089: Maximizing your military pension with Jen Amos

Jen Amos 0:00

Welcome to holding down the fort, an award winning podcast show dedicated to curating knowledge, resources, and relevant stories for today's military spouses. So they can continue to make confident and informed decisions for themselves and their families. Because let's face it, we know who's really holding down the fort. I'm Jen, a most a goldstar daughter, veteran spouse, and your host for holding down the fort by us bet wealth. Let's get started.

Hey, everyone, Jen, here, I am flying solo. For this Friday morning. How's it going? Today, I wanted to share a resource with all of you very often when I share anything on my end, it's usually to share my story, how I started holding down the fort, why, and a little bit about our company us bet wealth, which is the sponsor of the show, and how our work there really inspired the show to be possible. And so doing this show has been just such an absolute privilege, being able to get to know our active duty military families today, particularly our career military families, you know, what their day to day looks like what they're going through, and also just coming together as a community to share what resources, education tools and stories that we can share amongst each other to continue to hold down the fort in whatever that way means for you, nowadays, when I think about holding down the fort, and what it means, my hope for this show is to give you a sense of home, a sense of community, knowing that no matter where your next PCs location is, no matter how unpredictable, chaotic, I daresay this life can be that something like holding down the fort, can give you a sense of home can give you a sense of familiarity wherever you go wherever you are. And I myself, and I've mentioned this a number of times in the past, that being a gold star daughter, I have been removed from the military community for 20 years, until I met my husband. And so doing holding down the fort as a way to contribute to the work that we do at us. But wealth was really a crash course for me to catch up with everything that's going on in our community today and what the needs are of our community today. So with that said, instead of just sharing my story, like I typically do, I want to share a new resource. It's new, but not really new. It's actually kind of we've had this for a while. But my husband Scott, actually recently got this book published. I talk often about the book that came out on Veterans Day last year, called veteran Wealth Secrets, which you can still download the first three chapters for free at veteran wealth secrets.com. That book really covers our philosophies, and what we stand for at us vet wealth. Very often, I like to say that our company offers thought provoking financial education and flexible financial solutions for our career military families. And like I said, the book, veteran wild secrets really dives into that. And what that means, you know, for our military families today, of course, it does talk from the perspective of a veteran, my husband being a veteran, but I definitely find that a lot of things in that book, are very relatable to anyone affiliated with the military. And anyone who is looking to live a more intentional life and have their finances support that. So anyway, that's that. But today, I want to talk about a book that we recently published, this book is actually not that long. I think veteran Wealth Secrets is probably if I take a look at it, probably around 300 pages. But this book that we also have, which is called the modern guide to veteran and military life insurance planning, written by my husband, Scott, and this book, let me see. I'm looking at the book right now I have it in my hands. And you can actually grab yourself a copy of it or read a copy of it. If you want to learn more about this book, The modern guide to veteran and military life insurance planning. The website is survivor Liberty plan.com. And so check out that website. I'm just going to go ahead and give you a snippet of what to expect with this book. But like I said, it's a pretty easy read. I'm looking at the last page right now and it ends up page 46. So it's a really, really, really easy, quick read and this is For the military family that has the survivor benefit plan, or you have veterans Group Life Insurance, so either the SBP or the VG Li, I believe it's also SG, Li, if while you are in service still, but

r benefit plan was created in: 1972

that it removes the option for military families to take ongoing ownership of their financial situations, there's just too much going on to really sit back and reflect on your financial situation is really what we're trying to say here. It's also problematic in that military families are not informed how much the cost of these programs will increase upon separation, making it difficult to make accurate financial plans for transition and beyond. retirees and their spouses are often shocked to discover the costs involved in both the survivor benefit protection and replacing service members Group Life Insurance, or SG ally for short. And veterans Group Life Insurance Vgi for short, and spouses who are not usually included in these conversations, are shocked to learn how little they'll receive and survivorship payments if the worst actually does occur. So yeah, if you are hearing about this for the first time, we believe that's a problem. And before I read the rest of this book, even though it is only 50 pages, I can go on for a while. I'm going to stop there. And if this has perked your ears, I want to encourage you to visit survivor Liberty plan.com. To learn more, really, this is just saying, be more informed, be aware of what you have. And if there's a chance to find something better. I was on an interview earlier today, describing what our company was about. And I said to the person that was interviewing me, I said, you know, the military provides water. So water representing military benefits. It's great water is great. It keeps you hydrated. You know, it's amazing. We all like water. But what if that's all you had, and then one day, someone took a slice of lemon and squeeze that in your water. And you're like, Whoa, that tastes amazing. That's what our company is, we let you know we are that lemon squeeze in your water to let you know, like, hey, water is great, right. But maybe there's something that might be better for you something that you might like that once you have that squeeze a lemon, you might not want to go back. Although you know me personally, I switch back and forth depending on the kind of water I'm drinking. Anyway, that's what I wanted to share today, a little short piece, on behalf of our company, US vet wealth. And you know, just a fun way to announce this newest book that we have recently published. We've actually had it for a while, but we finally have the physical copy in our hand. So once again, the book is called the modern guide to veteran and military life insurance planning, how to avoid the steep costs of survivor benefit plan and VG Li so that you can maximize your military pension. Remember, this is great if you are looking to get more informed about the survivor benefit plan and the veterans Group Life Insurance. And if you're just looking for that lemon squeeze in your water. Alright, well, I'm Jen Amos, I want to thank you all again so much for supporting our award winning show holding down the fort. But that's pretty much all I want to say here. But thank you all so much for listening. I can't thank you all enough for just your feedback and your engagement with our show. And we just want to continue to provide value to all of you. The last thing I want to mention is that we are nearing 100 episodes. So that's really, really, really exciting for us. But I'm still trying to plan out if I want to potentially stop at Episode 99 and continue season five starting at Episode 100. Personally, I haven't thought that far. But I think that's the direction I'm going to go until then, really exciting for us that we are nearing 100 episodes since this show has started. So thank you all again so much for your continuous support. Thank you to my husband and to our company us bet wealth for making the show possible. And with that said, we hope that today's episode gave you one more piece of knowledge resource a relevant story so you can continue to make confident and informed decisions for you and your family. We look forward to speak with you in the next episode. Tune in next time.