About Me
background
From a young age, I’ve always been intrigues by the concept of money management. My financial education during childhood can be summed up as “work hard and save your money.” Like many people, my formal financial education from the 13 years spent in public school was pretty non-existent. However, I loved crunching numbers and I started teaching myself about budgets at 14 and had my first job at 17. I went to a private 4-year college with about half the cost covered in scholarships. I started working during the second semester of my freshman year. At one point, I was holding 4 different positions while in school full time. At 19, I made my first large purchase, a car. The four years that I spent in college and the various responsibilities that I took on were an introduction to setting goals and seeing them through to the end. During this time, I learned to budget, save, plan ahead and get out of some messes on my own.
How It Started
One cold night in October 2017, a friend and I were sitting in my dorm lobby, watching a movie on his laptop. While the movie played, I began to wonder about mortgages and began researching. I came across a blog and podcast. In just three weeks, I had read the majority of the posts and completed over 40 podcast episodes. I continued my personal research for a littler over a year. After this year of consistent research, I felt like it was time to start putting that knowledge to work. I hope my years of research and formal education help you the way that blog in 2017 helped me!
Timeline
August 2014
August of 2014 and 2015, were the beginnings of my freshman and sophomore years of college. While I had generous scholarships, they did not cover all of the cost of attending the school. After student loans, I found myself needing additional assistance and my family and I worked out parent PLUS loans.
June 2017
Mid-June 2017, I had the chance to travel to Delaware for a 10-week internship. While there,information about the company retirement plan and benefits were going to my house. Without my knowledge, I was automatically enrolled in the company 401(K). Due to a low amount, I found myself scrambling to figure out what to do about the funds once they were released from the company account. This led me to create a traditional IRA. From this experience, I realized that I was not knowledgeable enough about retirement accounts. Now, in addition to studying budgeting, I began to study retirement accounts.
May 2019
Four short years of college came to an end on May 11, 2019. I finally walked the stage and received my diplomas- BBA and MBA. Celebratory activities were brief because around 7:00 pm the next day, I started the process of moving across country to start my first job. My student loan balances as of graduation were $47,500 (plus accrued interest) and $6,855. I was aware of the amount but my debt was not a priority on my graduation day. After about 4 years of learning to manage money and budgeting, I had been keeping a close eye on the balance. For this reason, it was not a surprise and I was not stressed. I had taken the time to read up on the loans and understand how they worked. I was well aware of my grace period. I had set a date in the near future to handle them with an greater level of scrutiny after I was settled into my new city.
July 2019
Most employers have a delay for employee benefits eligibility. As of July 1st, I was eligible to contribute to a company 401(K) plan. I considered the opinion of many financial professionals with varying opinions and they all suggested contributing to a company retirement plan up to the amount of the match. So, that is exactly what I did! Also by this time, I had about 4 months left in my student loan grace period so I started to plan ahead and budget for this expense once repayment began.
September 2019
On this day, I got some great news! An institutional grant was awarded to me after graduation and the $6,855 student loan was reduced to $2,855. Also, the due date was about 7 months away. After crunching a few numbers, I knew that this amount could be saved and paid in one lump sum in April 2020.
October 2019
In October 2019, my student loan grace period was almost over and, again, I was not stressed. I felt as though I had enough information to manage the loan. I also discussed taking over the parent loans that were taken out received on my behalf. I had been reading into debt repayment methods and knew that by paying the smaller balance in a lump sum, I could avoid having multiple student loan payments. This would allow me to allocate those funds to assist with the parent loans.
December 13, 2019
My grace period ended in December 2019. That month, I made my first student loan payment. I noticed on my account that the previous interest has been capitalized (added to principal). This is clearly outlined in the loan terms, but if not read very carefully, it can be missed.
Note to anyone considering student loans, read all of the loan terms! The last thing you want to see after four (or more) years of hard work is a student loan balance with charges or fees that you were not expecting.
February 2020
In October 2019, my student loan grace period was almost over and, again, I was not stressed. I felt as though I had enough information to manage the loan. I also discussed taking over the parent loans that were taken out received on my behalf. I had been reading into debt repayment methods and knew that by paying the smaller balance in a lump sum, I could avoid having multiple student loan payments. This would allow me to allocate those funds to assist with the parent loans.
December 2020
June 2021
Mission and Purpose
For the past 8 years, I have been studying wealth management and finding a way to bring that knowledge and service to everyone.
Like many, I come from humble beginnings – drivers, teachers, nurses and ministry workers. My initial financial education, while not all inclusive was an excellent start as ‘work hard,’ ‘earn,’ and ‘save.’
In August 2014, I was fortunate to start college at Campbell University where I learned a lot about helping others to manage their money with courses like insurance, real estate and financial planning principles. From there, I developed an insatiable curiosity for personal finance and wanted to figure out how to make the information that I was learning relevant to someone in my position.
I witnessed a wide variety of financial situations as a child. I came to realize that some of the differences between those in the best and worse situations were information, application and getting started as early as possible.
Through this blog and related materials, I hope to education and inspire my peers to start thinking about their financial futures earlier, plan for success and inevitable disruptions and help those that have lost their way, find it again.
BBA/MBA Relevant Courses
5 Years Formal Education
Minor - Financial Planning
Eligible to take Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Exam