What do you want out of life?  Almost any goals you have—start a job, rent an apartment or buy a home, buy a car, get married, have a family, be more financially independent and secure…The common denominator of nearly all life goals is that they require money. 

Every day you interact with money.  You spend time earning it and make decisions about how to spend it.  You pay taxes on it and pay bills for things you’ve bought with it.   You work to pay back money you may have borrowed to pay for school or those purchases you charged to your credit card.  Maybe you also read blogs or magazine articles about wise use of money.  Perhaps you have opened a savings or money market account to put some away for future needs and wants.  Maybe you’ve even invested some of your savings in the stock market through a mutual fund or set up a retirement savings plan at work. 

But it can be tough to start out on your own financially. 

This site is  designed to help you work through the unique financial concerns, questions, issues and opportunities you have to deal with and develop new knowledge and skills to manage your finances  Learn from the practical information we provide about real-life situations and then apply what you’ve learned with the tools we provide like interactive budget worksheets and calculators.

• The Young Couple
  Scenario: Marcus and Julie, both 27, live in Tennessee and have been married for a year. Julie is in nursing school and also works part-time as a nursing assistant at a local hospital.
• The Single Male
  Scenario: Steve is a 32-year old single male, working as an accountant for an oil drilling firm in Texas.   He has been with the company for 2 years and currently earns $48,000 about $39,000 after taxes.
• A Single Mom
  Scenario: Candy is struggling right now. She works at a local super mart.

• Setting up Direct Deposit
  Direct deposit is when you choose to have payments due to you directly deposited into your bank account instead of having a paper check, money order or cash mailed to you at your workplace or home.
• MIlitary Educational Benefits
  The military offers a variety of educational benefits for active duty servicemembers, members of the National Guard and Reserves, college students preparing for military service, veterans and military spouses and dependents.  Let’s first look at educational benefits specifically for servicemembers.