According to the Department of the Navy, Navy families move every 2.9 years. That means after you PCS (permanent change of station) you have about 3 years to settle in before you get up and do it all over again...lather, rinse and repeat...
After Scott and I got married in April of 2009 I had already given my notice at work and moved up to Ventura CA on May 1st. It took me 5 months to find a job and about another 5 months to feel some what settled into my job. That brings us to now, March 2010. The crazy part is Scott is up for orders in October of 2011, a mere 18 months away! Plus, once he graduates from college in May of 2011 he is going to try and get to our next duty station asap. That means in a little over a year I could be packing up and starting the process all over again! This thought didn't come to fruition until I was doing a project at work and it is going to be about a year until we really see its results, at that moment I realized when that year gets here I will have just another couple of months before I attend my own smooth move class at the ffsc, this time not as the educator, but as the audience! {wowza, that might worlds longest sentence!}
The reality of moving on average every 2.9 years the cycle will look something like this:
Move-->spend up to 6 months settling in and finding a job --->spend 6 months getting comfortable at new job--->then a little over a year at job before you start prepping to do it all again!
I grew up a Navy brat so while I am used to moving as a child, moving as a spouse is a whole new ball game. I was playing football before, now its soccer I've got to learn, and I've already said "sign me up coach!" As a child you just follow the lead of your parents and when you get to the your new home you sign up for school and go on your merry way. As a spouse it is a bit frightening. You have to look for a new job, and deal with the pay cut should you move to city/state that has a lessor cost of living. If that happens to be the case it probably also means the BAH (basic allowance for housing) will be less and thus we will probably be pocketing less of that as well. A girl becomes accustomed to a certain spending habits and it takes massive amounts of will power not to drop $100 plus during a quick pit stop to Target. Take yesterday for example, I was in there for about 15 minutes and spend $50!!
The moral to my bloggry(blog post+story) is time flies when your life is run by the United States Navy! Just when you start to settle in and get comfortable the next adventure starts to creep its head around the corner...our next adventure is going to creep up on us before we know it!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I am not a military spouse at all, but our life has been one of pick up and move every 1-2 years. I can't even imagine what it would be like to really settle down somewhere for a long time. Not just the $$ aspect is hard but, even as a people person, I find myself investing less and less time in people because I hate getting close and then leaving and having to start all over.
ReplyDelete