I grew up in a middle class family in a nice suburb in Massachusetts. My family didn’t always have extra money and I learned the value of saving for a rainy day and why sometimes I couldn’t have things I wanted because there was something the family needed. This was never so clear to me as when my parents had to used the money they had saved for an anniversary trip to fix the basement after it had flooded. My brother and I always knew that money was something you had to save and plan to spend, not something that would appear whenever you needed it.

When I began my career as a software engineer, my salary instantly matched (and soon exceeded) what each of my parents were making. That put me in a situation they had never been: having a decent amount of money left over each month. For my parents, who often each worked at least two jobs, having money left over was new territory. The only advice they could give me consisted of 1) save your extra money because you never know when you’ll need and 2) you should save to buy a house.

Later on, Mom told me that she thought it was important that I learn to invest in the stock market. She said she’d been reading a lot about it and realized that she had lost a golden opportunity when she was young by not learning how to invest. That was all of the advice I got because she had no first-hand experience. My parents would introduce me to their (horrible) investment advisor who lost us all a bunch of money. I fired him because online investing had just begun and I figured that there was no reason to pay someone to lose my money when I was perfectly capable of doing that myself. Only, I didn’t.

I started investing just in companies whose products I knew. Some worked out and I still hold today (Amazon) some I sold way too soon (Tesla) and others I lost a lot of money on (Napster, Iomega). However, all of that experience was important for learning how to manage that “extra” money I had.

This blog is a continuation of that journey I started early on in my career. What started as buying individual stocks here and there has sent me on a path towards better handling my retirement accounts, buying and holding index funds, investing in real estate, and more. I’ve wanted to write about this journey for a while but wasn’t sure where that content should live; that’s why I started this blog.

Here, you’ll find my thoughts and tips about managing your money. Everything from personal finance to investing to reviewing different products and services I’ve used. I naturally write things down when I’m learning new topics, and I’m excited to have a new place to share more of what I’m learning about managing my own money.