From repossessions and shut-off notices to food stamps and hard limits at the grocery store, I grew up seeing and living it firsthand. Growing up in a split household from age two, I was presented with two very different financial realities depending on which parent I was with.

My mom was a hardworking woman who almost always had two or even three jobs for most of my life. She always did her best to make sure I had a good Christmas and birthday every year, and she loved nice things — kitchen gadgets, purses, a new dolphin knickknack — all of which were supported by her work ethic. The extent of the financial education she gave me was making sure I put 50% of any money I received for birthdays, Christmas, graduations, and so on back into my savings account. The other 50% was mine to do with as I wished. When she passed away at 42, I was just 22 years old, and that loss is something that never fully leaves you. Even while navigating that grief, I was left dealing with things I had never been taught — a car to pay off, credit cards to settle, debt to handle, and no will to guide any of it. In a painful way, that experience became one of my most important financial classrooms — as long as I was willing and receptive to the lessons.

My dad did his best. He was the “we’ll figure it out” kind of person — and most of the time he did figure it out. But the path to figuring it out often left marks. The examples I grew up around weren’t always the right ones, but they were mine, and I learned from every single one of them — including the ones that showed me what I did not want to become. When you’re in it, it feels normal. It wasn’t until I became an adult and looked back that I could see what my actual starting point had been. Without it being front of mind for him, those examples showed me enough of that side of the system to know there had to be a different path I could walk.

As you can see, I was not exactly given a blueprint on finances growing up. What I did instead was watch, make my own mistakes, correct them, and spend years learning from every resource I could find — including the mistakes of the people around me. Because of what my mom instilled in me about saving, I was always pretty good at that part. But around the time of COVID I got serious about personal finance and investing. The wife and I paid off our debts. We kept making the right call over the comfortable one. We kept living below our means when everything in the culture around us was telling us to spend. We skipped vacations we felt we had earned because we wanted that money to go toward a bigger goal for that season of life. By the time I was 31 and my wife was 32, we had built a net worth of over $750,000. It’s important to note that your net worth isn’t — and should never be — your self-worth, but more of a north star to see the hard work paying off. Those early signs of success were not built through shortcuts, ultra-high incomes, handouts, or even a blueprint on how to do it. They were built through learning from mistakes, patience, and daily discipline applied over years.

Getting here wasn’t a single decision. It was a choice I had to wake up and make again every day. I reached a point where I had a choice: follow the path laid out in front of me by the examples I was given, or walk a different one. A path not traveled by most of the people I grew up around — one that others might call weird. A path that would make me the start of something new in my family — not the continuation of a cycle, but the beginning of a legacy. That decision changed everything. And I believe anyone can make the same one I did. That decision isn’t a single isolated choice you make once and your life changes from that point forward. It is a decision you have to wake up and make every single day, with the life you want down the road kept at the front of your mind.

I started Finally Financial because where someone starts isn’t their fault, and the cost of financial coaching and education should never be the reason someone stays stuck. I have been on the side of the table where money and a lack of understanding were barriers to a lot of things in life, and I refused to build a business that did the same to others. If you’re reading this and see some of your story in mine — you are exactly who this program is for. We cannot control the cards we were dealt. But we can control what we do next. Nobody — not even Finally Financial — is going to do this for you. What I can promise is that we will be there with you, every step of the way, until the job is done.