How I got here

I've been the person friends and family call about money for a long time. Which credit card, whether to refinance, what to do about the loans, how to start investing without feeling stupid. I liked it more than I expected to, and I got better at it than I expected to.

A lot of what I know came from time spent in rooms with people at wildly different points in their financial lives: just starting out, deep in debt, quietly doing fine, or already done working. You learn more from listening to a hundred real situations than from any book.

At some point it stopped making sense to keep doing this informally. So here we are.

What I'm not

I don't have financial certifications. No CFP, no Series licenses, no CPA. I've thought about whether that's a problem and I've decided it's actually part of the point.

Certifications come with a business model attached. Most of them lead to selling products, managing assets, or charging a percentage of your money. I don't do any of that, which means I have no reason to steer you anywhere except where you should actually go.

What I have instead is fifteen years of untangling complicated systems for a living, a lot of hours spent with people talking honestly about money, and no financial stake in your decisions.

When you need a credentialed professional, I'll tell you. That happens, and it's not a failure of the conversation.

Why coaching, specifically

Most people's money problems aren't information problems. The information is all online and free, and some of the better free stuff is on the resources page.

The problem is that it's overwhelming, it assumes context you don't have, and there's nobody to ask the follow-up question. Add some shame about not already knowing, and most people just don't start.

Coaching is having someone sit with you until it makes sense. That's the whole thing.