Where you can live cheap...

If you are thinking about retiring on your military pension, minimizing your housing costs might be the make-or-break decision. BusinessWeek online just posted a list of 20 American Cities where the cost to own a home is lower than or just a little more expensive than renting.

It's interesting that cities like Tampa, Phoenix, and Las Vegas that were so popular just a few years ago are so out of favor today. As I've said elsewhere, military retirees can now live in more areas than they ever could have before, but here's the key. Soon inflation will go up, maybe way up. You definitely want to own real estate in inflationary times. Landlords will have to raise rents in that environment just to cover their costs. If you buy your retirement home now you'll lock in rock-bottom interest rates, have many many homes to choose from, and at the lowest sales prices in years. Plus, if your ready to move into that home soon, and you're a first-time buyer, you can get a no-downpayment VA loan, finance for 15 or 30 years, and get a check back from the government for $8,000.

What a country!

My son called the VA...

My son's college hopes to get paid soon, and since the VA won't talk to me about his benefit because I've filled out all the requisite paperwork, he gave them a call ten days ago. They repeated that they are taking about 8 weeks to process the requests and to contact them if he doesn't hear back from them by about October 6th.

As long as the University continues to be understanding, they can take as long as they need.

More soonest...

GI Bill update...

I called the VA 10 days ago to check on the status of our paperwork to transfer my benefit to my son. I guess things are coming along because they had it on file that the benefit was transferred, and because now the benefit belongs to him they would not discuss it with me further. The last time this happened, my son was with me. Now of course, school has started and he's there.

He called them last week. They had all the required paperwork on 6 August. They told him that because of the massive volume of submissions that it could take 8 weeks to get his eligibility certificate. After he gets that he has to take it to the veterans affairs officer at his school who then sends it back to VA. The school is charging us interest now, so I really need the VA to take care of their part of the tranfer.

More soon...(I hope!)