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Your Military Benefits: The Commissary and Exchange

Your Military Benefits: The Commissary and Exchange at The Happy Housewife

One of the biggest benefits to military families is the privilege of shopping at the Commissary and Exchange.

The commissary is a military grocery store. It looks just like a normal grocery store, and sells similar items, the difference is only active duty, retirees, reservists and their dependents may shop there. It is my opinion that the commissary is cheaper on the majority of items. This does not mean that you will not do better with triple coupon, catalinas, or ECB’s, but you cannot buy all your groceries that way. I believe that military families should scan circulars for loss leaders at the local stores. But over the past several years, using the commissary has kept my family of nine’s grocery bill at around $600 a month, and we eat well.

Commissary Facts and Tips

The Dreaded Surcharge: The commissary adds a 5% surcharge to your total bill.  Depending on where you live, this may cut into your savings. Certain states charge a sales tax on their food, so if you live in one of those states the surcharge probably doesn’t make a difference. I live in Maryland, which does not charge sales tax on food. The 5% charge may make a difference for someone who is driving an hour each way to the commissary and has to factor in the cost of fuel.

Tipping: I know there are many people who do not like having to tip the baggers, but don’t take it out on them, they are just doing their job. I always tip the baggers, but I do think it is hard to determine a fair amount. There are several factors to consider; weather, number of bags, distance to the vehicle. The more bags I have the higher the tip, but I have never tipped more than $5.

Is the commissary really cheaper: I would have to say yes, item for item, pound for pound the commissary is cheaper. I only shop at other grocery stores when I am getting things for free, or close to free. There will be times when using double coupons and bogos, you will be able to beat the commissary’s price, but unless all your shopping, including meat and produce, is done that way you will save money overall at the commissary.

Getting the best deals at the commissary

Do not shop on a payday weekend. These are the busiest shopping days at the commissary. It is almost impossible to walk down the aisles, not to mention figure out coupons if you shop during this time.

Take advantage of the tear off coupons. These are the coupons that are attached to the shelves. Many times these coupons match up with items that are already on sale. Combining sales and coupons this way can almost get you items for free. For example, last month there were many rip off coupons in the taco aisle, and all the Old El Paso items were on sale. I bought 3 jars of salsa, 4 boxes of shells, 4 cans of refried beans and 2 seasoning canisters for $6.

Plan your menus around commissary sales. The commissary rotates its sale items every two weeks, starting on Thursdays. This means the price of almost everything in the commissary changes every two weeks. If you see something on sale, stock up! It might be twice as much the next time you go to the store. I post the commissary sales every two weeks with coupon match-ups. Each store does run manager’s specials that vary from store to store. You can look up your individual commissary here.

If you live far from a commissary, try making one bulk trip every 4 to 6 weeks. At one point we lived about an hour a way from the Commissary. I went every 4 weeks to purchase in bulk; milk, yogurt, formula, diapers, bread, cereal and meat. I would also pick up the groceries I needed for the week. As far as I know, stateside commissaries do not ration items so you can really stock up on things that are a great price.

The commissary will save you more money if you live in a high cost of living area. I live in the D.C. metro area. There is no other store that can compete with the commissary’s prices. I also found this to be the case when I lived in the Virginia Beach area. If you aren’t sure about your commissary savings try making a price book. This will help you to determine whether or not making an hour or so drive to the commissary is worth your time and money.

The Exchange (PX/ NEX)

The Exchange is a department store. They sell everything from clothes to toys to jewelry and make-up. The big benefit of the Exchange is that all your purchases are tax free. This can be a huge savings on big ticket items. Their prices are competitive, but you I recommend shopping around before purchasing larger items. The Exchange does price match, and you can find their policy here.

Using your Commissary and Exchange benefits can help stretch your family’s budget. What is your best commissary or exchange shopping tip?

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Your Education Benefits ~ Making it in the Military

Your Education Benefits ~ Making it in the Military at The Happy Housewife

The following is a guest post by The Happier Husband. During his 22 year military career he has earned 3 degrees and numerous certifications most of them for free thanks to the educational benefits provided to him by the military.

Your Education Benefits ~ Making it in the Military at The Happy Housewife

Last post I promised that I’d tell you about how I got 27 free undergraduate college credits in one day. I used cheapest, fastest, and most overlooked method to accrue college credits – CLEPs. CLEP stands for College Level Examination Program. CLEPs are basically exams you can take that will earn you 3-6 undergraduate (bachelor level) credits per test.

There are 34 CLEP exams and 37 DSST exams that can earn you more than enough lower level undergraduate courses to cut your path to a B.S. or B.A. in half. The beauty of the program is that you can’t lose. The scores for credit are based on the mean scores achieved by college students that earned at least a “C” in the class for which they took the test. This means you only have to get an average score to qualify for credit. You don’t need to be a genius, you just have to test as well as the average college student.

You can do it – but if you don’t get a high enough score, there’s a feature to this program that stacks the deck in your favor. When you order your transcript you can elect to have the transcript only show the tests that earned you credit. That’s right – MIT doesn’t ever need to know that it took you 17 times to get 3 credits for Human/Cultural Geography, they just get the successful score.

The best part about CLEPs, if you are active duty, you don’t pay a dime for these tests and you can earn literally hundreds of college credits accepted ay thousands of schools across the US.

You can earn credits in:

Business

Financial Accounting
Introductory Business Law
Information Systems and Computer Applications
Principles of Management
Principles of Marketing
Business Law II
Business Mathematics
Human Resource Management
Introduction to Business
Introduction to Computing
Management Information Systems
Money and Banking
Organizational Behavior
Personal Finance
Principles of Finance
Principles of Supervision
Principles of Financial Accounting

History and Social Sciences

American Government
Human Growth and Development
Introduction to Educational Psychology
Introductory Psychology
Introductory Sociology
Principles of Macroeconomics
Principles of Microeconomics
Social Sciences and History
History of the United States I: Early Colonization to 1877
History of the United States II: 1865 to the Present
Western Civilization I: Ancient Near East to 1648
Western Civilization II: 1648 to the Present
Art of the Western World
The Civil War and Reconstruction
Ethics in America
A History of the Vietnam War
Human/Cultural Geography
An Introduction to the Modern Middle East
Introduction to World Religions
Principles of Public Speaking
Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union
Technical Writing
Western Europe since 1945
Criminal Justice
Foundations of Education
Fundamentals of Counseling
General Anthropology
Introduction to Law Enforcement
Lifespan Developmental Psychology
Substance Abuse (formerly Drug and Alcohol Abuse)
Humanities

Science and Mathematics

Biology
Calculus
Chemistry
College Algebra
College Mathematics
Natural Sciences
Precalculus
Astronomy
Environment and Humanity: The Race to Save the Planet
Fundamentals of College Algebra
Here’s to Your Health
Physical Geology
Principles of Physical Science I
Principles of Statistic

Composition and Literature

American Literature
Analyzing and Interpreting Literature
English Composition
English Literature
Freshman College Composition

Foreign Languages

French Language (Levels 1 and 2)
German Language (Levels 1 and 2)
Spanish Language (Levels 1 and 2)

Get out there are beat my record of 27 credits in one day!

This post is part of the series, Making it in the Military, dedicated to helping service members and their families make the most out of their time in the service. You can find the rest of the articles here.

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BATTLEMIND ~ Making it in the Military

BATTLEMIND ~ Making it in the Military at The Happy Housewife

Jennifer Haskell is a Canadian military wife and a coordinator at a Military Family Resource Centre in Meaford, Ontario. Everyday she finds herself privileged to work with Canada’s bravest families as they deal with the ups and downs of deployment and looks to share some of her personal and professional experience with families facing a separation due to deployment. Her husband is currently away on pre-deployment training (deploying to Afghanistan in April 2010) so she has taken up blogging about life, home, and the military to help pass the time. Catch up on the journey at Canadian Rhapsody.

The following is the second in a two part series Jennifer wrote on The Emotional Cycle of Deployment.


BATTLEMIND ~ Making it in the Military at The Happy Housewife

BATTLEMIND

Another thing that it is important to look at is the idea of a ‘Battlemind’. The Walter Reed Institute created a program that helps families to understand the behaviours and skills that are important in battle and which may be difficult for soldiers to turn off once they’ve arrived home. It takes time for the soldiers to transition out of this ‘survival mode’ and families can help out in a number of ways.

You will best be supporting your soldier if you come to understand that those behaviours that are ticking you off are the same ones that kept him alive overseas, and make sure you aren’t reacting on your frustration. Eventually he or she will adjust to being back home and most of the behaviours will dissipate. Additionally, you can help your soldier to identify when their behaviours are not suited to the situation, as they may not even realize they are reacting to problems in a combat oriented way.

  • Buddies (cohesion) vs. Withdrawal – When the family has an issue is he calling up his friends instead of talking with you about it?
  • Accountability vs. Controlling Behavior – Is he wanting to know where you’ve been at all times and know exact times for when you’ll be returning home?
  • Targeted vs. Inappropriate Aggression – Does he get overly angry when one of the kids spills some milk?
  • Tactical Awareness vs. Hypervigilance – Is he having trouble relaxing when you are out at a restaurant or even when you have some people over for a party?
  • Lethally Armed vs. “Locked and Loaded” at home – Is he concerned about whether his weapon is ‘ready’ at home?
  • Emotional Control vs. Detachment – Is he withholding his opinion or does he seem very ‘flat’ when responding?
  • Mission and OPSEC vs. Secretiveness – Is he having trouble sharing his experiences with you? (this may not change)
  • Individual Responsibility vs. Guilt – Is he troubled with feelings of responsibility over what happened over there?
  • Non-Defensive (combat) vs. Aggressive Driving – Is he driving at high speeds and changing lanes erratically (more so than usual!)
  • Discipline and Ordering vs. Conflict – Is he expecting perfect behavior out of you or the kids?

Remember!

  • Your family has worked together to make the most of this deployment; don’t worry if you didn’t do everything you had hoped to do.
  • Everyone changes, even without deployment, so give your marriage the time and energy it needs to rebuild; it probably won’t look the same as it did before, but it may be even better!
  • Don’t question the decisions you have made during the deployment; you were required to make many decisions on your own, and you did your best with what you had available.
  • Deployed members have concerns too! He’s probably wondering if the family still needs him, or if the kids will remember him.
  • Make sure you take time for yourself! It may seem selfish to take a few hours here and there for a break, but you better serve your kids when you are offering them a rested and patient mom!
  • Ultimately, there is no guide book to dealing with a deployment; each family will react differently, and the obstacles you come up against will change the shape of your reactions. Simply understand that you are reacting in a normal way to abnormal circumstances, and make the most of it.
  • You have the choice whether to thrive or flounder during your loved one’s absence and I hope you learn to make the most of it!

This post is part of the series, Making it in the Military, dedicated to helping service members and their families make the most out of their time in the service. You can find the rest of the articles here.

by admin -

Making it in the Military ~ Making the Most of Your Overseas Tour

Making it in the Military ~ Making the Most of Your Overseas Tour at The Happy Housewife

The following is a guest post from one of my readers stationed in Guam. She is also one of the military families that receives your expired coupons via the Coupons for Troops program.

The Military Over-Seas Life: An Adventure

We are currently on our second over-seas tour. Our first was in the 1990’s to Yokota Air Base outside of Tokyo, Japan in which we enjoyed enormously and wished it lasted longer than two years.  When the possibility of us moving to Guam came up, I was at first hesitant. I didn’t know what to pray for. While my husband was ready for a new job and location, the kids and I were very settled and content with our life in Waldorf, MD. By the time the official word came down that we were indeed moving, God had prepared our hearts and we were ready to live a new adventure.

An adventure was indeed what was in store for us here in Guam.  The first part of the adventure was just getting to Guam. It took over 24 hours to get from Washington, DC to Guam – including one 13 hour flight from New York to Tokyo.  As you can imagine, keeping three children entertained for that long was an adventure in itself.  When we arrived in Guam, it was dark and so we were unable to see the beautiful views, but we rectified that the next day. On our first full day in Guam we were totally blown away with the beauty that is all around. It’s very green here due to Guam’s average of 90 inches of rain a year – double what DC gets. There are probably tens of thousands palm trees. They are literally everywhere.

And then the ocean itself.  The views are just breath-taking. We try to make it a point to look and enjoy these views every few days if not every day.  We know we are only here for a short three years, and then we’ll be back to shoveling snow in January. We will miss the beauty and the year-around summer weather.

But living in Guam is not all beaches and suntans.  We miss family dearly. We cry at the events we miss – the birthdays….the holidays….our oldest niece saying her marriage vows. Blogs, emails, and Facebook all help with the distance.  And of course, the trips home. Home for our family is in Mississippi and Louisiana. We have been able to “hop” home for the last two summers for long visits.

“Hopping” is a unique military activity.  The best part of hopping is that it’s free. The worst part of hopping is that there is no guarantee that you will end up where you want to go. “Space Available Passengers” are allowed on military cargo planes if the crews agree and it does not interfere with the mission.  You have to be prepared to pay for commercial flights is you get stuck somewhere. This past  summer when I hopped back to Guam with my three children we ended up spending the night at the terminal at Hickam AFB when our flight was cancelled at ten-thirty at night – way too late to call a friend to come and get me! And there was a chance that the flight or another flight would leave at any time. Sometimes it is just best to stay at the terminal to sleep on top of the suitcases.

Other adventures we have had living in Guam is the ability to travel to places that would be too expensive for us to travel from the States.  Since we have been here we have been able to visit Cairns, Australia, the Islands of Palau and Saipan, and to Tokyo to see where our oldest was born.  We currently plan to spend Thanksgiving in Singapore and Spring Break at the Great Wall of China.  We would have never have done these trips from the mainland.

But day-to-day life in Guam is an adventure as well.  There are several pristine beaches, incredible snorkeling and scuba-diving available, and lots of jungle to do a “boonie stomp” (aka hiking). It’s incredible to be on the beach within minutes of leaving your house any time of the year.

Shopping is also an adventure….but not necessarily a positive one on some days. One day it took me going to seven different stores to find a small battery for my car remote-control. Then I paid four times what I would have at Wal-Mart.  I have learned to go to Ross and Macy’s when they open before all the Asian tourist arrive to shop. But I do get to use expired coupons six months past the date at the stores on base.  At most overseas bases you get an APO box for your address, but since Guam is a US territory, we do not. Our address and phone number are just like any other US address or phone number, but many stores refuse to ship here and charge extra to call here.

But, it is all worth it. The sense of community and camaraderie I have found at our base in Guam is so much stronger than the bases we have lived at on the mainland.   Also, the sheer adventure of learning about a new culture is a gift I feel very fortunate to give my children.

What about you? Have you been stationed overseas? Did you love it or want to leave it?

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Making it in the Military

Making it in the Military at The Happy Housewife

I am very excited to announce my newest series, Making it the Military. Over the last year I received numerous emails from readers asking how to make the best of military life. While the military isn’t for everyone, there are great opportunities for both active duty and family members.

What I realized is that while there are many opportunities, sometimes the information is not passed down to the troops. It is my hope that this series will empower military families to take advantage of their benefits, make the most of their pay grade, and be prepared for whatever situation arises during your (spouses) military career.

I am very please to have several guest writers for this series as well. Some topics covered will be:

  • Living within your pay grade
  • Pay and Benefits
  • Health Care
  • Deployments
  • PCS
  • Making your current duty station your favorite duty station
  • Educational Opportunities
  • Separation or Retirement
  • Commissary/ Exchange benefits
  • On Base vs Off Base Housing
  • Growing up in the Military

The series will begin next week and wrap up on Veteran’s Day. I thought it would be nice to honor those who have served by hosting a Veteran’s Day tribute. I’ll put up a Mr. Linky and you can link up with your tribute post. If you don’t have a blog you can email me, and I will publish your tribute in a post. I know many of my readers are not married to the military, but have brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, fathers or grandfathers who have served or are serving in our Armed Forces. This Veteran’s Day let’s show them how much we appreciate the sacrifice they have made for our freedom.

If you have a topic you think would make a great post or if you are interested in writing a guest post, leave a short note in the comments.