Kate Horrell

Author

Service Member's Branch - Navy

Service Member's Status - Retiree - 30 years

What has been your military spouse career/entrepreneur journey so far?

After a break to care for young children, I was ready to return to the workforce in 2008. A volunteer position was looking for a staff member to write about personal finance for military families, and I put myself out there! What started as a small blog turned into a full-fledged writing position. After 10 years, I was being asked to work for other organizations, so I transitioned from employee to contractor to be able to add new projects.

Over the years, my projects have grown from articles to webinars, graphics, curriculum, and social media - all focused on helping military and veteran families be #confidentlyprepared for whatever comes next. Audience demand found me releasing my first book this month, College Finances for Military Families. Two more books are in the pipeline!

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Kate and I live in Annapolis, Maryland. I am obsessed with helping military and veteran families make the most of their pay and benefits. This includes having a successful transition to civilian life and getting kids through college. My new book, College Finances for Military Families, was released this month. In my free time, I like eating pizza and reading.

Tell us about a "typical" day in your professional life.

There's no such thing as a typical day in my life. First, I see what family and professional obligations I have on the calendar. Then I prioritize my to do list, pop on my working music, and get started. I might teach a class, write an article, or help a reader research a tricky regulation question. I travel a couple of times a month to teach classes on military bases and university campuses, and those days look entirely different.

If you've been stationed overseas, how did this affect your career and or business?

Being stationed overseas definitely impacted my career. First, I was unable to complete one of my designations because nowhere on base was willing to proctor necessary exams. Second, as an entrepreneur, making in-person connections is key to growth. My business wasn't making enough money to fund constant travel back and forth to the United States. And I didn't have child care even if I could have traveled. But I kept chugging along..

What has been your biggest military spouse career struggle and how did you overcome it?

My biggest military spouse career struggle is balancing family and work life. I'm not sure that I have overcome it, but I have made a conscious decision that family comes first. Feeling comfortable in that decision has eliminated a lot of my internal conflict when I put work second.

What role did mentors and sponsors play in your journey?

I've been thankful to be part of several supportive communities, including the military spouse community, the military personal finance community, and the FinCon community (it's a money and media conference.) They have consistently encouraged me, helped me learn, listened to my frustrations, and helped me find solutions.

How does your career path differ from what you imagined for yourself?

Goodness, that's a big question! Well, I definitely never imagined that I'd be juggling so many plates LOL. Entrepreneurship means that I do a lot of things, including tech support, bookkeeping, travel booking, graphic design, and marketing. I am constantly learning skills I couldn't have imagined that I need to know.

How did military life (PCSing, deployments, trainings, etc) factor into your career decisions?

While my husband was still serving, military life drove all of my career decisions. It was important to my husband and I that our kids have a relatively full-time parent available, so working outside the home wasn't an option for me. And honestly, I don't know how I would have done it when he was deployed or working 60 hour weeks. I'm in awe of parents who can both work full-time and still function. Even once I started on my entrepreneurship journey, a lot of decisions were made based on whether it could happen without impacting my husband's ability to do his job.

Have you ever had to geo-bach due to your career/entrepreneurship?

We have geo-bached, but not due to career/entrepreneurship.

What resources have you found to be useful in your career/entrepreneur journey?

There are so many resources available to the military community. The Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University offers outstanding programs in entrepreneurship, and I've been blessed to attend several including their Entrepreneurship Bootcamp and V-WISE. But they're not the only one!

Attending conferences is an amazing way to build relationships, and our community has a ton of them, including MilMoneyCon, Military Influencers Conference, MilSpouseFest events, and more.

If you and/or your spouse have transitioned from active duty to your current status, what resource or tool did you find to be the most helpful?

Our transition to retirement was vastly improved by a lot of planning. We started planning for retirement at year 15 of service, and he ended up serving 30 years. We had a budget, we had a transition fund, we knew what we were going to do about the Survivor Benefit Plan, and we had a shared vision. That's not to say it was easy, though. Separating from the service can feel like running in front of an avalanche. Despite all our plans, I was still making a decision about retiree dental at the last possible moment—it was just too much!

I also leaned on the community who had retired before us. I gathered the best tips and tricks from our community and made a checklist—you can find it at my website! There's one version for retirement and one version for separation.

https://www.katehorrell.com/military-retirement-checklist/

Final word: what are your top tips for other military spouses about navigating a career within the military lifestyle?

Be true to your values. If you want to stay home, do it. If you want to work more-than-full time, do it. Don't be afraid to stand up for what you believe. So many well-meaning friends told me that I was limiting my career by picking up my kids from school, taking off on school holidays, etc., but that was the choice that I valued.

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