Military Benefits & VA Loans Specialist
Linda Washington is a CFP and Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC) with 14 years serving the military community. A veteran herself (U.S. Army, 8 years), she knows military benefits from the inside out. She worked as a personal financial counselor at Fort Hood under the FINRA Foundation's Military Financial Educator program before joining USAA Financial Planning Services. Linda's expertise covers VA home loans, the GI Bill, Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) optimization, SCRA protections, and survivor benefit planning for Gold Star families.
Her own eight years in the Army mean she counsels PCS moves, deployments, and VA loan entitlement the way someone who has lived through them would — including the parts most guides gloss over, like how re-using VA loan entitlement after a prior default works, or how the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act caps interest rates on debts incurred before active duty.
At Fort Hood, Linda counseled service members through some of the most financially disruptive moments in a military career: separation, medical retirement, and survivor-benefit transitions for Gold Star families. That work is why her writing goes beyond the standard VA loan explainer into TSP-to-IRA rollovers, Survivor Benefit Plan elections, and how disability ratings interact with military retired pay under concurrent receipt rules.
View LinkedIn ProfileB.S. Finance, American Military University; CFP Certificant; AFC Designation (AFCPE); FINRA Military Financial Educator Certification