Money Coach Lives – Hello World!

As my beloved summer slips away, I’m building this inexpensive money coach business toward its planned launch on November 1, 2018. I can’t wait to start helping people BE. DEBT. FREE!

My Earliest Motivation to Become an Inexpensive Money Coach

My earliest memory involving the concept of money and ‘bills’ was of my mother crying at our sparse kitchen table when I was a small boy, the table filled with papers. “What’re you doing, Ma?” I remember asking. She turned, startled, unaware I was watching. She tried to hide her emotional state. “Trying to pay the bills,” she said, forcing a smile. I always remembered that word – ‘trying.’ As I grew older, I realized this was a monthly ritual and correlated with the muffled sounds of arguing that would occur each bill-paying night as I lay in bed.

Fear Motivates

I’ve been a personal finance junkie my entire adult life. As a young man coming out of the military, I didn’t have much money and I already had a beautiful little girl. Fear best describes my frame of mind, and I learned fast what it’s like to struggle. I remembered my mother at that kitchen table, month after month, year after year. I vowed I wouldn’t let it happen to me and my family.

Fate Intervenes, History Repeats

However, often fate intervenes. I had quit my corporate job in the late 90’s and started my own software company. I was doing well with it and taking some risks to build the business even further. With Y2K doom and gloom hysteria prevalent, business was great.

Then disaster happened – the dot-com bubble burst. My pipeline dried up almost immediately and my emergency savings began to quickly wither away as I had a nice home, a wife, and hungry kids to feed. I was never so scared, and nobody was hiring.

I remember what I thought was a private moment as I hustled to place an ad in the local paper to sell my beloved Harley-Davidson motorcycle at a severe discount. I was trying to hide my emotion from the classified ad department on the other end of the phone when I heard a voice behind me. It was my son, asking me why I was crying.

I’ve Been Where You Are

So, I know what it’s like. I’d like a world where every hard-working family has a life without the stress of financial problems. I’m going to try to do my small part to make it happen. I’m chomping at the bit to meet you and put you on that path.

Sure, part of the problem with many families’ finances is that we buy way.too.much.stuff. We’re bombarded every day with ads, social media, status prompts,  and all kinds of other propaganda carefully designed by brilliant marketers to make us buy more stuff, often on credit.

Yes, people make bad decisions quite often, but make no mistake – the game is rigged against us in many ways, such as the fine print in many of these products and sales pitches.

I’m the Financial Contrarian

I’m very opinionated and I’m sure that’ll come out in some of my Financial Contrarian blog posts. You don’t have to agree with me, but let’s have a civil discourse in the comments section. Regardless, whether you agree with my positions or not, let’s work together to pay down your debt, plan your retirement, and teach your kids about all of those pitfalls so they don’t fall into them on their road to adulthood.