About Ben

A Brief Story

I grew up in a hard working family. My dad was an Iron Worker and my mom worked in the apple orchard next door. We lived in the country and there was no shortage of work and fun for me and my siblings. It was a great place to live with many life lessons learned along the way.

I started working at the age of 11, pushing a lawn mower that was as big as I was. Soon I started cleaning barns, working with horses, bailing hay and anything else people needed help with. I once installed the entire irrigation system for an apple orchard at the age of 13. I was hired sight unseen on my reputation for every job I had until I was in college. And because I always had a job, I always had money.

I met my wife and when we got married I had a great job. In fact, I had one of the greatest jobs in the world! I started as a Police Officer in 1996 and made good money. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to keep track of it or give every dollar a purpose. I also didn't work with my wife on our finances or our goals for the future - and this was the single biggest financial mistake I've ever made.

I went from a guy who always had money, to buying a house, and then a vehicle, and then who knows what else! Twenty years later, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I don't even know what happened! I had listened to my broke friends' financial advice. I had bought into the lies society tells us - you need a credit card to build credit, you will always have a mortgage, take out a 30 year mortgage so you can afford more house, you will always have a car payment and on and on the lies go.

After 20 years of floundering along in my finances, I learned what dreams my wife had for the future, rediscovered what I wanted to accomplish, and then how to manage our personal finances. We started working together and we were on a mission. We paid off nearly $65,000 in consumer debt in 18 months! Our home is next!

Not only did we get control of our personal finances to make sure we had enough money for the month, we started accomplishing what we wanted to. We no longer wonder where the money went. We told it where to go. We enjoy it where we want to.

We changed where our investments were invested and made sure our money was working hard for us. I stopped accepting what our financial adviser was saying without understanding it. I can tell you before we started paying attention our investments were not working hard!

My family is better protected and prepared in the event something happens to me. Our two sons have some of the same great work ethic I was raised with, but they have an understanding of the dangers of debt and how to manage their finances that will change our family tree.

I am still keeping the peace on the streets but want to help you keep the peace in your personal finances!