Teaching Credit Management in the Military: What Every Parent Should Know
Credit management is essential in today's financial landscape. Anyone looking to attain any level of financial freedom needs to have the knowledge and skills required to minimize debt and manage their credit responsibly. For service members, however, credit management becomes even more crucial. Military life comes with unique financial challenges—frequent relocations, deployments, inconsistent living expenses, and even the temptation of easy credit targeted toward young enlistees.
As their parents, it’s your duty to help your service member understand credit management early, to help them avoid the many pitfalls awaiting them down the road.
Credit Scores and the Military — Why Good Credit is Important
In the military, a good credit score isn’t just for getting a loan or a credit card, it could affect one’s career. This is because financial responsibility is considered a reflection of a service member’s overall reliability and judgment. Poor credit can be seen as a security risk and therefore affect your service member’s security clearances, promotions, and even assignments. As such, teaching your service member how to manage their credit can help them avoid complications that affect not just their finances, but also their career.
Teaching Your Service Member Credit Management
Teaching your service member credit management may seem like too daunting a task, but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t need to be a financial expert to guide them—you just need to start with the basics and have open, honest conversations. Your influence and support can go a long way in helping them from smart money habits early in their career. And who knows, those conversations might just give them the push they need to go learn some more on the matter.
So what’s the secret recipe? It’s to start small. Talk to them about budgeting, debt, the importance of paying bills on time, and how interest works. Share personal experiences—both wins and mistakes—as lessons they can learn from. And most importantly, remind them that financial success is built over time, with consistent, responsible choices; never some “free money” from a credit card company. There’s no such thing.
Then talk to them about what credits are and why they are important, especially in the military. Explain to them what the credit system is and what good credit and bad credit mean. Explain the implications of having bad credit on their finances and how it could also affect their military career. And explain to them the most important lesson of all:
Credit is not free money. It is borrowed money.
Useful Resources
Need more information on the credit system and the effects of credits on your service member’s career? Below are some useful resources.
