What is personal finance?
Personal finance is the art of managing your income and expenses. It's not just about balancing your monthly or yearly budget though: it also covers saving and investing towards retirement, while being prepared to face challenges and opportunities that will present themselves throughout your life.
Okay that may sound unsexy, but it is pretty far reaching and impacts all important stages of your adult life, from college well into retirement, both professionally and personally, as you start building a family of your own. These are all the things that you are expected to figure out once you leave the family nest, except, very often, no one ever really explained how it worked. In many ways, this is at the core of "adulting".
Why this blog? (TLDR;)
Personal finance is a topic that everyone should be acquainted to, but is shockingly disregarded or even avoided. As its name suggests, this blog is intended to provide you with a basic understanding and a starting point into the conversation, enough to let you call BS when you see it, and dig further when you need to.
Why this blog? (How I met with PerFi)
The longer version: when I first came to the US from Europe, over a decade ago, I found myself pretty confused by the difference in benefits. As a software programmer, I had this compulsive need to understand how this all worked, and I poured over whatever literature was available on the topic. In my mind, I was playing catch-up and merely taking the lay of the land to make informed decisions for myself ; it turns out very few of my American friends even had a good grasp of this in the first place.
The idea of this blog popped up as I was merging my finances with my now wife. By then, I had developed a keen interest in personal finance, but most people (my wife included) seemed to have only a vague knowledge of what this is, little inclination to dig further but the nagging feeling they should. I've found out that while there is a reasonable amount of literature on the subject, it really takes a good amount nerdiness to get to the point, which effectively deters most from getting started. I'm hoping to lower the barrier of entry of what, in my mind, should be part of the curriculum of any college (and arguably, high school) students.
Who is this for?
This is primarily geared towards total strangers to personal finance, looking to grasp the most basic concepts and trying to make sense of what's relevant to them, quickly and efficiently. The topics will also revolve mostly around the US landscape, as this is the one I'm familiar with.
This is primarily geared towards total strangers to personal finance, looking to grasp the most basic concepts and trying to make sense of what's relevant to them, quickly and efficiently. The topics will also revolve mostly around the US landscape, as this is the one I'm familiar with.
Hardened learners of the topic should not expect groundbreaking information but may find some useful material in their own quest to convey notions that are, in fairness to the less number-minded, pretty dry and nerdy. Remember the goal here is to make personal finance more accessible; if you have feedback or wish to contribute, please feel free to reach out!
Cheers,
Ady
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