Personal Finance

Giving back

One of my passions is personal finance. Planning and strategy with money didn’t come easy to me, but ever since I was young, I saw how finances can take its toll on individuals and families. Sadly, I am far from alone in that experience; the financial health of families across the country is and has been suffering for a while. The evidence for this is bountiful; US household debt rising and so few Americans having an emergency fund are just two indicators of many.

I’ve come to really enjoy helping family and friends with their personal finances, and I’d like to do that for others as well. As strange as it sounds, I see it as way to give back to my community, and to my country by extension. After all, more stable finances leads to more stable families. More stable families leads to more stable communities, and so on.

I would be happy to meet, introduce some principles, and help however I can as you wrangle your finances. I will not ask for any payment and I have nothing to sell to you. You can find my email and my Linkedin over on the left side of the page, so don’t hesitate to reach out. If you are interested in learning more, continue reading the sections below about what I can help you with.

Personal finances and agency

In my view, personal finance is all about behavior. I think it can be misconstrued and become unnecessarily intimidating. All you need to start is a strong foundation, and that foundation is made of just simple, basic stuff.

Once you make your budget and a plan, what determines your success is whether or not you follow through. Making and talking about your plan is easy, but following through is the hard part. At the end of the day, if you don’t have an intrinsic desire to make your life and your family’s life better financially, then it will be simple to abandon your plan. It’s all about action and agency; the day-to-day decisions are the fulcrum around which your financial life revolves. There will always and forever be things outside of your control, but all you can do is focus on your agency.

My views on personal finance are very heavily inspired by Dave Ramsey. I recommend his Baby Steps strategy whole-heartedly. You may ask, why not just send people to listen to him? Well, I’d say yes, absolutely, you should. In fact, here’s his website.

Where I can help

There are three dimensions where I think I can help and that are inextricably linked with personal finance: budget, plan, and career. A budget is where you start and it is incredibly beneficial, especially given how simple a thing it is. It will crystallize your situation and make it easier to tackle. The plan refers to the sequence of things you do to meet your goals. Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps is what we use for our family. It is essentially a structure that helps you make better decisions. And then you have career; when you analyze your finances and your goals, it allows you to consider fundamental questions about the life you want to live. Your career is just one piece, but it plays an important role in the realm of your finances.

Budget

The monthly budget is one of the, if not the most important tool in your arsenal. Every single month, before the month begins, you create a budget where you assign every single dollar that you earn to a line item. You want to get as specific as you can, and through that exercise, you will feel much more “in control” of your money as you are directing every dollar to a certain “job.” You may even find money that you are spending without a second thought that you can redirect, which can almost feel like a small “raise.” Here’s what we can do together:

• Find an app or develop a spreadsheet to store your budget
  • Everydollar is a great app and we use it for our family
• Figure out your exact monthly income
  • If there is some variability month-to-month, I can help you analyze the distribution and figure out a method to simplify it for you
• Determine all monthly expenses and debt
• Create budget
  • Create line items for all debt and expenses
  • Each month, create a unique budget for that month
  • Ensure that every dollar is allocated; that’s what it makes it a “zero-based” budget
  • I would be happy to share a budget example that is modeled after the exact budget we use for our family

Plan

With a budget in hand, you can begin to consider the path forward. A nice way to start thinking about your plan is to learn about the Ramsey Baby Steps. It’s a framework to establish a long-term thinking pattern for your finances. It’s a great way to begin and I’d highly recommend it. This part is really fun because you can dream about and plan for where you want to go and the life you want to build for you and your family.

Career

What happens naturally after making a budget and thinking about your long-term future with money, is that you begin to ask fundamental questions about what you want your life to look like. Your career path is a major component of that. For some reason, we tend to think about jobs or careers as this linear path, which can lead to feeling pigeon-holed. If you have any uncertainty about your career, I would like to help you discover and explore it. We can discuss and research together as you consider how you want your career path to take shape.

Reach out

If any of this resonates with you, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d be happy to do whatever I can. Again, you can find my email and Linkedin on the left side of the page. Thank you and take care!