Marriage, Moving, A School, and so much more!!

[rikki_100113]

Alright ladies so after looking back on all the questions I have asked and all the information I have gotten I decided to share my experience and how I got things done with all of you!! So here it goes...

My husband left for basic back in May and graduated in July, we were told from the recruiter that he would after he graduated he would go directly to A school and that his schooling would only be 5 weeks long. Well lets just say the recruiter is not always correct. When he graduated on July 3rd we got to spend 7 hours together, yes that's right ONLY 7 hours together, it was hard but one of the happiest time i have had. The advice I can give about graduation is to make sure to tell your sailor that he stays in one spot and you try to find them. If he or she is looking for you while you are looking for them you will be wasting a bunch of precious time. Also take something comfy for your butt to sit on as the benches are like those at a football stadium and not very comfortable also make sure to take a camera and DO NOT take pictures outside of the recruit center as if they see you they will take your camera and delete everything you have (I saw it happen). Also try to stay close to the base when you decide to do things as some of them have to be back around 7 or 8 pm. My husband and I stayed in the hotel and watched movies all day with his mom which was AMAZING!! Also when you take them back make sure to not let them have their cell phone or computer, they can only return with what they left with. You can also go to the airport and see them off which you can stand in the "lobby" with them till its time for them to go through security. My husband left at midnight and did not have to be on his plane till like 7am but we had to leave at 2am to head back home. At that point in time you can give him his cell phone or computer or whatever else you brought for him.

Now on to A School....dun dun dunnnnnn!!! So the recruiter will tell you that your A school is X amount of weeks and that it will start right away..... that is sometimes completely false. My husband was on hold for 2 months before he started school. Which in that case is very annoying because they do nothing but clean and watch. When A school finally starts try to support your sailor in any way that you can they need all the encouragement they can get. Also we had planned on getting married while he was in A school but to travel down there to get married would not have been a great idea. So while my husband was on hold I did all of the wedding planning and made everything from scratch. While they are in A school depending upon who their petty officer is depends on if they can choose what ship they want to be assigned to. My husband was one of the lucky ones in his class that got to choose which ship he wanted to be assigned to. Which was AWESOME!!! When they graduate from A school do not feel bad if you can not attend the ceremony is only like 15 minutes long if that. Also they will be given a plane ticket to go to their next duty station which they can call with a code and get it switched to another airport. The only thing with that is say they are leaving from Pensacola and their next duty station is Virginia that plane ticket may cost $280.00 and they want to switch and fly from Pensacola to Ohio and that plane ticket is $380.00 you will pay the extra $100.00 difference plus a $30.00 transfer fee so make sure you are ready to pay the difference.

And then there was leave...... YAYYYYYYY!!! So my husband (because he did not take any leave while he was in A School) had 2 weeks of leave time saved up. They get 2.5 days a month of leave time. He arrived home on a Friday night and we were to be married on that following Tuesday. IF you plan on getting married after A school make sure to get all your stuff done while he is on leave so it will make it easier. We went that following Monday and got our marriage licenses and filled out paperwork for his car to be transferred from another state to where I live now so it would make it easier for me to get his tags renewed, also if you plan on doing that make sure to get a POA form from the local license department to be able to do that if he were to go on deployment and you need to renew his tags. Also that following Monday we did the last minute details for the wedding which my husband loved oh so much. Tuesday was the big day so we wont go into intimate details about that but lets just say we were the happiest we could have ever been! Then Wednesday wow that was a big one. luckily we had my aunt marry us so she could go with us to the court house and get our marriage certificate. Make sure to get that and I got 4 copies so that way I had plenty to go around. The next stop was to get my name changed with my license so back to the license place we go. Also make sure to get a new SS card depending on the state you live in they might allow you to do this one of three ways either online, mail, or stop in. My state allowed me to mail mine in so that is what I did and all i had to do was fill the form out and mail a copy of my marriage certificate in with it which they mail back to you with a letter that says they have received it and the status of it. The next thing to do it go to a local base (since I do not live by a naval base I went to a Air Force base and got the same thing done) and get your military ID. The process if super easy and simple just make sure you have your marriage certificate, SS card, and new ID. Also make sure you do this with your husband as this will make it much easier to complete. Once you have that done make sure to ask them where to sign up for tricare prime. Now even if you sign up with prime it will take a whole month to go into effect but in the mean time you will still have tricare standard shall something happen. Also make sure to sign up for dental as they are completely separate (we did not do that and still have not which is on my every growing list of things to do). Now my only advice for leave is that you spend as much time together as possible yes it will be an adjustment but it is so worth it in the end.

After leave...... My husband was to report to his next duty station in the middle of the month which let me just say something here we got a bump in his pay which i thought was a mistake and put that into savings right away just incase it was not ours, but they will sometimes do that which is your pay they have just given you a lot due to the fact that you are traveling and expenses but the EOM pay will be less than what it should be to over compensate for the pay they just gave you confusing I know. But when your husband reports to his next station make sure to give him you SS card, birth certificate, and marriage license shall he need those things you want to make sure he has them. ALSO if he is to drive to his next duty station which is what my hubby did make sure he has cash just in case he hits toll roads not all of them except credit and then that becomes a very expensive toll. When he gets to his duty station make he will have to take classes and do INDOC just like he did in A school. Make sure he also goes to personnel to get you enrolled in BAH, If someone tells him that you are automatically enrolled when you signed up, THEY ARE WRONG!! Make sure he does it it will take at least 2 pay periods to show up on the LES but it will eventually. The first thing it will say is Change BAH with your marriage date and then Correct BAH with your marriage date the next LES you will see should say Start BAH w/ depd and the zip code. Since my husband did not check on this we have not received our BAH yet and we were married in October so we have had to check on it every week to make sure it will be here very soon. Also they will back date it so yes if you run into a situation like mine you will get back dated from October. Now I will say this make sure to weight out your options if you want to live on base or off base or if you want to move at all. Since my husband goes on deployment soon we chose for me to stay with my family in another state and just go and visit him like every month. We also chose to live off of base and here is our logic on that. if my rent is 700 a month and we get 1000 for rent we get to pocket the extra 300 for other expenses such as electricity, water, cable, and what else have you. So just make sure to discuss those options and see what would work best for you.

Now on to moving our goods.... This by far was the most strassfull time i have every had. My husband was told that he has to have an email to do the move and get his home base( home base is where they signed up) Well we chose to do a PPM move which was also known as a DITY move which is where you do everything your self and the military pays you back. We chose to do this because all of our stuff is in a PODS and it was easier to do that than to have the military move us and for me to go down to where our PODS was unpack the PODS and have the movers move it, TOOO MUCH WORK. What you will need is to go to move.mil and sign up for a DPS account which you will need your spouses information to do this. make sure your pop up blocker is off or it will not allow you to enter the site. make sure to follow it step by step if you should do this online and when it asks you for a date on which you want it to happen DO NOT put todays date as when you turn it in they will assume that you did it on that date put a date atleast 10 days from todays date and you will be fine. If you choose to get the advance, which is what i did, you can get 60% of the total cost. So say your an E1 and they give you a 8000lb weight limit and you put down 6500lbs they take the total of lbs and the amount it would cost them to move you and thats how they come up with the total of the move now if the total is $10,000 and you want 60% of that up front you will get $6,000. KEEP RECEIPTS FOR EVERYTHING. As for you have 45 days of the application date to turn everything in. So if you did it on 11/19 go 45 days out from there which would make it 01/03 of the following year to have EVERYTHING turned in. Also if you do a PPM make sure to get weigh tickets empty and full as those go into consideration as well. Make sure to have your spouse check on the status of the advance because sometimes it literally takes them 3 times of them going to see personnel before it gets done right. Your application will go to someone at a base and they will approve it or deny it which you will have their contact information shall anything need to be changed. Unless you have POA you can not sign for anything so make sure to get POA when you do the move or you will be SOL. You can also do this move a completely different way, you can go to the moving office and have them do it which take no time for them because when i did it online it took me 3 hours to complete now need you mind this is my first move and my husband lives in a different state and was not able to contact so i had called the help line like 6 times so if you need them they will help. When you ask for the advance they tell you that it should take 3-5 business days to get the money which is direct deposited into your account and then after you have turned in all the other forms it will take about 2 weeks and you will get a check mailed to the address you have provided them to move your stuff to. Oh and one more thing see if you can keep up with how i am trying to word this, my husbands home base is in Georgia and he is stationed in Virgina well we had out stuff moved from Georgia to Ohio and NOT Virginia due to me living in Ohio, the military will only pay to move you ONCE to every duty station so we forgo-ed our move to Virginia to move to Ohio. Now once i choose to move to Virginia I will have to pay to move those item myself out of my pocket with no help since I am using that help now. That is another option to look into if you are willing to do that.

This is a completely different way that we went about things and sometimes our options didn't necessarily turn out the way we wanted them too and yes it was stressful and lots of crying but just remember that you are on the military time and unless you have a spouse that will go down to personnel everyday to get it straightened out then you might have to wait longer. If there is anything I miss or if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me as i tried to be very throughout in this as it was my very first time for everything.

Alright ladies here is an addendum...... So about BAH, we all know I was struggling with this one for a while and with mulitple questions over several months we finally have an answer. We have FINALLY got our BAH!!! (doing the happy dance) Yes it was back dated to the day we got married and came all in a lump sum but the best advice I can give on this one since this is out of my hands is to make your husband keep on personnel to make sure they have it in correctly. If someone tells him that because he updated all his information that you are automatically enrolled they are SOOOO WRONG!!! If it was not for my amazing husband staying on personnel to make sure it was in there we would not have gotten it. Also if you are looking for it to be in there by the 15th make sure he has all his paperwork in by the 5th of the month and before 3:00pm. If not you will have to wait till the 1st of the following month.

[Angie]

FYI, it is home of record not home base.  also if someone marries AFTER "A" School, keep in mind that the Navy does NOT have to pay to move the spouses stuff.  Also if the Sailor is going overseas the spouse will NOT go.

[Anti M]

Yes, I'm surprised the Navy paid for the move.  It doesn't always happen like that.  

[rikki_100113]

I was going by my termology (im sure that is not a word but it is now lol) but yes i think they moved it because the storage is in our names so that might be why. and we did not go over seas so that is something i could not answer so i did not include that on here.

[Anti M]

His move, not yours, that makes sense.

[rikki_100113]

yes it was very hard to write all of that a remember it at well lol but you are very welcome and of course if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask me.

[crystal.claire]

Thanks for taking the time to write this!! Very helpful! :)

[mary boyce]

Wow! Came across your comment.....BRAVO! Job well done! Though I have already gone through the majority of what you had listed which I may say is spot on, there were a couple of helpful tidbits such as the bump in pay that you put into savings. My husband & I had questions on that, thanks! Everything you wrote should be used as an overall guideline for all new Navy wives who are lost with a billion questions! Lot of us learned the hard way. Luckily my husband was very efficient with taking care of things here on base before I arrived and help from another Navy wife from this forum which we still remain friends. Both our husbands are submariners. So any new or soon to be Navy wives take heed on her comments it will save you time and a lot of headaches! Hooyah Navy!

[rikki_100113]

Crystal claire- you are very welcome this is very different from what most spouses go through so I wanted to give it from another perspective.

Mary boyce- whats your question on the bump in the pay?  And yes this was not an easy 3 months we have had with all of this and we are still trying to get everything resolved for our BAH which my husband is out to sea right now so awaiting his phone calls are seeming to get the best of me.

[marisac14/032]

This is perfect thank you !!! I just got married to my SR so i have tons of questions and you took care of a few !! Lol

[rikki_100113]

Yea no problem and you are so welcome. Let me know if you need anything else I might have an answer or might know who to ask.