About

This blog is not about money. Money seems to be everything in our society, and I don’t like it. There are more important things, but unfortunately many of us never get to experience them. The expression ‘cash is king’ has never been truer – people spend their lives in pursuit of it. Some succeed, some fail, but all toil. Many people do not realize the value of a dollar, or even a penny, and so often let them go to waste; this mistake leads to much unnecessary effort. My goal is to fix this, and to help people realize the full potential of their financial health because by being financially healthy, people can live better, easier lives. That is what I write about – ways to make your life easier by managing your money better.

Time and time again I have been asked by my friends about seemingly odd habits I have. I always turn out the lights when I leave a room (which has lead to a lot of apologies when I’m not paying attention and someone was still IN the room!). I pick up pennies off the ground. On every purchase I make I note down what it was, how much it was for, and when it was. Rinsing out and reusing plastic bags. Cutting open tubes of toothpaste. These and many more habits have been developed over a lifetime of living frugally – no waste, every penny accounted for and put to its best use. These habits seem odd, but each of them is designed to save time, effort, or money and to improve my financial health so that I can be debt-free and living the life of luxury that I – and most people – desire!

When I was growing up, my family was not what one would call well-to-do. I won’t say we were poor, but we had little or nothing for excess or luxury. We had furniture pulled from dumpsters and refinished or rebuilt, reused everything multiple times, and what we couldn’t afford we made or did without. My father worked hard, long hours to provide, and my mother made sure she did everything she could to keep us going. They did an amazing job – it wasn’t until much later in life that I realized what a struggle it had been for them and for the family, particularly during one period where my dad was traveling for his job about 90% of the time and my mom had to raise three boys virtually on her own. There was no family nearby, so the only support they had was each other and our neighborhood friends. I really owe everything to them – they did a great job of raising me and showed me, among so many other things, smart ways to stay financially alert.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but a lot of the habits they had used for years permeated that thick juvenile and adolescent skull of mine. Later in life, when I was starting out on my own, many of these habits and others I developed along the way helped me get and stay out of debt. I learned not only ways to set and reach financial goals, but economical ways to live comfortably while still saving.

It became clear to me during my college years that helping people handle their money was a passion of mine – not that I wanted to become a financial adviser or take personal finance as a career path, necessarily – but certainly that I could help those I cared about become more secure in their finances. Though I officially studied and got a degree in Economics, I learned as much as I could on the subject and continue to do so today. On several occasions I gave impromptu ‘courses’ on budgeting, goal setting, saving, and other financial instruments designed to help my friends and fellow students. The first of these was a few weeks into my freshman year at the behest of my roommates on, of all things, laundry!

After that, I was regularly asked to do little classes on a variety of subjects, with attendance ranging from one-on-one sessions to lectures in front of a group of fifteen or more people.  Some of my classmates started calling me ‘Mr. Finance.’  Even today, I still get messages from some of them asking for help or advice on a particular subject. You’ll often hear me refer to myself as FHBGuy (Financial Health Blog Guy), with the people around me being variations on a theme (FHBGirl, FHBPals, etc).

After graduating, I went to work helping businesses to succeed. I have worked in budgeting, project management, and most recently government contracting, helping a small business get started on the way to becoming an excellent government contractor. I’ve written articles on a wide variety of subjects for many places and sources, helped write and edit books on personal finance, and hope to be able to continue to spread my help, advice, and thoughts throughout the world.

In short, it is the habits that I use in my own everyday life and the knowledge and skills I have developed over the years, combined with my passion for helping people with their own finances that makes me want to write and maintain this site. If you like any of my ideas, have one of your own, or one of my posts help you out, please email me and let me know! I love to hear from my readers and friends, and if can help even a single person I will feel like I have accomplished something. My email is posted all over the site, or you can use my contact form or even leave a comment after a post – I try to check them all the time!

In physical and financial health -

JIstvan, the Financial Health Guy