Why you should listen to me!

I'm not sure what most financial writers have as credentials, but you might want to know mine. I write as an accountant that has a lifelong desire to be financially responsible and help others, both personal and businesses, to be so too. So, I am an MBA as well as a certified management accountant. I also write as an ethicist. I hold degrees in theology and religion. My Ph.D. is in Religion-Social Ethics from the University of Southern California. (our department had nothing to do with the ethics of the football program). In addition, I have about forty years of managing my own money and watching others manage theirs. I also have read many popular books on personal finance, economics, and wealth-building. Unfortunately, I do not have a rags to riches to riches story like some people. I do have an interesting story (or I think it is interesting). I grew up in what I considered a normal average home.

I am the son of parents who grew up in less than ideal conditions.  My mom's family had a farm in Nebraska in the late 20s and early 30s.  It went about the way most farms went during that time period.  My mom's family experience wasn't quite a John Steinbeck experience, but it wasn't good.  My dad is German and grew up in Germany until my grandfather brought the family over to the US in the late 40s.  He tells some interesting stories about the things that they didn't have and what things were like during the war.  One thing I did not grow up with is the idea that the world owed me anything.  My dad was an engineer with a couple of different aerospace companies.  He had a good job.  Mom didn't really have to work, except for in the early 70s when dad lost his job during the aerospace downturn.  That was a little scary.  I was 12.

So, I learned very young that spending money is not what life was about.  I grew up thinking that we were poorer than most of our neighbors, but now I know that wasn't true.  It was true that my parents and many of their friends with similar experiences learned that you have to save for the bad times and invest for the future.  I realize now that much of what I learned about personal finance was by the modeling that my parents did and still do.  My parents' financial success is due to wise spending and investing rather than ever having a large income.

My experience has been similar.  I got married young with very little money saved.  My wife was in a private university finishing her senior year of college.  I had an entry level job having had just finished college.  A few years later I took off for full time grad school.  We never had "good" jobs--or at least high paying jobs.  The funny thing is that we've almost always managed to have more wealth than our friends.  Even today after so many years out of the work force and so many years of being a single income family, we still find that we have far more wealth than the national averages for people with our level of income.

We aren't rich by most people's standards, but we have more than enough.  We do most of what we want to do and we have money set aside for emergencies and all of that other good stuff.  My point is that despite never really having pursued wealth, we did pursue certain goals.  By achieving most of those goals, we've been able to do OK and not be in debt.   I've used both my academic knowledge of budgeting and investing along with our ethical standards to develop a philosophy of money for our family.  I can help you do that too.  I can help you develop a system that works for you.

This blog will give a lot of general advice, but in reality you need a plan for you.  I can help you with that too.