Me and Mine

In my blog I will introduce myself and describe a day in my life. I will outline a well thought out strategy for financial freedom and finally take the steps outlined. I will continue to update this blog with my successes and failures along the way in order to at least bring my readers a real life journey that I hope you and many like you will enjoy.

Hello. My name is Matthew and I am a 37 year old male who like many of you is grinding through life living paycheck to paycheck. I am a father of three wonderfully challenging children, so my day does not end with a punch out on the timecard. I wake up at 6am and shower first thing just to create the energy to get my kids up, fed, dressed (and all that comes with that), and out to school, just in time for me to jump into my dodge grand caravan and drive to work. All of this is done before 7:45am. I am an elementary school teacher. If my last statement did not quite put the emphasis on how my day is about to go let me say it again. I AM AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER. So my work day is an average of 15,000 steps, some sweating, no time for food and the feeling like I forgot something at the end of the school day. After the students leave, and we have all survived, I clean whatever mess I have in class to be ready for the next, productive school day, and hop back into my van to pick up my children from their after school program. I arrive home by 4:30pm depending on the day and try to enrich my children's lives with some fatherly bonding over the next hour with homework, troubleshooting their complicated nine year old lives, and cooking dinner. All of which is done before their mother gets home at 6pm. What a gem their mother is. She steps up each and every day and takes over for me so that I can plan my next lessons, have some time to eat what I made, and relax.

Sound Familiar? Many people I know have lives similar to mine. I go from day to day asking myself If there is an easier way. In fact one of my mottos at school is "Why make life hard?". I am the adult in the family that takes care of all but one bill in the household. I do the budgeting and my wife is always asking if it is okay to buy this or that for herself. Just once I would like to tell her, without pulling up the bank app, "Yes dear, whatever you want". We have no savings and wait for every second Friday to go shopping. I am Tired.

So here I am. Me and Mine about to go out into this financial world and explore my options. I chose this time of year to start because it is summer. My work load consists entirely of my children, while my wife works the 9-5. I have found some free time to blog, do research, and discover if it is possible to find financial security in this every changing world. So let us begin.

Step one:  Research.

First I will research. Then I will continue to research, and finally I will research some more. I have found that without doing my "homework" I could make many mistakes made in the past by people just like me. I am not a fan of rash decisions. I will focus on the up and coming cryptocurrency world. The rest of my steps are brought to you from my research and all the ideas can be found in the link. Financial planning

Step two: Make a budget. 

All Budgets help you track how much money you have going in and out. There are apps for this but my budget is currently set and working. For this summer experiment I am reallocating some funds to allow for $100USD/ month to spend on investing through cryptocurrency. I will not be focused on paying off debt right now. To begin I will be trying to build a portfolio to someday pay off this compounding debt.

Most important of all. I will stick to my budget as to not fall behind on any of my bills and expenses. Disclaimer: "If at any time during my journey I am in peril of missing a payment or falling behind, I will postpone this journey until I am stable enough to continue".

My goals are:

While still following my budget for normal month to month bill, I will also be able to:

?    Pay off high-interest debt first. The longer a balance accrues interest, the more you’ll pay over time, but the highest-interest loans will be the most expensive. As of COVID-19 my student loans are on standby until September.

?    Consolidate debt. By combining multiple old loans into a single new one, ideally at a lower interest rate, you’ll make payments more manageable or the payoff period shorter. 

?    Use the snowball method. This tried-and-true method means you pay debts in order from smallest to largest. With the avalanche method, you wipe out the largest debt first. Either approach can help you build momentum, create a payment structure and provide a sense of accomplishment. 

Stay tuned!

I will continue to post here and respond to comments about my journey to financial freedom. I hope you enjoy the ride. Here we go!