Oh money. I'm not sure how to start as I have no funny opener for this or fun story to plug here. Growing up, we didn't really talk about money in my family. I knew things cost money. I knew we often didn't have enough to buy all the things I wanted as a child. But I never asked about it and my parents never showed me their own budgets or talk to me about their thoughts on money. Now, I consider myself lucky to have the parents I have and I think they did a wonderful job with the tools they had. But money was a weird topic and continues to be to this day, and I know I'm not the only one with this experience.
Maybe that's the reason I'm so obsessed with making sure that, now that I have become a father myself, my kids understand the role that money plays in our lives and society and making sure that they are equipped to handle money properly at an early age. I'm hoping they'll be able to use tools I did not have growing up and that I had to figure out myself (and still figuring out) as I was faced with new situations in life.
Ok, so that still doesn't really answer what the point of this blog really is...well, I want to use this as a way to walk through my journey with money and as a dad of two boys. In my search to learn about personal finance, it seems like most of the experts I find went through their journey as a young professional making a ton of money, paying off all their debt super fast, and living extremely frugally to be able to reach the level of independence they enjoy today. I always felt like I had missed my opportunity. I had undergraduate student debt when I got my first "professional" job where I was making $58K per year, got married at 22 to a wonderful woman who was going to veterinary school (and racking up what ended up totaling $290K in student loans...yeah go to in-state schools if possible), and had to navigate a brand new world of bills I had never experienced before. We had plans to pay off our debt within 10 years once she was out of school...but life has a funny way of messing with plans. We ended up having our first child 4 years later, moving twice, having a second child 2 years after the first, and Mrs. V going back to school in order to pivot to a different career and leave the toxic environment she had found herself in at work. Needless to say, those plans got put on hold!
Well, things are now a bit different and so Mrs. V and I have decided to take control of our finances and put together a new plan. Only this time, the plan needs to include all the things that come with being 30, having two kids (and all the insane amount of expenses that come with kids), having thousands of dollars of student loans, credit card debt, and trying to make sure we aren't letting life pass us by...and so this blog is my way of holding us accountable and maybe showing others that taking control of personal finance is not impossible even when life looks a little different than expected or than those that seem to have it all together. I also want to continue learning and hope this can be a great way for me to expand my knowledge and find new ways of doing things.
So if you'd like to follow my journey, I'll be posting our budget, expenses, plans, as well as my attempt on teaching my two boys about personal finance and money. Thank you!
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