05 Sep Where We Came from: My Background and History

When I am asked about my background which typically is pre-college, my story tends to capture others’ attention.  I grew up in the northern suburbs of St Paul in a town of twenty-four thousand people, with a lake and lake life being a big focus.  Most of my aunts and uncles owned homes and still lived in this city, and a handful of them actually lived on the same cul-de-sac, buying pieces of land from my grandmother.  The cul-de-sac was a major part of my childhood, we spent a significant amount of time there.

I grew up in a single parent home, with three siblings and three different dads between the four of us.  We moved a lot within the same city from apartment to apartment or duplex.  At one point we actually moved about forty-five miles north to a smaller town and stayed there for a little over two years, all as a result of our car breaking down on an exit ramp when we were heading up north to go camping.  There were periods of time we lived with my aunt, uncle and their two boys.  Looking back on that situation, while they had a house that was the right size for them and their family, when we moved in for a period of time it was one packed house.  I must imagine that was stressful for them, perhaps I’ll ask sometime.  There was an eight to twelve-month period where we lived with my grandma as well, which remains a time I treasure. We played card games gambling with nickels (I was in high school so it seemed reasonable), helped her with things she couldn’t do for herself and simply enjoyed the company.  We lived in a really beat up rental property my last couple of years before I went to college for a couple years and since then that house has been leveled and senior living has gone up in its place.

I had zero financial education during my childhood days, as I started writing this, I can remember sitting in my aunt’s room with my cousin and him telling me about this mythical concept known as stock.  We must have been in the fifth grade or so and he told me he’d learned from his parents he could put money into stocks and in a few years it could be worth A LOT more money, that was the last I ever thought about stock again until after I had quit college.

During college I worked very part time, or barely into full time to eventually very full time as I planned on quitting college anyway.  I built up a strong sales skill set in an electronics big box store that to this day I’m deeply appreciative to have worked for two of the strongest influences on my life in sales and management.  At the ripe age of twenty I found myself promoted to an Assistant Store Director, with a base salary of $36,000 and bonus opportunities up to $60,000 in total in 2007.  I made about $50k that year, not bad for a twenty-one-year old with no college degree.  Moreover, forget about the $50k because I spent every last dime of it plus about $8k more in credit cards, and $20k on a car, and of course had those pesky student loans.

At this time I was living in one of my best friend’s parents’ basement and his dad took some time once he caught wind of my title and his assumptions about how much money I may be making. He promptly helped me set up a 401k up to the match which I believe was 100% of the first 3% and 50% of the next 2 or 3%.  It became clear that I wasn’t going to be in big box retail forever, and in March of 2008 I quit after giving a power point presentation to a store of eighty employees telling them everything was okay, don’t worry about what you hear in the news, we’re fine.  They were bankrupt within eighteen months.  Eighty days later I began my career where I still am twelve years later, I had a major debt problem and while driving home from my then girlfriend, now wife’s house, I stumbled across Dave Ramsey and that is where my conscious financial journey began.