About Financial Ramblings

Hello and welcome. I’m Michael, the guy who runs this site. As of this writing (Sept 2012) I’m in my (very) early 40s, I’m married, and I have four kids ranging in age from early elementary school to early high school.

I’m a finance buff (though I’m not The Finance Buff) and I like to write. In fact, when it comes to writing about financial matters, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ll talk more about that in the future. For now, let’s just say that this site will serve as the online home of my financial ramblings.

So why should you read what I write? Good question. I have no formal financial training but my wife and I do have a way with money.

While many financial bloggers have built their sites on a foundation of personal struggles, I’m coming at things from a different angle. Yes, dramatic stories of debt and strife make for good reading, but I’ve always felt that you should seek out those who have tasted success and learn whatever you can from them.

At the risk of sounding arrogant and/or self-serving, I’ll just say this:

We’ve worked hard, made (mostly) good decisions, and put ourselves in a comfortable position. We’ve paid off our mortgage, we have no consumer debt, and we’ve built a sizable (and growing) investment portfolio. We started from meager beginnings, and we’ve achieved all of this while raising a family.

The goal of this site is to share our philosophy, insights, and experiences in hopes of helping others. In short, we believe in avoiding debt (but not necessarily credit), investing with discipline, planning for the future (but living in the moment), and supporting causes that are important to us.

Note that I’m not trying to craft each and every article into a comprehensive, deep thinking masterpiece. As this site grows and evolves, it will contain plenty of off-the-cuff commentary, notes on current events, etc. I’ll even point out particularly hot financial deals (think signup bonuses, not stock tips) as they crop up.

Any questions? Hit me up using the contact form. And please consider subscribing to receive free updates whenever I publish something new – click here for details.

Oh, and about that tagline: “I’ve got money on my mind…

I’ve got… As in “I have got”. Is that grammatically correct? Wouldn’t it be better to shorten it to “I have”? Actually, it’s perfectly idiomatic as written and thus, at least to me, perfectly acceptable. It simply adds emphasis — and it sounds better.

P.S. As far as I can tell, this domain used to be owned by a guy named Sean who had a short-lived personal finance blog back in 2008 or so. I’m not Sean.

P.P.S. If you’ve read this far, I must be doing something right. Why not sign up to receive my writings via e-mail, below? It’s free, and you’ll get the full text of everything I write (no excerpts or teasers) in a single, daily (at most) newsletter