Empowering Military Families: Financial Education and Debt Solutions with USAAEF

Show Notes

• Guests: Mandi Moynihan and Katie Casey-Macias (USAAEF)
• Host: Tara Alderete
• Publication Date: April 30, 2025

Highlights

• 2:46 | Mandi walks through the history of the USAA Education Foundation.
• 4:09 | Katie shares some of the financial trends they’re seeing in the military community.
• 8:26 | Tara, Katie, and Mandi talk about the importance of breaking through the stigma of debt.
• 11:01 | Mandi and Katie talk about the services offered by USAAEF, including their Debt Destroyer program.

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcripts are machine-generated and may contain errors.

Tara: Hey there. This is Tara Aldorete with MMI and welcome to Long Story Short. This week on our podcast, I'm excited to talk to Mandi Moynihan and Katie Casey-Macias with the USAA Educational Foundation. Mandi and Katie are both program manager leads, and I think this is going to be a fantastic conversation for military folks and their families around financial education, and I'm excited to have them here. At Money Management International, we believe that financial challenges aren't meant to be faced alone and financial wellness is a journey. On this podcast, we hear stories of people whose lives have been changed by MMI, and we also hear from the dedicated partners helping to make a difference. These stories are unique, personal, and inspiring. Stay tuned.

We're sharing each guest's Long Story Short. Mandi, Katie, welcome to the show.

Mandi Moynihan: Well, thanks, Tara. Thank you so much for having us today. We're excited to be here. I have been with the ED foundation for seven years now, and I did previously. I served in the army and it was really through a personal debt experience that launched my career into becoming a certified financial planner. I'm one of the CFPs on the team that helps create this content and it's been a pleasure to work in this foundation because it's, you know, it's giving back to the military community that's super special to me personally. And I also lead the marketing and communications effort on our team. So again, appreciate you having us for giving us the opportunity to get in front of your audience and help spread the word.

Tara: Excellent.

Katie Casey-Macias: Awesome. So thanks, Tara. My name is Katie Casey-Macias. I'm a certified Financial planner professional. Along with Mandi, I've been with the ED foundation now for about five years in total. Prior to that, I worked for a small financial counseling firm. And, and I'm just really excited to be here today. I am a military spouse.

My husband's serving in the Air Force, and before becoming a financial planner, I was actually a social worker and I worked with a lot of families, including military families, that financial struggles were a daily real part of their life. And that really led me to learn more about financial planning and eventually get the Certified Financial Planner designation. So I'm super happy to be here and excited to talk about money management and military families.

Tara: I'm happy to have you guys and thank you for your service. Mandi, thank you for your service. And Katie, I know, you know, I feel like military spouses serve in their own way. It's definitely a sacrifice that both of you made and are making and so, you know, thank you for that. So let's jump in and get started. Can you tell us a little bit more about the mission and history of the USAA Educational Foundation? Mandi?

Mandi Moynihan: Yeah. So the ED foundation was formed back in 1986. We are a 501c3 nonprofit. We are a separate leg entity from USAA. They are our sponsor. But we have a mission to provide free financial education tailored to the military community. And so we have a team of CFPs that create all the content. But it's pure education, self serve for military families to go in.

And it's not leading to products or services. We're not allowed to promote any businesses or products or services. And so, you know, it really is kind of a, a dream job for us. A lot of us say that, that especially having been in the military, giving back to the military community, it's, it's really a wonderful mission.

Tara: Yeah. And you know it. We, we do some of this at MMI through our Military Reconnect program. And what we see is that it is a different situation. Military folks and families have different benefits and different situations and different burdens that they're trying to overcome or obstacles that they're trying to overcome. So I love that you guys are out there doing this specifically for military folks and families. It's a big deal. Katie I'd like to ask what kind of financial trends are you guys seeing among military members and their families right now and sort of why is financial education especially important right now for military members?

Katie Casey-Macias: So some of the financial trends that we're seeing in the military community are trends that we're seeing broadly with civilians as well. But some of the main things are the high cost of living at some duty locations. I mean, military members and families don't have a choice to decide where they want to go for their next assignment. And sometimes those places can be really high cost of living. So that's a challenge. Sometimes affordability and availability of housing is an issue, and you maybe don't know that until you get to your new or your next duty station. Military spouse employment is another major concern for a lot of families. If you have to leave a profession and a certification that might not translate to your new location and you may not be able to find a position that pays the same or be able to find a position at all.

So that's another challenge that a lot of military families face with military spouse employment. There's deployments are always on the horizon. You never know when that may come along. And that can really interrupt your financial life and add some additional financial burden to your day and to your checkbook. And we all know military families move often. I can say from our own experience, every time we move, it was difficult to know what the new location was going to be like and what some of those costs were going to be until we settled in. So there was definitely some financial impact on those frequent moves. And like, we're all feeling it.

Inflation is up. And so, you know, just like the civilian world we are as military families, we're dealing with inflation too. So some things that are consistent across the board, but there are some very unique challenges financially for military members.

Tara: Definitely. And I feel like now, you know, I know here at MMI we're seeing debt on the rise, of course, and so I'm sure that it is a bigger burden for military families because of all the things that you mentioned. So, speaking of debt, you know, Mandi, financial education is so important, as you know, and one big component of that, of course, is debt and managing it. It's what this podcast is all about. Can debt affect military folks differently than civilians? And if they. And if it can, how?

Mandi Moynihan: Yeah, that's a great question. And really just to kind of piggyback off of all the great things Katie was saying, you know, having debt affects your overall well being. As we all know, young service members are away from home for the first time and getting a steady paycheck. And that if they don't have those money management skills, which, you know, let's face it, most young folks maybe don't have their skills honed, they could find themselves kind of falling for some of the predatory lending. There's a lot of predatory lending folks outside the installations that, that prey upon that because they know there's a steady income and so they, they can get kind of sucked into some bad consumer lending practices. Also, if a service member is struggling with debt and it affects your mental well being, it could also impact the mission readiness. That's a unique thing for service members. In addition, if you're in a position where you have a security clearance, there's a continuous vetting process.

So they are constantly looking at people's financial situation. And if you could potentially lose your security clearance if you don't, if you have a lot of debt and you're not taking care of it. So that's a unique, you know, factor for service members. But the good news is there are some federal laws in place to help service members protect them. Military Lending act and the Service Member Civil Relief act, those two are federal laws that really are in place. You know, the Military Lending act is supposed to help with those predatory lenders I just mentioned, where they have a cap on interest rates, they have good disclosures, and they can't make a service member create an automatic allotment just to get a loan. And that was, you know, kind of some poor practices that they've protected against the service members. Civil Relief act is helps those on active duty, even those on the Guard and the Reserve, they get activated.

And so they help cap interest rates on debt incurred before debt service. And so they're really trying to help protect things that being in the military can often cause debt, like moving a lot. Like Katie said, you're moving a lot. Well, this act will allow people to break a lease without penalties and things like that. That can really put some guardrails in place to help service members navigate that while they're serving their country and trying to deal with finances.

Tara: And it's so important. And I feel like that's probably one of the things that you guys are doing, is educating folks on where they can learn more about the benefits that they have available to them through these acts and where to find them and how to take advantage of them. So I think those are things that folks might not even know are out there to help, among other things. And so I appreciate it. I'm sure debt is a big deal for a lot of folks, especially in the military. So I wanted to ask, you know, Katie, it is crazy, but as common as debt is, it is something we don't typically talk about. We're trying hard to break the stigma here. How do you think organizations like us at MMI and you at USAAEF are working to erase the debt stigma?

Katie Casey-Macias: That is a great question, Tara, and you're exactly right. It is really hard to talk about money. And I would venture to say it's even harder to talk about debt. You know, we all come to managing money with different experiences and different backgrounds and have some really strong ingrained feelings, habits, patterns around how we understand and think about money and how we relate to other people. So it can be very, very hard to talk about it. And it can be hard to know where to go to get information if you didn't grow up with it. If you don't have an aren't in an environment where you feel like you can go to a trusted friend or family member, it can be hard to know where to turn to get some information. So at USAAEF, we have a team of certified financial planner professionals.

And like Mandi mentioned earlier, we aren't selling any products. We can't Promote any commercial product or service. And so our mission really is to provide financial education, unbiased education, to help people make the best decisions that they can with their money. And that includes debt. So we have a program called the Debt Destroyer program. It is a six step program to help pay off debt, to help empower anybody, service members or any person to pay off debt. It is a fantastic program, non judgmental, unbiased, and it really can help show you, give you that path ahead to, to pay off debt and it decrease that load on your mental health and just help you improve your financial situation overall.

Tara: Debt Destroyer, I love that name. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pose this question to both of you because I wanna know more about this Debt Destroyer program and some of the other resources that you provide. So could you tell us more about that program and the resources you provide through USAAEF? Who can access these resources? How can they access them? This sounds so good. How can people take advantage?

Mandi Moynihan: Yeah. Well, I'll start, I'll kind of give you the breadth of products that we have and then I'll pass it to Katie to talk more in depth about Debt Destroyer. But we do have a website, USAAEF.org and it's open source, tailored to the military. But we have learning guys on array of topics from the basics of how to set goals, budgeting, obviously the debt, all the way through investing and estate planning. We also have guys kind of tailored to the life events that military folks phase, like new to the military, moving, deploying, transitioning out of the military. And we also tailor content for life events that we all experience such as marriage, having children and even divorce. But they're really designed for different learning types. They're designed for folks to come and self serve.

So if you're looking to buy a home or buy a car, we have a learning guide. You can go read about it, you can watch a video, we have calculators, worksheets that you can download. So really, you know, tailoring to people's needs. And we understand they're, the people in the military are super busy. We're all busy. Right. But they're designed to be kind of bite sized pieces of information that you can kind of go look for something that you need, get what you need and leave and hopefully, you know, come back, you found it useful and you come back and learn about more topics. So that's our website, we do have social media channels, we're trying to reach people where they are.

So we have a Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn account we're just kind of building that social community we launched about two years ago. So excited to have that channel available to people so they can, you know, when they're on their phone and they're scrolling social media, they may not be thinking about financial education. Most people probably aren't, you know, clamoring for that every day. But we try to reach them in unique ways and drive traffic back to our website for more information or provide some little snippets of in channel kind of education right there on the spot for them.

Tara: Wonderful.

Mandi Moynihan: Katie. I'll let you kind of talk more in depth about the Debt Destroyer program.

Katie Casey-Macias: Thanks, Mandi. I mean, Debt Destroyer is a similar offering. The way that the rest of the content is offered on our website, free open source, anybody can access it and go through it. So Debt Destroyer is a really, really great six step program. We have videos for each step of the program that will walk a learner through from start to finish. And we also have a workbook that you can download, write in, print it and enter your own numbers. Part of the Debt Destroyer program is getting to the point where you're paying off that debt. What is it going to look like? And we have a fantastic calculator on our website that you can enter your specific information and really dig into the numbers and understand how quickly you can pay off your debt.

And we really hold your hand through the process. It's self paced. You can access it at will whenever works best for your schedule. And as Mandi said, you know, military members are busy, families are busy. So it's available to you whenever you're ready to access it. For those folks that really want to dig into those numbers, the calculator, I can't say enough good things about the calculator. It will show you how much money you can save in interest by following the debt snowball or debt avalanche methods, how much time you save. And from our perspective, that's really important to see where that finish line is and see what that goal is going to look like over time.

And it's really empowering for people. And we've heard great success stories of people accessing this program and really feeling empowered with their financial readiness to take control of their debt. And again, you know, sometimes people need a little extra support. And I know with Money Management International you have one on one counseling available for people that maybe need a little bit more help as they're going through this process. And so that is something that we partner with you to help provide that additional one on one assistance for, for people that might need that additional support.

Tara: I love it. And I love the idea of the calculators and the tools and sort of tracking your progress because I feel like debt especially, you know, education too. But debt especially is one of those things where when you start to see the momentum, it gets really exciting and you're like, oh my gosh, I did this. I can do even more. And it's really fun. So it sounds like you guys have nailed it as far as making sure that folks have the best resources available to them to meet their goals. So who can access these resources and how do they get them?

Mandi Moynihan: Everybody can access these resources Again. USAAEF.org. Browse our content in the Debt Destroyer Learning Guide. You will find the links to MMI. Again, as Katie said, if you need that a little extra one on one assistance, obviously social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Come follow us there. But yes, we are open to everyone.

Tara: All right. USAA Educational Foundation. You can find them at USAAEF.org look for education and Debt Destroyer. Mandi, Katie, thank you so much. This was such a valuable conversation. I'm so happy that you joined us today.

Mandi Moynihan: Thank you so much for having us.

Katie Casey-Macias: This was great.

Tara: Thanks for listening to this episode of Long Story Short, brought to you by Money Management International. To learn more about our work and how we're helping people in all walks of life repay debt, balance their budget, and find lasting financial peace of mind, visit moneymanagement.org.

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