The past few weeks have been a tense time for military families. It’s been nearly a month since the president deployed National Guard troops, and then Marines, in Los Angeles. Then, the U.S. bombed Iran, and Iran shot back.

At times like these, military families brace themselves, knowing their loved ones might be deployed. That’s what service members signed up for, but deployment can extract a cost from families.

Meghan Byrem’s spouse just deployed on Memorial Day. He’s a maintenance officer in the Air Force, now in South Korea.

“He will be gone for a full year,” she said.

Bryem said the Air Force pays her husband’s rent, but he has to buy new bedding and kitchen stuff, and a car to get around.

“Anytime, we deploy or we move, realistically we need to set aside $3,000 to $5,000,” she said.

The couple has three sons — ages 8, 10, and 13. Child care costs for the younger ones are going up; Bryem’s paying her 13-year-old to watch his little brothers.

“He could make a good $80 to $100 a week,” she said, chuckling.

Bryem’s husband will get about $300 a month in extra pay during his deployment, she said. The military offers different kinds of incentive pay— like for dangerous assignments.

Service members may also qualify for a family separation allowance. The Defense Department puts some effort into helping families prepare. They have to make plans for child care and managing household expenses.

Raleigh Smith Duttweiler remembers getting ready with her spouse for his last deployment about six years ago.

“Make sure your wills are in check, make sure the bank knows this guy is gone and can’t repossess the car,” she said.

But all that financial planning isn’t going to do much for Kayla, another military spouse. She asked us to just use her first name because she’s worried about repercussions in her work with military spouses.

Her husband’s aircraft carrier group left port late last month, bound for the Mediterranean. The deployment was planned before the U.S. attacked Iran, but its commander told reporters it’s “mobile and maneuverable” and told families to prepare for a deployment of up to nine months.

“But we just don’t know, are they going with their original plan that they might have had before everything started happening in the world?” Kayla wondered.

The uncertainty around this deployment makes it hard to plan financially, Kayla added. They have two sons under 5. She expects to spend an extra $200 a month on babysitting or more. It’s just hard to know for sure what a deployment is going to cost.

“Every spouse knows that when there’s a deployment, Murphy’s Law comes into full effect,” she said. “You don’t know what those expenses look like.”

Every single military spouse I spoke to for this story made one point: Our families signed up for this; our spouses weren’t drafted.

“We did sign up knowing that things would be hard,” Duttweiler said. “We just don’t usually expect them to be as hard as they are.”

Duttweiler added that military families are working families, trying to make ends meet — just like everybody else.