The Hidden Costs of Military Moves

"At least the military pays for your move" is the first thing I hear when I mention that we're moving again. And they do, sorta. They pay for someone to come into your house and pack up all of your things if you want. And then they pay to ship those things to wherever you're moving (in the slowest way possible. We've never had our things take less than two months to reach us). They'll even pay to ship a car if you're going OCONUS. But... what about the rest of it? Your other car? The things you use while you're waiting those two months for your stuff?

That's all on you. You've got to pay three thousand to ship your car if you want a second one, which most families do as a service member's day can be unpredictable. Hard to share a car when one day they get off at 5 pm and the next it's 3 pm. Or 7 pm. And then three thousand to ship it back to the USA once your time is up. Most people feel it's not worth it, and end up buying a second car at the new duty station.

Every time we PCS, we know that we'll be going through our old stuff, donating and selling things we don't need anymore. Some of it I hold back for us to use those last few weeks in the old place, and donate them last minute. We also know that we have a choice. We can pack sheets, towels, a few plates, and cups into a suitcase and haul that along with the other items we need to live for six weeks until our stuff arrives, or we can choose to buy it when we reach our next home. Neither option is great. The first one requires you to lug that suitcase through the airport along with your other 5-10 suitcases, car seats, strollers, and god knows what else. The second option is expensive. Once you arrive at a new place, you're not very mobile considering your shipped car won't get there for a few more weeks. So you have to buy from the Exchange. Which is super pricey (at least our current one is). And it's all out of pocket. As is restocking your entire fridge and spice cabinet.

Luckily the military does provide some help. The ACS at each base always has pots and pans for us to use once we've moved into a home. We've been lucky to make friends who have offered to take a grocery shopping while we wait for our car and to show us the public transportation options and how to navigate them in a foreign country.

Once you get your goods delivered, there can be a whole other cost to getting settled.

Broken items?

We're currently in the middle of arguing with the moving company about the cost of the items that arrived broken. They seem to think that my son's dresser is worth about $50 for a replacement, and our Thule jogging stroller is worth a third of the real cost. It's months of emails back and forth, only for you to end up settling just to get some money out of it.

Appliances?

Oof. Especially overseas. You're on your own here, even if you're forced to live on the economy and now none of your appliances work. Vacuums, fans, kitchen mixers.... anything. That's on you. Oh and that brand new washer you bought a year ago? You can't bring it with you. So you can choose to store it for an undetermined amount of time or sell it for a third of the cost. It's the same thing with the treadmill you bought three months before you moved. Because you had no idea that you would be moving overseas soon. We're lucky that the on-base housing has outlets in both 110v and 220v, but I've been told that using something with a motor here will ruin it and it will no longer work once you get back to the States. Rough.

Childcare

Childcare is already an outrageous wait. No matter where you are. Here, it's taking us a year to get my son into the local kindergarten. CDC? Forget about it. We won't risk it, not with the horror stories we've heard. That means, at minimum, I'm out of a job for a year. Oh wait, you can't get hired because you don't speak the local language and the base runs primarily off volunteers? No wonder 9/10 of the spouses I've met here don't work.

The only reason I'm mentioning these things is because they are things the government can help with. Maybe they don't know about them, or realize how all of these things add up and make the mental stress of moving even more difficult. But it IS within their power to make military moves less stressful on families, and to provide more resources in these situations. Hopefully, by reading more stories of what areas people need help in, things will improve.