Looking for family prep advice before OCS, going to miss son's birth

[mckray]

Warriors,

Got some things I am trying to plan for but basically just want to run them by other folks who have experience with families and active duty. I'm prior Marine Corps but have never been married or had kids while active duty. I'm going to get into the weeds a bit here so sorry about that but there's a lot of important nuance when dealing with a pregnant wife. Wife and I are trying to be very proactive about this and are aware that there's going to be a lot of hoops and hurdles coming up. We're just trying to identify as many as we can before I go.

Background: Got a PROREC Y and a verbal for OCS on 07 Jan for SNA. Got 1 kid that's 1.5 years old, wife's pregnant, due a week or two before OCS graduates. Living in rural spot that's 3 hrs away from doc. No, I can't change it. Own a house that we'll rent when we leave. Got some family that's available to help with the birth. I've been the one handling bills so while we share our money, the bills come out of my account while we spend cash from the other one. My income goes to bills account, wife's income goes to cash account. I have no power of attorney to wife.

Plan so far for general stuff

• Provide access to all e-mail account pertinent to billing or other account like Amazon in case of data breach of something
• Send both incomes to one bank account
• Hire property manager, gardener, and bug dude to keep the house put together
• Teach wife how to change a tire, reset a breaker, and start the water heater

Is it important for me to put together a general or special power of attorney before OCS? The cars both have OR on the title but the house is AND so she'd need POA to do any big deal for the house.

Plan so far for baby business

• Wife is on her own with the boy until about March, pretty much solo in town having only 1 friend that's always busy
• Wife heads to doctors locale about 1 month before the big day. Lives with and is supported by her sister and retired parents
• Wife has the baby and lives with parents until I come around on my 10-day leave and bring her home (this is not confirmed, I don't know how after-OCS works, recruiter said 10-day leave plus possibility of more time due to P-Cola being backed up
• Get house ready to rent before leaving left-coast for IFS
• PCS to P-Cola with family (also unconfirmed, I've heard that the possibility exists to do this)

From Marine Corps Recruit Training, I know that there's a lifeline option if someone needs to get a hold of you for an emergency. I'm assuming something similar exists at OCS. Is this true? What other communications can I count on while at OCS besides snail mail?

I'm planning on bringing wife's passport for DEERS enrollment. When does TRICARE kick in for my family?

Does my plan have any red flags to anybody but especially active duty dads?

Any other general advice for going active duty with a family?

Thanks everyone. I'm extremely excited to join the ranks again.

 

[villanelle]

(FOLLOWING ADVICE IS FROM A SPOUSE, NOT A SERVICE MEMBER).

More and more, many places will not accept a general POA. Husband always does one anyway, as it can't hurt, but we also try to do specials for any eventuality we can think of (every bank account, especially, given that it sounds like her name is not on all the accounts, though I would add her if you feel comfortable doing so) . We go to teh legal office, look through all their special POAs, and select any that might have even a chance of applying to us. I don't know if you have access to a legal office before OSC, or not. But they generally have a good sense of what specials exist and can help you figure out which you may need.

IMO, teaching her to change a tire and things like that should probably be at the bottom of the list. It's good to know (whether or not you are home) but it's not something that can't be managed while you are gone via a call to a tow truck or a friend. When prioritizing stuff, you need to look at both likelihood of occurrence, and worst case scenario if it doesn't happen. Her not being able to access the account from which you pay your bills would be a pretty awful worst case. Her needing to call a tow friend or tow truck if she gets a flat is not all that awful. Try to think through things that might happen, and whether it will be a crisis if you do nothing, then circle back around to the "nice to haves". Also, make her aware of military one source and maybe Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. Those organizations can probably guide her to the assistance she'd need (either by providing it themselves or directing her to the proper resource) in many situations. (I assume OSC doesn't have an ombudsman/FRO program, but maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong.)

Unless your property will actually make you money when you rent it (including all costs, the property manager fee, and some sort of realistic escrowing of money for maintenance costs, which people tend to grossly underestimate), I'd suggest you strongly reconsider renting it. Even if it will make money, I'd still reconsider. Being a long distance landlord sucks. And your wife will probably be the one dealing with it because you'll have your hands and brain full with flight school. But she'll have her hands and brain full with two tiny, helpless humans. IME, most property managers suck, or at best are okay. I ended up doing more work, answering more phone calls, and making more decisions that I anticipated. Ask yourself it that's really and truly worth what will probably be a small amount of income it generates (if it generates anything at all after costs and saving for a new roof and replacing the fridge when the renters don't treat it as well as you did and cause it to die sooner than it would otherwise have, and...). At this point in your career and in the life of your kids, simple is very often the best choice.

Also, prepare your wife for The Suck. Prepare her for the fact that she's going to be taking pretty much all of the overnight baby needs. And that you may even need to sleep in a separate room so that you are ready to fly in the morning because you haven't been awoke by the cries and the feedings and the changing. Prepare her for the fact that even when you are home, your time often won't be your own because you'll be studying. Prepare her for short notice schedule changes. It's nice if you can commit to a certain time every week--that Saturday afternoons and evenings will be family time, or time you give her to be by herself, or whatever, whenever it is feasible for you to do so. (Chances are some weekends you 'll be flying or you'll be so slammed that you can't sacrifice even a few hours, and she needs to know that, too. But consider making a plan where you commit to carving out that set time whenever possible during flight school.)

 

[mckray]

Thanks, villanelle,

You made some good points about likelihood v. severity with what we should focus on taking care of before I go. I was just thinking of some of the things I know how to do that we both take for granted. She grew up in a pretty nice lifestyle and hasn't really had to learn much of that stuff.

I work on a Navy base now so I may be able to access a legal office but I work as a DoD civilian so I don't think I get the benefit of the legal office. I'll look into the specials they offer and see if anything sounds necessary. Is there a way to easily go through the POA process without a lawyer on the civilian side that you know of? Something that USAA or NavyFed has perhaps?

I'm definitely on the fence about renting or selling. We have only been in the house for about 6 months so I think we'll lose money from closing costs but if it's worth the lower stress level of not being a long-distance landlord, I'll do that for sure.

My wife's familiar with me being totally unavailable while I'm home due to study. We went through similar troubles while I was studying engineering. We just haven't done it much with kids so that'll be a new challenge. She's fairly familiar with the military life. We started dating while I was still active duty but there will certainly still be some culture shock. You're not the first to suggest a family night and that sounds like a great idea. I'll definitely be trying to plan that in the future.

 

[villanelle]

Thanks, villanelle,

You made some good points about likelihood v. severity with what we should focus on taking care of before I go. I was just thinking of some of the things I know how to do that we both take for granted. She grew up in a pretty nice lifestyle and hasn't really had to learn much of that stuff.

I work on a Navy base now so I may be able to access a legal office but I work as a DoD civilian so I don't think I get the benefit of the legal office. I'll look into the specials they offer and see if anything sounds necessary. Is there a way to easily go through the POA process without a lawyer on the civilian side that you know of? Something that USAA or NavyFed has perhaps?

I'm definitely on the fence about renting or selling. We have only been in the house for about 6 months so I think we'll lose money from closing costs but if it's worth the lower stress level of not being a long-distance landlord, I'll do that for sure.

My wife's familiar with me being totally unavailable while I'm home due to study. We went through similar troubles while I was studying engineering. We just haven't done it much with kids so that'll be a new challenge. She's fairly familiar with the military life. We started dating while I was still active duty but there will certainly still be some culture shock. You're not the first to suggest a family night and that sounds like a great idea. I'll definitely be trying to plan that in the future.

As far as I know POAs, have to be notarized, so I don't know that there's any way to do them online, but you don't really need a lawyer, either. You may be able to go in to the legal office even if you can't use their services, grab all the blank forms, and fill them out yourself, but I believe you'd still have to pay a notary to notarize them and make them valid, unless you can use the legal office after you sign in and before you leave, perhaps? (I'm not even a little familiar with the Marine's process.)

For the house, you likely will lose money since you'll have to pay the commission. But unless you are in an absolutely incredible rental market, you are going to lose money renting it, too. So rental would spread out the loss over time, but it comes with the stress of dealing with the rental. It can't hurt to dune the numbers and see what you could realistically rent it for to see if that gives you a meaningful profit (after mortgage, PMI if you have it, insurance, property management fees, maintenance including an escrow fund for the big-ticket stuff that eventually pops up, projected vacancies, HOA, and anything else.). We moved overseas near the bottom of the housing market, when our house was down about 20% from what we'd paid. In 6 years, we've made that back up and then some, so numbers wise it was a good decision to keep and rent. But if I had to do it over again, I'm still not sure I'd make the same choice. It hasn't been awful, but it hasn't been fun, either.

Good luck to you and your family as you move through this whole adventure!

 

[villanelle]

I just reread my post and I swear I know the difference between OCS and OSC. lol

 

[BigLuvin]

It's going to be shitty dealing with OCS knowing you're having a kid. I know because my 13' deployment, my wife had our second kid 2 weeks after I left on deployment. We were stationed in Hawaii at the time, so my Hawaiian family came thru and helped a lot. For my second and third deployment I gave my wife a general power of attorney that was of course notarized and never had any issues. If you can make all of the bills come out of your account automatically, it would help greatly. It's stressful as hell because I found out that I leave in less than a month. Good luck and it'll work out in the end.

~BL