I thought of two questions, related to finances while they're gone...

1. How do they use their money while they're gone? His pay is directly deposited, and he's got an ATM. I'm just wanting to verify that it's that simple, but not confident enough to assume it.

2. On a diff website, it advises giving yourself wiggle-room of about 30 days for the pay to start coming, but I realized tonight that we've got about 2-3 weeks (pushing it) of wiggle room. If his ship out were at the start of a month, would it be hoping too much to get the first ck on the 15th? I guess I'm asking how bumpy it really is in the beginning.

1. Yes it is usually that easy...some of the places even take his card just like here in the states.

2. When recieving the check dont count on it for the first pay check after he leaves. But you will get the back pay for it. In other words they wont cheat you out of the extra money it will just be split up and given in other pay checks if not the first one you receive...I hope that made sense. It just tends to take a month to get the correct amount of money in the database

I agree, give yourself as much wiggle room as possible. I didnt expect to not be paid for over a month and thankfully DH civilian job had one last pay check coming, so it got us through the month, but Im still worried about Jan, as you would say.. we now have no wiggle room left;)
So lets just cross our fingers, they dont take too long and you guys have enough, and be happy you have some, that is a definite plus right now!:tu

oo good to know! thanks for asking the questions :)