This page is to give more detailed information about myself and the journey of how I learned about the Stock Market, Personal Finance and Blogging:

How I became interested in the Stock Market:

My dad was the first person to teach me about stocks and I became wildly interested in them at the age of 15. The concept seemed simple enough; Buy a stock at a low price, Sell it at a high price and make millions of dollars before my 16^th birthday! I bought $2000 worth of HACAX, panicked when it dramatically dropped and end it up selling it for $1000 a few months later. This happened to be in 2000, during the stock market crash. I realized quickly (and expensively) that this whole stock market thing was a tad bit more complicated than I thought. Even with this setback, my interest in the market continued to grow until it became a passion. This eventually influenced me to get my BBA in Finance & Accounting and led me to my current career in finance.

My interest in Personal Finance:

Initially I didn’t have an interest in Personal Finance. My goal was to “make money” in the market and that was about it. Personal Finance seemed boring and rather useless. I mean, why should a college student need to be worried about Roth IRA’s? How was I supposed to know how much I would need for retirement? Especially since at the time I was very convinced that I would make millions from the market, I would be fine right!? This was fine thinking in College when I lived at home and only worried about paying for tuition, gas, my car and cell phone bill. After I graduated college in 2003, I realized I’m in charge of my own finances now! I needed a plan. I began to read a ton of books and my knowledge of personal finance grew.

How I found out about blogging:

With my new-found respect for Personal Finance, I began to create my own personal balance sheets and income statements. I had read a lot of books and heard a lot of different advice and suggestions but I felt like there was still more to learn. I wanted to know how other people were dealing with their finances. I wasn’t interested in the Dave Ramsey type programs about getting out of debt. I wanted to learn about how to grow my finances through new portfolio techniques and income ideas so I Googled “personal finance” and the first link I click on was the Consumerism Commentary blog! After that, I was hooked on reading many different personal finance blogs. In the back of my mind, I felt like I could contribute my own ideas on finance but I was too afraid to blog. I knew nothing about computers, website design and blogging (besides reading). My girlfriend encouraged me to put my ideas and opinions out there for others. So I gave it a shot and here I am. I currently work 40+ hours a week for my primary source of income; along with that I am currently taking 2 classes a semester at the local university to finish my MBA.

What is the point of this blog?

The point of this blog is to combine my ideas for managing my personal finances with investing/trading and to share these ideas with everyone. Through creating this blog I am hoping to improve my writing abilities, share my thoughts and come up with concrete goals to improve my current financial condition. If I can make a few extra bucks along the way, that will help too! Hopefully all of those achievements are possible. I am also hoping to help other people with learn about, understand and maybe even enjoy personal finance. Keep reading to find out what happens next!