What can an e-1 or e-2 do with the little money they get each month? u cant wipe your a$ with their pay!?

Question

What can an e-1 or e-2 do with the little money they get each month? u cant wipe your a$$ with their pay!?

Answer 1

well considering that your food, roof and medical are taken care of you should be ok. but its gets better i promise. my hubby is an E3 the further you move up the more comfortable youll be and if you get married BAH is a wonderful thing right now were getting an extra 1300 dollars a month bcuz hes married. but jsut think if you were out in the civi world makin that money you wouldnt have the stuff you have now. just tough it out itll be ok i promise. good luck and take care

and to the person that said food was free. its not it comes out of  their paychecks like 250 dollars a month. . . .. .

Answer 2

All Enlisted Military are under paid. For the time you guys spend at work 5:00am to 7:00pm on a good day.  No civilian can say that the military are paid enough!  When they deploy the pay will only go up about a 1,000 more a month.  Who in their right mind can say that $500 a paycheck is enough for what they have to go through.  I am so tired of hearing people say that they are paid well.  Yes, you do get a little extra money for food and housing, but of you think about it if a soldier didn't get that they would make the same amount as a fast food worker. Lets not even talk about if a soldier is killed in combat.  The 9/11 family members got 1.3 million dollars!  WTF Shouldn't a soldier's family get the same????

Answer 3

You get at least over $1k a month thou, and it also comes with allowance. Depends how you spend it. It's just a starter, as time goes by, you'll make more than that.

Answer 4

well, they live in the barracks for free, eat at the galley ( meal card is already deducted in your pay so you don't pay extra). yea its not much money, but unless your a heavy drinker and just drink away your paycheck you can survive. my hubby has been there and done that and he did just fine!

Answer 5

I graduated boot camp as an E3.

When I graduated BC, everyone in my company were all E3s.

E1s and E2s are folks who have been busted in Captain's Mast and were knocked down from NCO.

Answer 6

If you have basic handling of money skills you should do well with $500 a check. You have NO BILLS except for things like phone ,internet and cable. And even if you get a car note and insurance you should still have something leftover. Now if you joined the military and expect to be ballin, and making it rain at the club. Then you're screwed.

The money is good for a responsible, young, SINGLE person.

Answer 7

I had more money then, than I do now!  

Except my piddly car payment (I had a hoopty) and my ins. I had no bills.  Cell phones weren't widely available/popular then.  We had free basic cable in the dorm and I wasn't about to pay for HBO.

Answer 8

I don't do my job for the money. Get a second job.

Answer 9

If you're single and living in the barracks with your utilities and food paid for, you actually have more spending money than those of a higher rank with families who actually have bills to pay.  

Answer 10

So you live in the barracks free, eat in the mess hall free and complain about spending money?  All things considered you are well paid.  So you can't afford a new Porsche; most people can't.  I started at $98 a month and with inflation considered in you have almost triple what it was then.  If the only reason you joined the military was to get rich then you joined for the wrong reason and get out as soon as you can.

Answer 11

I don't agree.  Young soldiers make enough money they just fall into a category of people (young people) who make un-wise choices with their money.  At their pay level, they simply can't afford to buy new cars, entertainment equipment, get married, have two kids etc. etc.  We need to start teaching people early in life how to conduct their lives more responsibly, primarily when it comes to economic matters.  A person should buy "stuff" when they can afford it, not just because they want it, and as for their personal life, there also a person has to make reasonable decisions based on their finances.

Answer 12

man I know people in the civilian world who make a lot less and they don't get free housing and decent food to eat.  If your married there is BAH and COMRATS.  h**l when we moved out of base housing we had enough left over from our BAH to pay a car payment every month.  Sounds like you are WANTing more than you NEED.

Answer 13

All I can say is it gets better...

I promise.

Man, those were the days.

My husband and I got married then, and he lived off of hot sauce packets ( didn't have a car to get to the galley, neither did any of his buds) to buy me a tiny diamond ring, his mom changed a wedding dress from a size 3x, to a size four, we got married in a livingroom in front of a Christmas tree, had no money for a honey moon, but some guy we didn't even know (knew the pastor that married us) loaned us his lakeside cabin for two weeks...

We were broke-dy broke, but It was SOOO perfect :-) Lol... even when we FINALLY got BAH, we didn't have enough money to get a bed to sleep on ( I was looking for a job and not having much luck) his mom had shipped us 4 twin sized mattresses and we duck-taped them together to make a king bed. TOTALLY ghetto...

Anyways.. Yeah, give it some time, your pay will increase. Hopefully, until then, what you get is enough to pay your bills and you have a way  to get to the galley to eat! Count your blessings, life isn't all that bad :-)

Answer 14

Its a whole h**l of a lot more than I got in 71. My first take home pay was $111.