Five Things You May Want to Know About Me

I’ve been double tagged by Money, Matter and, More Musings and Money Walks to share five things about myself. In addition, one of my tag neighbors, FIRE Finance, posted his five items with a reminder that I had been tagged.

As promised, I am posting this weekend with five things you may (or may not:-) want to know about Super Saver, the blogger. To keep it relevant, I have chosen five items that are related to past or planned posts for the month of December.

My parents deserve most of the credit (or blame:-) for my personal finance thinking. When I was born, my father was a graduate student and my mom stopped working to raise the family. As many of you who have been grad students know, my family was relatively poor compared to many industry employed peers. From my parents, I learned most of what I know about personal finance - live within our means, save part of what we earn, avoid using debt (except for homes), and to buy only what we need.

I am a graduate of Princeton University with a degree in Chemical Engineering. However, even back then, I had an interest in personal finance, as I took several Economics courses as electives. In addition, I was business manager of a Princeton Student Agency. My experience at Princeton is one of the reasons I believe that college should be part of one’s wealth building plans and a reason that I worry constantly about how to cover our daughter’s college costs.

I have been working for the same company (unnamed to maintain anonymity :-) since graduating from college. My work has taken me all over the US, to Asia, Latin America and Europe. We have lived in Japan. The experiences I have gained have been invaluable. My career has been challenging and satisfying. For those of you that are curious, I did not take the highest paying offer, as I recommended in a previous post:-)

My biggest financial worry is whether I have correctly estimated what’s needed for retirement financial security. As you can see from posts on retirement calculators, most tools are woefully inadequate for helping people prepare appropriately. And according to a Wall Street Journal article The Retirement Lies We Tell Ourselves, most people make incorrect assumptions about factors of their retirement. I worry (just a little:-) if I am one of those people and a lot on whether I will be able to carry out all of our plans.

Finally, this blog, along with other elements, are part of investing more in my continual personal growth and reinvention. The increasing rate of change will be a major factor impacting our career and financial security for the future. I am very motivated to make sure my family and my children are fully prepared to handle all the change that will inevitably happen. Other skill elements on which I am working are: creativity, innovation, and strategy development.

Hopefully, this provides some interesting insights about Super Saver and My Wealth Builder. I will pass on making a tag. The additional bloggers I would tag are likely already tagged by others:-)

Photo Credit: morgueFile.com, Matthew Hull

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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