So how do a couple of small-town teachers start their own personal finance blog?
Well, it’s been quite a process. It started a couple of years ago at age 42 when I, The Professor, realized my finances weren’t good. I had just checked out Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. We contributed to my wife’s 401(k) and my 403(b). I had my teacher pension growing in size,
but I was always worried about bills.
We had hardly any money in savings outside of these retirement accounts. Any time an unexpected bill would arise, on the credit card it would go. We were like most typical Americans living paycheck to paycheck and constantly making minimum payments to loans and credit cards. The credit card debts just never seemed to get any smaller.
I realized that other than our retirement accounts, we had accumulated very few assets. Get a little extra money in, “Oh, we need a new kitchen floor!” Done. “Oh, our range is old and inefficient. Let’s replace it!” Done! And on and on… I knew very little of real personal finance.
After that book, I became a financial sponge. I’ve read books, articles, magazines, forums, websites… and I mentioned all of these things to one of my colleagues and assistant coaches, The T.A. (teacher’s assistant). Being only 26, he was impressionable and relished the idea of learning all this information. Since that time, we have bounced investment information, websites, articles, and ideas back and forth about the best way to financial stability, security, and independence as a teacher. He also decided that we needed to take all of this information to the people through this blog.
At first, I was hesitant. I am fairly computer-savvy, but this whole blog thing is a little intimidating. The T.A., on the other hand, knows technology. He’s already got his own science teaching blog, and he convinced me that we could do it, so here we are. We decided on Teachersstacking10s because you always hear about people stacking Benjamins, but as teachers, we don’t see too many Benjamins. We see $10’s, so it just felt right.
Keep Stackin!