My Story

Lover of coffee, Kindle, and personal finance.

Who Am I?

Thanks for asking!

My name is Alex. I’m husband of an amazing wife, father of two beautiful children, and best friend to the best chihuahua ever to walk the earth.

In short, I’m incredibly blessed, and thankful for it.

Professionally, I’m an educator in a local school.

I’m also a lover of coffee, my Kindle, and all things personal finance. Coffee since I was about 11, and I’ve always been a book person.

The personal finance interest is a little more recent. And it’s an interesting story…

I Was Tricked

My sister and brother-in-law were a little ahead of us in the having babies game, so occasionally we got called in for baby-sitting duty. We loved keeping my nephew. Obviously because we loved him, but also because it gave us an excuse to hit up the donut shop near their house.

On one such occasion I was in my sister’s living room while my nephew was napping and happened to pick up her Financial Peace University workbook. For those unfamiliar, Financial Peace University is Dave Ramsey’s course on all things money.

Now, my sister and brother-in-law had been hinting at the fact that we might want to check out Dave’s materials for a while, but I was pretty comfortable being ignorant. They won’t admit it, but there is just no reason for that book to have been left in such a prominent place that day…

But, there was the book. And there I was. So, I picked it up.

Before they even got home that day I’d done all the steps we needed to do in my head to get us on the plan and knew just how long it would take.

Why? Because it just made sense!

Where We Were Financially

There are some amazing stories out there from people who have worked incredibly hard to overcome a seemingly insurmountable pile of debt. They are inspiring and full of sacrifice. Some span years!

That’s not our story. – Ours is a little different.

See, we had a positive net worth. Yes, we had debt. Plenty of it actually. Credit cards, student loans, rental property, etc. Excluding our primary mortgage, we had an easy $120k of debt to our names. And the primary mortgage, in case you’re curious, was another $220k.

Now, I do think a mortgage is okay so long as it’s within your means and on a nice and tidy 15-year fixed. But, ours was neither..

So, how can anyone be comfortable with this? We had non-retirement investments and access to other money that could cover the debt in a tight spot. This was mostly in single stocks though. In one company. Yeah. One company. If you don’t understand why that’s a little scary, I’ve got one word for you: risk.

But all of this was okay, because we also had no emergency fund.

So, to review:

120k in debt
220k mortgage that stretched our budget even on a 30
Most of our non-retirement assets in single stocks with one company
No real cash on hand

Solid right?

It also bears mentioning: we were pregnant.

What We Did

I remember telling my sister and brother-in-law that evening that I finally understood what they’d been trying to tell me. For the first time, I’d looked at a clear financial plan that made sense, and realized my plan didn’t. In fact, I didn’t have a plan.

But, because of nothing other than the grace of God, we were in a position that we could pay off all of our debt except the rental and the primary mortgage. In fact, by cancelling a whole-life policy that had a pretty large cash value tied to it, we could also set up our emergency fund and buy an inexpensive four-door car to move baby around.

In Dave Ramsey terms, we could move from Baby Step 1 to Baby Step 4 immediately. And doing so would eliminate a HUGE amount of financial risk that we’d kind of been pretending wasn’t there.

I’ll never forget my brother-in-law’s response when I explained that. He said, “Dave would tell you to do it tomorrow.”

Well, it took a little longer than that, but we did sell all our single stocks, cash out my whole-life policy, pay off all our debt, set up our six-month emergency fund, and buy a car. And the peace we got as a result cannot be overstated.

What We Did Next

I’ll also never forget the day my seven months pregnant wife came home to find me sitting on the sofa waiting for her with the craziest idea she’d ever heard.

As great as I felt about paying off all our debts except the rental and mortgage, I just couldn’t get past what would happen if we ended up going a few months without renters. Our primary mortgage already stretched us a little too much for comfort.

So sell the rental, roll the proceeds over to the primary, and refinance to a lower payment right? No, that wouldn’t play mathematically if we switched to a 15-year from a 30-year. We just weren’t going to get ahead where we were. And the rental had been our first home, so…

We sold our house. We moved back to our smaller house with a baby just about a month away. It was the right thing to do financially, no question. It was hard to do, especially for my very pregnant wife. To this day I’m still thankful for her faith in my crazy idea.

Where We Are Now Financially

Chris Hogan, one of Dave’s former “personalities” and a successful author in the area of finance has a slogan of sorts he used on his podcast: “Focused but not finished.”

That’s us. Because we eliminated all our debts and downsized for awhile, we were quickly able to move again into a nicer, newer home than we had with a smaller monthly payment on a shorter term. Through hard work, sacrifice, and dedication to some basic principles, the progress we’ve been able to make even on two teacher’s salaries is astounding.

What This Site Is About

I’ve recently read a lot of information about starting a blog. I’ve watched a lot of YouTube on the subject too. One of the most frequently sited “niche’s” mentioned as being “very competitive” is personal finance. So, I come into this project knowing that it may be hard to cut through the noise and be heard online.

However, I can’t think of any topic I’m more passionate about than helping other people to understand simple, low-risk personal finance that centers on the power of teamwork and a budget.

That’s the content I want to provide you with. You won’t find deep dives into market analysis or tons of financial jargon.

This is a site by someone who spent some time with his wife in the trenches making tough decisions to put their family on better financial ground.

This is a site for someone who is looking to achieve that same goal.

I hope you enjoy the content of “Bank On A Budget!”

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“Focused but not finished.”
Chris Hogan

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Alex

Hello, my name is Alex! I'm a public school teacher who has achieved some big financial goals just by getting control of my money using some simple strategies like using a monthly budget. Now I'd like to share what I've learned with you. Welcome to "Bank on a Budget!"