Costs Of A PCS Part 3
We’re going to finish out the list of unexpected PCS costs today. On Monday, I’ll share some resources I found to help with those costs, along with their pros and cons, if there are any. A lot of this stuff may seem like more minor expenses. $20 here and $30 there isn’t really anything that breaks the budget, but all this stuff adds up. And across multiple PCS’s we start talking about much bigger numbers because none of these costs are going away no matter where we end up moving to.
1. Insurance
Some insurance transfers with us from place to place, but car and homeowners/rental are usually state-dependent rates. For this move, our homeowner’s insurance got cut in half, which was pretty great, but our car insurance went up $20 a month. My husband did get into an accident a few months ago where he was not at fault, but I know that still increased the rate a little bit, so that number could be inflated more than it usually would be. The extra $20 a month may not seem like much, but our homeowner’s policy savings don’t really show up since those come out of our escrow account. That’s not money we will see until we sell the house, and even then, I’m not sure the savings will be felt. Anything that goes down at this base, though, will go up at the next.
2. Housing issues
We are all well versed in Murphy’s Law at this point, which we can often see pop up the moment we sign closing documents. The builders left out things like towel racks, toilet paperholders, and a fence in our new house. Now, these things may not be mandatory to fix, but they would make life easier and will affect our ability to sell the house three years from now, so those are all expenses that we are taking on. I know many people move into a house to discover something that wasn’t caught on the inspection or have a major appliance break at no fault of the movers. Two weeks after we closed on our Oklahoma house, they had one of the biggest ice storms in history, which led to weeks of power outages in that area. Thankfully, the house didn’t take any damage, but I know a lot of people were not that lucky.
3. Furniture
Every place we move into is a little bit different. Whether we upsize, downsize, or go from one base to another, the layouts and measurements aren’t quite the same. This usually leads to at least one piece of furniture that doe’t fit. This may mean needing to buy a new couch or placing a piece in storage if we really love it. In our new house, the closets didn’t have as much hanging space even though they were bigger. This meant buying shelves and dressers to hold stuff. While these weren’t “emergency” purchases (we could have gone a while without them), they were still things we needed to function in this home.
4. Finding a new job
This may be the most costly expense of any PCS. If a military spouse is fortunate enough to have a virtual job they can take anywhere, then this won’t apply as much, but many of us aren’t that lucky. Most people who work do it for a combination of reasons, including purpose and financial gain. Depending on the job, the person determines which side they lean
more towards in their jobs. But jobs that are primarily for their financial gain mean that the family can’t miss out on that income. Every PCS can mean months without that salary, and if the family gets stationed OCONUS, sometimes it is impossible for the spouse to work because of local laws.
Many military spouses give up careers for their servicemembers. They still have jobs but don’t have long-term growth tracks because of the constant pace of moving. Even people in the civilian world with a track record of hopping companies for promotions do it at their own pace and to cities of their choice, not the military’s choosing. Moving to new states can often mean getting new licenses or certifications, which takes time and training. Jobs on base can be hard to come by, too, because the bases like to maintain a consistent civilian force to manage everyday life rather than people who will constantly be in and out (which makes sense, but it still feels like staring at the problem and missing the point).
We just moved from Oklahoma City to Macon, Georgia. We went from a population of 687,725 (according to 2021 census data) down to 153,095 (according to 2018 census data). That’s a big difference, and I’m sure it has massive effects on spouses looking for jobs, especially in more niche fields. There are no brunch options in this town, so I can’t imagine there are a lot of unique job opportunities that may have existed in a much larger, growing city.
Some spouses take this opportunity to start a new career or open up their own business, but that all features its own start-up costs. With a hard leave date for many assignments, it doesn’t always make sense. We knew people who owned restaurants in OKC, but that assignment was unique because you could get stuck there or choose to stay for a long time. We were lucky to be there for only four years, but at Robins AFB, we’ll be lucky to extend it to four years. Even if spouses can keep or transfer their jobs to a new location, there will still likely be a loss of income from time off. Prepping for packers, movers, or a DITY move is hard enough on its own, let alone while balancing a full-time job. The balance doesn’t stop with the prep work through. Then we have to work through travel, unpacking, and managing the set-up of a new life.
I know some of these things feel like a much bigger deal than others. Paying $30 to turn on same-day water service isn’t the same as spending $8,000 on closing costs. I also know some things sound silly and nonessential, like buying new furniture or clothes. But the reality is that we would not be spending any of this money without a PCS. The families with this money could use it for vacations, upgrades, or anything else that the family is dreaming about. The families that can not afford to spend this money are left holding the bag and have a brand new hole to dig themselves out of.
According to MFAN (military family advisory network), the average family pays $5,000 out of pocket every time they move. That data was collected from 2016-2020, so I would estimate that those numbers are much higher in a post-Covid world. But let’s say it’s $5,000. The average military family moves every two to three years. Across a twenty-year career, that is 7-10 PCS, which means $35,000-$50,000 lost during that time.
When we take that number and compare it to the 24% of active duty service members suffering from some level of food insecurity, we get a very ugly picture. Congress may have just passed the largest annual pay raise in quite some time, but it still doesn’t touch the inflation rate. We should be talking about these numbers more. It may be a fact of life, but that doesn’t make it right, and there has to be a solution. I don’t want to get too ranty at the end of this post, so I’ll save that for next week, but this stuff matters, and we need to fix it.