Reimbursement of expenses

When does the military pay you for your moving expenses related to the timing of COT and JASCO?

I had a reader ask me this. You can ask the military for some money up front to cover cost of moving if you are doing a DITY move (Do it yourself). Contact your local base TMO office to ask specific questions. If the military is moving you then you will coordinate through your local base to have movers come and for them to order your plane tickets.

As far as receiving your per diems and travel expenses you'll incur, like taxi rides, etc. once you arrive to your permanent base the military member can file the claim to receive that money. This will vary from base to base but it took us about a month to see some reimbursements come in. It took nearly 3 months to receive our reimbursement for our DITY move...that was a pain. Again I could see smaller bases getting your money back to you sooner. Be prepared to potentially make a few trips to the finance office to get your money all sorted it.

Shipping your car overseas

There are only a handful of locations in the U.S. that you can take your car to be shipped on the military's dime. The military will pay to have only one car shipped overseas. Luckily, the closes one for us is only 2.5 hours away. During PCS season, which are the months of April-August, they say to plan on it taking 60 days from drop off date to arrival in the new country. Thus we are dropping our car off next week to ensure we have our car waiting for us in Germany mid July.

Renting a car overseas is extremely expensive and they say it is far more worth it to have a rental car stateside than once you get overseas. Luckily we have another car we will use but then hurry and try to sell before we move...that will be fun! I hate that we have to sell our second car b/c it has been such a good car to us. Apparantly though older BMW's are a dime a dozen in Germany and you can get them for a few grand. Top Gun is very excited about this!

To rent a car overseas you have to have a temporary International Driver's License and you can obtain one through AAA for $15. This is different than the actual country's driver's license you will need to get once there.

For example, Top Gun will go to the education office on base before we move to Germany and set up everything so that when we get to Germany he just has to go on base there, watch an hour video, and then he'll get his German license. As the spouse though we have to go through the country to obtain one and can't do anything util we get there.

Oh and to actually pick up your car that you had shipped you will have to already have the German license and car insurance.

Moving--Sponsors

There are so many posts I could do about moving/PCSing (permanent change of station). We are currently getting ready for our PCS to Germany this July. There is so much information I would like to share but I may not get to it until after our move is completed. Mainly because I don't have a lot of time (that seems to be a reoccurring theme!)

The good thing is when you PCS you are assigned a Sponsor from the base you are moving to. Usually it is another JAG. Some sponsors are better than others. As the spouse, I spoke with Top Gun's sponsor before we arrived here to Texas. I wanted to know about housing and schools. I mention this because don't be afraid to ask your spouse for their sponsors contact info so you can contact them with your questions. Top Gun was a sponsor last summer for a new JAG and his wife and I emailed back and forth a few times before she arrived. This will make you feel like you have a friend right when you arrive too.

Still offering Loan Repayment Program despite cutbacks?

To answer your question "Elder Heims", YES, the Air Force is still giving the $65,000 toward loan repayments for new JAG's.