Coast Guard: Personal Financial Training

725 Words2 Pages

The United States Coast Guard does not provide adequate personal financial training to the workforce, resulting in members making poor monetary decisions. Most of our members are living paycheck to paycheck and are stressed out about their financial situation. Why is this? Is it because the members just don’t care or because they don’t know the proper way of managing their money. I would say that it is the latter of the two. A workforce that is stressed out about how the next bill will be paid is a workforce that can’t fully concentrate on the U.S Coast Guard missions. There are so many benefits of having personal financial training taught to the workforce such as better productivity, less stress medical related costs and better decision making. …show more content…

The amount of time a member spends worrying about their financial situation during the work day is staggering. “29 percent of American full-time workers recently said they spend time dealing with their personal finances during work hours, and of those, 46% spend an average of 2-3 hours per week at work dealing with their financial issues” (Full time employees worry about their personal finances, 2013). What can be done to ensure that members of the U.S. Coast Guard are being more productive during the workday and are accomplishing the missions safely. We often worry about living a better healthy lifestyle but what about our financial health? Personal financial training can give the members the tools they need to live debt free and be more productive in the workplace. Training gives members the knowledge to be successful, and with knowledge comes power to take action and change things …show more content…

Coast Guard are trusted with different responsibilities such as being purchase card holders, travel card holders and etc. Why do we see people abuse and inappropriately use these cards? I don’t believe that these members are doing this on purpose. I believe the member has become so desperate to get out of their situation that they make a decision to use the government card the incorrect way because they see that as their only option. There is something seriously wrong with this picture. I personally know high performing members from all paygrades and ranks that have used the cards inappropriately and were punished for their actions. I agree that the members have to be held accountable, but I also believed it could have been avoided in the first place. We need to give the members the tools they need, and in this case its personal financial

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