Central Issuing Facility, PPM

Today I accomplished two things: I did my first Transportation Brief and I turned in some stuff to CIF. Transportation is where you arrange to have your household goods moved. Though we could ask for the Army to move us, we plan to do it ourselves (a "Personally Procured Move".

The nice thing about this is that -- if we do it right -- we can profit from the process. I remember making out pretty well in our first move to Texas, and I don't want to miss out on any extra money.

At the same time, I don't want to bother bringing a bunch of fragile furniture along the way. Since 90% of the furniture in the house is Ikea particle board, we've decided to give away everything but the beds.

The sofa, vinyl easy chair, and dining room set will go to a newly married couple in my company, the entertainment center will go to some friends down the street, and the lawn care things will go to friends from church.

Not only is it less to worry about, it affords us the opportunity to buy new things for our next place. We may be out about $500, but the $2750 dislocation allowance for captains can easily cover some new stuff.

There are some interesting rules to the process, though, and you can really mess yourself up if you're not careful.

For example, if you're renting a moving truck, you can get a 60% advance based on the *anticipated* weight of your household goods.

Captains with dependents (like me) are allowed 14,500 pounds. If I ask for an advance based on the maximum weight, but then haul only 3,000 pounds, that's bad. The advance will exceed the final compensation, and I'll end up with a $0 paycheck for a few months.

People have also gotten court martialed for fraud. Strangely, a boat is considered "household goods." You get money for moving it with you. A towed car, however, is not compensable. If you try to sneak it into the back of your Uhaul, that'll definitely get you in trouble.

At CIF, I was able to get rid of all that multi-cam junk I picked up in Afghanistan, as well as the three IOTVs and two sets of plates I had. I do not miss them one bit, no matter how cool they were. That stuff was heavy.

Tomorrow I'll try to get into the Finance brief.