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Members of the military are prime targets for scam artist who want a piece of the regular paychecks and often take advantage of their frequent moves. I’m Kim Lankford from Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine and I can show you how to protect yourself.
Over the past few years, state and federal regulators have cracked down on companies that targeted members of the military with high fee investments but you still need to be careful. Instead, first max out your savings plan which is a low fee tax different account. You can invest up to $16,500.00 of your regular pay and all of your taxes of pay will deploy up to $49,000.00 in 2009.
You can also invest up to $5,000.00 in a—IRA which gives you tax free income in retirement. Make the most of the military saving’s deposit program also which let service members invest up to $10,000.00 while deployed and guarantees 10% annual return.
Regulators have lived with multimillion dollar fines against insurers that used high pressure tactics to core service members into buying expensive insurance they didn’t need. Instead, you can max out your military life insurance first. Service member’s Group Life Insurance, SGLI is very inexpensive and provides up to $400,000.00 in coverage.
Criminals have no plans about fabricating an affiliation with the military to gain the family’s trust whether they’re going door to door selling insurance or taking your spouses money through working home scams. To protect yourself, check out the company or salesperson with the community service office on base and the better business bureau.
Any lenders use to line the commercial strips around military basis are often charged up to 400% interest for short term loans. A recent law—loan rates at 36% from members of the military. The criminals are still taking it to the next level and charging advanced fees to borrow money which often disappears. Instead, you can get a zero percent loan through a military emergency relief fund or find a low interest loan at a based credit union.
This is Kim Lankford, personal finance columnist and wife of an army doctor. For more information to help military families with their personal finances, go to www.kiplinger.com/links/military.
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