About the author
Tumultuous, overnight change inspired this site. I went from being a carefree college student to instant fatherhood with a ready-made family and the expenses to match!
The early years
My parents provided me with an above average understanding of financial matters. They instilled an appreciation for hard work, aversion to debt, and some simple money management skills like saving for goals and balancing a checkbook. I also learned that insurance was important and that I should invest for the future, but no specifics were provided.
When I moved away for college, my financial life remained fairly stable. I only took on debt for tuition and I worked to pay my bills. However, I spent everything I earned, although I was willing to save for more expensive goals—and I had a lot of goals. I bought computers, an expensive bicycle, and collected hundreds of CDs. While I received a solid education in exchange for a small student loan balance, I put off financial progress until the end of my bachelor’s degree.
One upside-down life, coming right up!
During my junior year, I met a wonderful girl. We knew almost from the start that we were perfect for each other. This discovery acted as a catalyst for me. I suddenly became uncomfortably aware that my current financial habits would not cut it. I was about to become a husband and a father to my wife’s (and now my) young son.
Suddenly, simply paying the bills was not good enough. I needed to accumulate money for emergencies, short-term goals, and our golden years together. My parents jump started my research when they gave me a copy of Larry Burkett’s The Complete Financial Guide For Young Couples and The Wall Street Journal’s Guide To Understanding Personal Finance.
Feeding an addiction
I poured over both books during every spare moment (time left after my academic studies, part-time job, time with my fiancé, and developing a new father-son relationship). While the Wall Street Journal reference gave me the basic vocabulary I needed, the book did not tell me exactly how to invest our money. Larry Burkett’s book provided excellent information on how to merge our households, but he was light on investing specifics.
Burkett did have a book titled Investing For The Future. As I dug in, I grew increasingly interested and then suddenly, I had finished the book. Fortunately, Burkett recommended several books that were available at my public library. Unfortunately, Burkett’s expertise was in personal finance and so several of his recommendations provided poor advice aka financial non-sense.
Not knowing better, I dove in
Not knowing better, I dove into his recommendations. James O’Shaughnessy’s How to Retire Rich, and Peter Lynch’s Learn to Earn: A Beginner’s Guide to the Basics of Investing & Business exposed me to a common, but unwise goal—beating the market. I left these books, and others like them, exhilarated at the prospect of a wealthy future after two or three decades of investing and frugal living!
While I now believed financial success was certain, I still wanted to better understand how the market works and how the most successful investors made their fortunes. I continued to read about Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet, two very successful investors. I also scoured the internet, developing a personal list of resources and financial commentary. At this point, the majority of my reading consisted of financial non-sense, although I would occasionally encounter recommendations to use index funds and to exercise caution when estimating returns.
Over time, I realized the majority of financial advice fell into two categories: financial nonsense and overly optimistic advice. Realistic, empirically proven strategies were hard to come by. I began to feel a sense of peace as the euphoria faded.
Slogging through financial nonsense
Deep down inside, I knew the financial press promised returns that were too good to be true. And yet, there were a few honest writers who stood firm. Instead, they explained that there is no secret to investing, no need to rush from stock to stock in a never-ending race. What was their solution? Index funds. I simply needed to invest in everything, keep my costs down, and stay the course. These three steps would allow me to benefit from the growth of our economy & stock market at less risk than more active investors.
Instead of being to content to grow my wealth, I now wanted to join the ranks of financial authors promoting common sense and safe wealth growing strategies. So I continued my professional studies, earning a Masters in Technical Communication. At the University of Washington, I studied how people learn, strategies for communicating complicated or technical information, and I taught approximately 200 engineering students the fundamentals of technical communication.
During this financial journey, I experienced many personal challenges that gave me a better grasp of the financial realities most people are faced with. My wife and I successfully combined our finances, keeping our goals aligned. This unity has allowed us to teach our son about money, to invest while in college, and to build our first (and hopefully last) house out in the woods. These adventures were compressed into a short period during my studies and the year directly after graduating.
Today, I find myself at the end of an eventful decade with an exciting road ahead of me. Follow along as I break down seemingly complicated financial topics into plain english that anyone can understand.
For information about On Financial Success, read on.
