This article by Karen Jowers originally appeared on Military Times, the nation's largest independent newsroom dedicated to covering the military and veteran community.

Questions about managing debt, dealing with finances during permanent change of station moves, deployments and unexpected emergencies like the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic?

The Defense Department’s new MilSpouse Money Mission answers a lot of financial questions unique to the military life, as well as providing basic information geared to help families get out of debt, and to help them get their finances in order — and keep them that way.

It includes timely information on how to protect your finances during this COVID-19 pandemic, and resources for those in the military community in financial need, whether it’s because of the pandemic, or other needs.

Created by the DoD Office of Financial Readiness, the website offers sections of information on topics starting with Money Ready 101 through Money Ready 401, with explanations, videos, articles and blogs, financial calculators and quizzes.

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Whether you’re a newbie at balancing a checkbook or a dedicated saver, you should find something in this resource that could help strengthen your finances. Take a quick look around the site to get an idea of what’s there, and you can come back when you need some reliable information about a certain topic — for example what to consider when you’re thinking about making a big purchase. You can take it a step at a time, at your own pace, with opportunities to delve deeper into subjects.

There’s information on how to calculate your debt-to-income ratio, and steps to consider when you’re deciding whether to borrow money, including calculating how much the loan will cost you over the life of the loan. Military OneSource has long offered resources on a variety of financial topics pertinent to military life, but this expands on the resources and provides one more separate resource for military spouses.

MilSpouse Money Mission also offers a social media community of support and motivation, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest.

DoD officials have recognized that spouses are often the chief financial officer of the family, taking the reins of finances in the family to provide continuity because service members are gone so much of the time.

And if spouses aren’t involved in the family finances, they should be — and not just when the service member is deployed.

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