Who I am and why would you listen to me? Both very good questions.

First of all, who am I? Three years ago, I retired from a Fortune 500 company at age 63 so I qualify so I have a lot of “time in the saddle”. I have an awesome wife who puts up with all my quirks, one daughter and son, and two grand-daughters who have this “Pappy” wrapped around their finger. I am a follower of Christ who feels my personal mission is to build up the Father’s kingdom by strengthening my local church. In retirement, I am enjoying travel, church and community service, various hobbies (just got into to my latest hobby, model railroading), and just enjoying doing what I feel led to do day by day.

Now most importantly, why should you listen to me? With so many financial guru’s out there, I am just another boomer out there. Over my adult life, I found there is little to no structured education out there for personal finances for the 20-40 year old age bracket. You must learn on your own through individual research and living the “school of hard knocks”. This is the path I walked in my early adulthood. I read many books on personal finance and money management. I found some that provided sound guidance however many others tracked along with the culture of the day and in my opinion, led to un-sound decisions regarding financial management. After the early years of struggling financially, I began to take the good information and blend it in with what made sense for me and my family. In many cases, this track was outside the mainstream thinking for personal finances.

In this blog, I wish to share this journey (both the good and not so good) in hopes there may be a few nuggets of experience and wisdom that may help you in your own personal journey. I'm not here to tell you how to do personal finances, but I'll tell you how I did it. It is indeed YOUR journey and not someone else’s so you have the right and responsibility to make YOUR own decisions.

With that, let’s begin and may God bless!