. One thing you have to do is know that things can change. Know that you might have to change your dates around or deal with canceled leave. Knowing this is a possibility ahead of time will help you deal with the disappointment a little better when a cancellation or delay happens. I had no idea they could take away your leave after you booked your trip, but that is what happened. After that, I knew that things could change, even at the last-minute.

2. Find good companies. I have learned that if you can go with companies that allow you to change your dates for free or for a low price, do so. This isn’t always possible but before you book anything to find out what you would have to do to change your dates. That way you will know what you will be dealing with if plans change. Some companies might even accept deployment orders as a reason for why you are having to change the date.

3. Be flexible on your dates if you can. If possible, keep your dates open-ended. This is possible if you are visiting family and don’t have to book anything. Let your family know that the dates are tentative and you are not 100% sure those will be the actual dates you are there. This will help with any expectations your family has about when they will see you.

4. Have a backup plan. Always have a backup plan. What would you do if your spouse’s leave was cancelled? Would you go on the trip without your spouse? Would you postpone for another time? Cut the trip short? By having a plan you will know what your next step is if things change.

5. Don’t tell the kids. For the love, don’t tell your kids. I know that is hard for some people, I want to tell my kids the minute we have plans to go anywhere. But a lot of kids won’t understand that changing things last-minute is how the military works. You don’t want to have to deal with a child that thought they were going to their favorite amusement park and then they were not.

Supporting the military

Speaking of traveling…as it is summertime right now, a lot of you will be out on the roads taking vacations. I wanted to let you know about how TravelCenters of America are honoring Active Military and Veterans. For six weeks this summer travel season, customers are encouraged to visit TravelCenters of America LLC (TravelCenters TA® and Petro Stopping Centers®) to support military heroes. 

TravelCenters is honoring the sacrifice of active military personnel and veterans by encouraging restaurant guests to order a meal in support of the National Military Family Association (NMFA), a nonprofit that works to strengthen and protect military families. From June 28 to August 5, participating Country Pride and Iron Skillet locations will donate $1.00 to the NMFA for each entrée ordered from a select group of menu items.

How great is that? 

 

The Olympic Paints And Stains Weather-Ready Truck Tour & Lowes Gift Card Giveaway

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This is a sponsored post. I only recommend products or services that I think my readers would enjoy!

Summer is pretty much here in Tennessee. There is something about this time of year that makes me want to change some things in my home and work on some DIY projects. I have a long list.

That is why this is the perfect time of year for the Olympic Paints And Stains Weather-Ready Truck Tour. This tour kicked off in Indianapolis. During their 21-stop tour they came to Clarksville, near Ft. Campbell.

The Olympic Paints And Stains Weather-Ready Truck Tour will showcase the flexibility of Olympic Maximum Stain. You can use the stain when you want to, not when the weather dictates.

The Olympic Paints and Stain’s truck and trailer will showcase three alternative weather scenarios:

  • Rain-Ready: a stormy sky provides a backdrop for guests to don a rain slicker and participate in a hands-on demo of damp wood application.
  • Cold Weather: consumers will learn more from a brand ambassador about Olympic Maximum stain’s ability to be applied in temperatures as low as 35 degrees.
  • Warm Weather: the final activation features gigantic, oversized stained Adirondack chairs which provide a viewing area to watch as guests contribute the paint brush they used as part of their stain demo to an attempt at a Guinness World Record-breaking mosaic.

Olympic Paints And Stains Weather-Ready Truck Tour

 

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Visitors will then be able to contribute their paint brush to a large mosaic measuring more than 85ft in an attempt at setting the new Guinness World Record.

The Olympic Maximum stain is great for decks, fences, siding, railings, outdoor furniture, and other wood surfaces. Use the stain for waterproof protection and to extend the life of your deck.

Sound interesting? The tour still has 7 stops left. Any of them near you?

Saturday, May 28 – LOWE’S OF WEST KNOXVILLE, TN

Sunday, May 29 – LOWE’S OF N. KNOXVILLE, TN

Monday, May 30 – LOWE’S OF E. KNOXVILLE, TN

Thursday, June 02 – LOWE’S OF LEXINGTON, NC

Friday, June 03 – LOWE’S OF WINSTON WEST, NC

Saturday, June 04 – LOWE’S OF NORTH WINSTON, NC

Monday, June 06 – LOWE’S OF CHARLOTTE NORTHLAKE MALL, NC

Now for the giveaway! Olympic will be giving away a $100 Gift Card to Lowe’s to one of my readers. You could get started on any number of projects with one of those 🙂 Just enter the Rafflecopter below.

 

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Pay Down Debt After Active Duty Life

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Pay Down Debt After Active Duty Life

I am working with Credit Karma® to bring you this #Sponsored Post.

Pay Down Debt After Active Duty Life

In June of 2014, my husband went from active duty Army to the National Guard. This was a big step for us. This meant that he would no longer be bringing home his paycheck on the 1st and 15th of the month. This meant that we would pay more for insurance and we would no longer receive BAH. This also meant finding a new job and taking a pay cut.

Getting out of the military is no easy task.

Finding a new career and a new purpose can take a lot of time. This is exactly how things have been for us. Trying different jobs and trying to figure out what works. This is all a process and I know things don’t happen overnight but being patient is difficult.

During the last few years, we have had to make some hard choices when it comes to spending our money. We want to eventually be out of debt and we want to be able to give our children a good childhood. The balance of that while trying to find a new job can be difficult.

One of the best ways to get out of debt is to know what your financial situation is. Knowing how much debt you have, how much each of the payments is and when they are due is important. Tracking your credit health will help you know where you are and how far you are from where you want to be financially.

We want to get out of debt so we can eventually make a move back to the West Coast to be closer to family. This will require a lot of work but I know we can eventually get there.

Using an app like Credit Karma® is going to help us get there. We can use this app to track how we are doing and follow-up on our debts and credit health.

has a few tools that make doing this pretty easy.

After setting up an account you should be able to see what is called your VantageScore 3.0. This is what you can track over time as your credit improves. Using this score you can see that you are improving.

is a great app for military families, no matter what stage of life you are in. I know this app will help us in our after Army/ Guard life and it can also help families as they go through other changes during their military careers.

Did you know that 20% of Active Duty families have over $10,000 of credit card debt? This means that so many would benefit from a tool that can help them track their debt and get back on track.

Here are some other features of Credit Karma that will help you track your financial health:

Credit Factors

In this section, you can check on how well you are doing with your credit card utilization. This is how much credit you are using vs how much credit you have access to. If your balances are too close to your limit, you are going to have a higher percentage. You can also track your payment history, any derogatory marks, age of accounts, total accounts and hard inquiries.

Credit Score Simulator

is such a helpful tool. You can plug in different numbers to find out what your score would be when you have less debt. This is an encouraging tool to use as you work towards your goal.

Direct Dispute™ 

If you ever see anything wrong on your credit report you can use this tool to dispute the mistake.  This tool will notify a credit bureau of the errors. As many as 1 out of 4 credit reports can contain errors. If you are one of them you want to fix it as soon as possible.

Credit Karma will provide access to your credit reports from two major bureaus. They will update every week as well. This credit monitoring can help families catch fraud early as well as understand where they are financially at any time. And best of all, Credit Karma is free.

I plan to use to help track how we are doing as we work on our debt and work towards our future goals.

You know what can help with debt reduction? Winning a giveaway 🙂 I will be giving away a $50 Visa Gift Card to one of my readers. Just enter the giveaway below…

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Now, go check out the and see how you can start tracking your own credit to get you to your financial goals.

Use Dealspotr To Save Money And Earn Rewards

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I don’t know about you but I love to find a good deal. Before I finish checking out in an online store or before I go to an actual store planning to spend money, I like to search for coupons or coupon codes. More often than not, the store has one and I can use that coupon or code to save money. Even if the amount is just a couple of dollars or free shipping, I love to find them.

dealspotr

I had the chance to review the website Dealspotr and set up an account. I am now a ProBlogger over there. I have been using Dealspotr for the last few weeks and having a lot of fun with the site. There is a lot you can do and you can actually earn gift cards by earning points. Who doesn’t love to earn gift cards? I am working towards a $10 Amazon card.

Signup

The first thing I did was sign up which was easy to do. You can sign up with Facebook.

Add Stores

The first thing I did was to start following stores. I went through their list and added a lot of the stores I normally shop at. Target, Old Navy, Payless, Sears, Amazon, etc. By adding stores you can start following them and following their deals.

Spots

The next step was to start to use my spots. You start with 3, I have 10 now. You get more spots the more you are able to spot deals. Spots are when you “spot” a deal. If it gets “hot” then you get points. The amount of points you get depends on which person you were in the list of people who spotted the deal. For example, being the 4th person can get you 25 points and being the 1st can get you 200. Your goal is to be one of the first to spot the deal but you will get points as long as the deal you spotted goes hot.

Connect

After I figured out how all of this worked, I started to connect with others. You can connect by “following” people. Then, when you are looking for your spots you can pull up who you follow. This can make it easier to find a good deal. You can also comment on their deals and they can comment on yours. This creates a bit of a community on the site. All people looking and finding deals.

Add Deals

Another way to earn points and be a part of the community is adding deals yourself. This is as simple as finding deals in your email and adding them to the site. Dealspotr tells you if the deal has already been posted. Then people can follow your deals and you earn points when they do that too.

dealspotr

What I Like About Dealspotr

I admit, I love sites where you can earn points and then earn gift cards. I want these sites to be organized and work well. I want to be able to come and only have to spend a few minutes a day on them. Dealspotr is one of these sites. I like how if you only have a few minutes a day you can go, find your spot,  add a deal, connect with a few others and sit back and earn points the rest of the day. This site takes a few minutes to learn how to use but then once you figure it out, you will want to visit every day. Dealspotr is a site where you can easily earn points for rewards by sharing, liking and discussing deals. Deals you might be looking for anyway. Why not earn something from doing that?

Sound good? Come join me over at Dealspotr. Start earning points and gift cards too 🙂

Find the best coupons, promo codes, and deals everyday at Dealspotr

 

  • This post contains affiliate links 🙂

Living Without Your Furniture During A Military Move

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This post brought to you by CORT. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Soldier’s Wife, Crazy Life.

Moving is a part of life when you are a military family. We have moved four times since my husband joined the Army in 2005. Other people have moved even more times than that in the same amount of time. Moving can be stressful and requires a lot of planning.

Living Without Your Furniture During A Military Move

When we moved from Germany to Ft. Campbell we shipped all of our belongs ahead of time knowing it would take about six weeks until we saw them again. We would have a week in Germany before we moved and then a week in a hotel in the states before we were able to move into our rental home in Tennessee. That meant we would have four weeks without most of our belongings and with none of our furniture. That mean four weeks sleeping on an air mattress.

During this time I was also newly pregnant so the air mattress was not ideal. I also wished I had a kitchen table and some of our couches to sit on. At the time, we couldn’t go out and buy new ones, especially since we knew we would get our things in a few weeks time.

When I heard about CORT Furniture Rental I thought about those four weeks and how nice it would have been to have been able to rent some furniture while we waited for our furniture and other belongings to cross the ocean to join us. We could have had a place to sit and eat dinner and a bed to sleep on instead of feeling like we were camping with our air mattresses and sitting on camp chairs to eat. We would have felt more moved in if we had been able to do so.

Moving With The Military

CORT is more than a furniture rental company. They provide services and solutions for individuals who are going through a transition and companies that want to make a change. You can use their services if you are going through a relocation, on a temporary assignment, moving off-campus after living in the dorms or while you wait for your things during a military move.

We all know that military moves can be stressful. There is a lot you will need to do to get ready for them and once you move there will be a lot you need to do in order to feel at home. With CORT Furniture Rental you can make that part of the process a little easier. This service can also be great for single military men and women. They might not want to invest in a lot of furniture especially if they will be deploying off and on. When they rent furniture through CORT they can order online and will be able to get out of their contract with deployment orders if need me. That way they can have furniture when they are home and not have to worry about it when they are deployed.

Josh is one of these men…you can check out his story here…

CORT also offers military pricing which allows military families to save money. Military packages start at $119/mo. Customers will need to submit a valid Military ID to receive this discount.

Military Moves

If you are moving soon and would benefit from furniture rental, check out CORT and what they have to offer. They could be just what you are looking for to make your PCS a little less stressful and allow you to get back to everyday living a little sooner. I know we would have loved to have used CORT back when we were moving back to the US from overseas.

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Old Spice Hardest Working Collection Toolkit Giveaway

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Did you get a chance to read my post from last weekend about Old Spice’s Hardest Working Collection?

Would you like a chance to win your own toolkit? You can win it for you or someone else in your family! This toolkit is great and comes with a lot of cool goodies.

Old Spice GiveawayHere is what you will get inside your very own tool box…

  • FREE entry into a 2016 Tough Mudder event to challenge the performance of the Hardest Working Collection
  • An Old Spice t‐shirt fitting for Legendary Men
  • A gift from Tough Mudder partner Merrell to keep more than your armpits dry
  • An autographed photo from the product king himself, Bob Giovanni (as seen on Old Spice’s popular digital infomercials)
  • Recognition of your Legendary status with a customizable trophy, as commemorated by Old Spice
  • One of each Old Spice product to put you through the paces as you lead your legendary existence.

Sweet huh?

Old Spice

Whoever wins will have fun with this giveaway. The tool box is great and can be used for a lot of great things. You get some of the products to try and the extras are great as well.

Old Spice

 

Old spice

 

Enter the giveaway below and don’t forget to get your Old Spice Coupons as well 🙂

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Old Spice (P&G). The opinions and text are all mine.

The Hardest Working Man

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My husband. After 10 years as an active duty soldier is now a part of the National Guard. This means he has two jobs. Monday through Friday he works outside at his regular job. Once a month he puts on his uniform and does his Army job.  Both jobs are pretty demanding and he works hard juggling both. He started a new job in March and after his first week he had drill. That was a long week for us but he did it without complaining.

Old Spice

 

Old Spice
On the weekends, we always try to spend some time as a family. This last weekend we went to a local park. My husband loves sports so he had a good time playing with the football and soccer ball in the big green belt. He is so good with the boys, always has been. I am so lucky to have that in a husband.

Whether he is working at his regular job, going to drill or home with his family, he is doing what he can to be there for us.

Old spice

 

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He was very excited to see the Old Spice Tool box kit with the Hardest Working  Collection come to our house. He has been a fan of Old Spice for a while. We both love how it smells and the names of the different scents that they come up with are perfect. Lasting Legend? Stronger Swagger? Fresher Fiji? Love them!

Old Spice

With the new Hardest Working Collection, Old Spice is taking performance up a notch. They will be offering the highest-performing Old Spice anti-perspirants and body washes in the world. Delivering Legendary protection for the Legendary man. The anti-perspirants protect from odor and sweat with body washes that don’t dry out the skin. Leaving it clean after a hard days work.

The Hardest Working Collection products are available at retailers nationwide. You can also download coupons to help save you money at .

Odor Blocker Anti‐Perspirant/Deodorant

The Odor Blocker is Old’s Spice’s most powerful invisible solid anti‐perspirant/deodorant, delivering legendary performance through stronger and longer sweat protection than its other collections and a 50 percent increase in BCD odor fighting technology that only Old Spice can claim. Odor Blocker’s unique invisible solid anti‐perspirant formula forms better plugs to protect against sweat.

Old Spice

Dirt Destroyer Body Wash

The Dirt Destroyer is Old Spice’s most powerful body wash, offering 15 percent more cleansers, a 30 percent thicker formula and 20 percent more scent. Its thicker formula delivers a thick, dirt‐eliminating lather and less down the drain resulting in a better overall shower experience.

Old Spice

The 1-800-PROVE-IT Challenge

Check out the 1-800-PROVE-IT challenge. Old Spice is so confident in the Hardest Working Collection, the product is backed with a money‐back guarantee, as seen in a series of humorous digital infomercials hosted by Product King® Bob Giovanni. If you use the Hardest Working Collection and the products do not live up to your standards, you can call 1‐800‐PROVE‐IT for a full refund. Just call the line, and Bob Giovanni himself will provide further instructions. Pretty cool, huh?

Did you see the tool box we received? Stay tuned for a future giveaway where you can win one for your hardest working man 🙂

Don’t forget to follow the hashtag: #smellegendary to learn more!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Old Spice (P&G). The opinions and text are all mine.

WeVets: Give Veterans A Voice

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When you move to a new city, knowing where to go, where to shop or where to eat can be overwhelming. You might not have ever heard about that store down the road. You might be lost when it comes to the local military clinic and you might just need some help figuring out which places are worth going to.

WeVets

This is the mobile version of the site.

 

This is where a place like WeVets comes in handy. This is a new website for active duty military, veterans, their families and supporters to access resources and review businesses, programs and organizations designed to serve the military and veteran space. You can go to WeVets to look up information on the businesses, organizations, and resources that you need to serve you and your family. The reviews will be written by other military families which can be important. You can find reviews on places like Lowes, Disneyworld, IHOP, the military clinic and the vets office. You can leave your own reviews as well to help others who are curious about a location that you have been to.

Right now the website is still in beta but they need your help to build it up. If you can, head on over and sign up. Leave a review or two and share with your friends. If you need to know about a particular service, look and see if it is on the site. You can read the reviews and learn more about what other people have experienced by visiting those places.

Take some time to watch the video as well.

 

This website is going to be a great resource for those in the military. It will allow people to find out more information on the places they want to go.  This is a great idea for a population of people who move around a lot or don’t know the area they are in as well as they want to. Go check them out…:)