Web Author: Erik

Age: 26

Hometown: West Palm Beach, FL

Currently Living: Jacksonville, FL

When I was a senior in high school, I was rejected by my first college choice, the University of Florida. So, it came down to attending Florida State University or Toccoa Falls College (a small, private christian college). I ended up choosing Toccoa Falls College, because I liked the idea of playing college basketball and studying the Bible. I signed up for some shiny new credit cards and I was off to Northeast Georgia. However, I realized in my second year of college that I was financially drowning. I could not afford to attend this school. The cost of attending that school was roughly $16,000 a year. My parents helped out a small bit, but for the most part, I was financing my college education on my own. I used credit cards to pay for books and going out, and I paid for tuition with subsidized and unsubsidized loans. At the end of December 2001, I decided to withdraw from Toccoa Falls and go back home. I was frustrated to be living at home with $15,000 in debt, no car, and going to community college. But, I knew that I had made the right financial decision.

Eventually, I transferred to UF and ended up graduating with a BSBA in Business Management, and I found my future wife whom is much better at handling money than me. Although the state was now paying for my tuition, I continued to use credit cards. If my car broke down, or I needed gas, or went on a date, I was using credit. Don’t get me wrong, I worked like a dog while I was in Gainesville. I delivered food, sold anything and everything on Ebay, and worked at a computer help desk on campus. But, it didn’t matter. I was always short on money at the end of the month. My behavior never changed when I left Toccoa Falls. One night while I was delivering food, I started listening to a personal finance radio show called “The Dave Ramsey Show”. I thought Ramsey was crazy at first. He had this idea that we can survive without ever borrowing money. I thought it was absurd. I kept listening and hearing the stories of young, single people that were eliminating their debt. I heard the sheer joy in their voices, and it excited me. I read two of his books, and since then I have been on a crusade to help to reform the way people think about personal finance.

I created the Money Crashers weblog to help college students, recent graduates, and young single/married people understand the information that I have begun to understand about personal finance. There is a huge void in America with teaching sound personal financial education in high schools and colleges. I took two business finance classes in college and both professors gave a brief lecture about the importance of personal finance and that was it. Young people ages 18 to 34 are making some of the biggest decisions of their lives during these years including college enrollment, marriage, careers, buying a home, and starting a family. They are forced to turn to banks when it comes to the majority of financial information. This is a horrible thing to think about! Banks are only out for themselves, and they will do anything and sell you anything to make their bottom line look better.

My hope is that you will gain helpful knowledge about personal finance on this site in order for you to make wise financial decisions in the future. One of my passions is to help people change the way they think about money in the same way that I have changed. We are brainwashed to think that debt is a way of life, and it will never go away. We are led to believe that becoming wealthy happens quickly and it does not require much effort. None of these statements are true. You can be debt free and stay debt free. Becoming wealthy only comes slowly and it takes very hard work. I hope you get something out of this website that lasts a lifetime and changes the way you live.

Sincerely,

Erik

Blog Author