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The Lejeune-New River Personal Financial Management Program is now offering a new way to receive personal financial counseling. Active duty service members, as well as reservist, can now participate in online personal financial counseling. The counseling is available 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. during the week, as well as evening hours on Monday and Thursday until 8 p.m.
The program allows service members to receive counseling on military benefits, debt management, spending plans, pre and post-deployment preparations and retirements. They can also help with tax planning and debt repayments.
“The pilot program allows us to meet with clients from the comfort of their home or from a remote location while they are on deployment,” said Leah Baugh, an accredited personal financial counselor for the pilot program. “Additionally, we can bring couples together in a single classroom to discuss finances even if they are geographically separated.”
The virtual personal financial counselors offers confidential financial consultations for individuals and families, referrals to military and community resources, support for service and family members during all stages of the deployment cycle, help with credit management and budgeting, assistance with navigating benefits and advocacy information and support.
For some service members, not staying on top of their finances could put them at risk of losing their security clearances.
“At this security office, 80 percent of the Continuous Evaluation Queries we receive are due to financial considerations of military or civilian personnel,” said Kevin E. Gregory, Command Security manager, Marine Corps Installations East-Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. “We can attempt to alleviate this by passing this information to the military members attached to the command and get the word out.”
The virtual counseling is conducted via Zoom and it allows service members to have a secure video chat with a virtual personal financial counselor. Zoom also allows screen sharing, which allows the service member to share documents, as well as collaborate.
“We are financial educators here to educate eligible individuals on financial topics and make sure people are headed in the right direction in their financial life,” Baugh said. “We cannot give investment advice, but empower individuals with the knowledge to make the best financial decisions for themselves. We are also able to provide one-on-one financial training to clear financial action codes that are issued in MOL for certain life events, such as marriage, birth of the first child, promotion or PCS [Permanent Change of Station].”
For more information, visit http://www.mccslejeune-newriver.com/finance or visit the online calendars and book directly online at https://calendly.com/camplejeune-pfc5 or https://calendly.com/camplejeune-pfc4.
| Date Taken: | 03.11.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 03.13.2020 12:11 |
| Story ID: | 365164 |
| Location: | CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 66 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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