Managing lean periods

As well as inflation impacting your budget, another challenge with budgeting includes lean periods and how they are managed. A lean period is when your income is under extra or unusual strain, and you do not have enough cash to cover your commitments. For example, you might have to tighten your belt after unexpected expenses like a car repair, or during times like Christmas, Eid, or Dashain when household costs often increase.

In the armed forces community, lean periods can also happen when income changes, for example around deployments, maternity leave, or shifts between regular and reserve service. Lean periods might not just result from your spending rising, but also from your income dropping, like reducing your hours of work or losing some benefits.  Let’s look at two case studies.

Service personnel can have variable earnings, increasing their income when deployed. Take Leading Hand James, who is married with two young children, and lives in Service Family Accommodation. His partner works term-time as a teaching assistant, which helps balance childcare when he is deployed. In March, Leading Hand James deployed overseas for six months on an op tour. During that time, he earned extra income through allowances.  Some of this supported his family at home, and he saved the rest, feeling confident enough to plan a family holiday when he returned in October. But by the end of November, most of those savings had been spent. His family then had to rely entirely on their normal monthly income to cover Christmas leave and household expenses. After Christmas, when his Chain of Command later offered another six-month deployment, it felt less like an opportunity, and more like a financial necessity. This added financial pressure put strain on family life, his marriage, and his relationship with his children.

Farida is a military spouse. Her partner now serves as a Corporal in the Army Reserve, having previously served as a regular. Reserve pay is reliable during training periods and annual camp, but income can be lower and less predictable outside those commitments. Farida works part-time and recently took maternity leave when her youngest child was born. As Farida works part-time, her thirty-nine weeks of maternity pay would be at a reduced rate right from the start, with further reductions throughout. This would’ve had an immediate impact on the combined family income, made worse by the last three months being unpaid. For her family, the biggest pressure points tend to come during long school holidays. This year, Christmas coincided with the final months of unpaid maternity. Before this, September was particularly expensive, with school uniforms, supplies and children’s birthdays all landing at once. This demonstrates how essential it was for Farida to plan well ahead.

What can you do about lean periods? Tough patches like this can make money feel more stressful and force difficult trade-offs. But there are practical things you can do. To help navigate these tricky times, see if you can anticipate them before they come. You may want to ask yourself – is there a particular time of year that I regularly struggle, like Christmas? Leading up to these times, could I save a little extra to help? Are there ways to boost my income? For example, could I do extra hours at work before things get tough? Or am I entitled to any state benefits that I am not receiving? You can learn more from our videos on uplifting your earnings. Income can look different depending on your role in the Armed Forces community. Regular service personnel don’t usually get paid for extra hours in the same way civilians might do in certain roles. 

But you can apply for permission from your Commanding Officer to take on an extra job, as long as it doesn’t affect your core military duties. For reservists, and spouses or partners, who work in civilian roles, picking up extra hours before a lean period may be an option, if it’s practical. It’s also worth thinking about whether you might be entitled to state benefits. Some Service families assume they won’t qualify because their accommodation is provided at low cost, but this isn’t always the case. A lot of us might feel wary about considering benefits, but they are not just there for those unable to work, they are there to support people in hard times, and the overwhelming majority of people who get them also work. There are organisations that can help you find out what benefits you’re entitled to. Many families, including foreign and Commonwealth families, can be eligible for support like Universal Credit. Serving personnel and families are entitled to claim Universal Credit, regardless of their location. This means families stationed overseas can submit claims, just like those in the UK.

Taking a few minutes to check what you might be entitled to, by going to gov.uk, could make a real difference, especially during leaner months. You may not have all the answers now on how to manage your lean periods, and that’s fine. We’ll help you figure these out during the course of these videos. You now know that lean periods can affect us all, and that there are ways to help yourself through this.