Welcome to the Quantify Financial Blog!
Introduction
My name is Jaime and I started Quantify Financial because I have a passion for helping others in personal finance. I’m a mom of two awesome (and very busy) boys, wife to a super supportive husband, and by day I work as a systems engineering lead developing complex algorithms and signal processing solutions.
That’s the short version — the longer version goes something like this:
I’ve had an interest in personal finance since my early 20s. I read a few books, surfed the web, and followed a couple of pearls of wisdom some wise people bestowed upon me: make sure to get your company match for your 401k (Check!), make sure your checking account balance doesn’t go negative (Check! — well except for that one time), and save some of each raise (Check!). I also made plenty of mistakes — lifestyle creep is real! I carried a balance on credit cards. I even played the balance transfer shuffle a couple of times. I have not always made the smartest money choices and I am by far from perfect now. But — I have made a lot of progress over time. By learning some basic money principles, figuring out what I really value, developing a plan and continuing to make better choices, I feel in control of my money and finances.
Relationships with money
I don’t think that making a poor financial choice is reflective of our intelligence. I’ve seen extremely smart people who were completely oblivious about their finances. Some people are intimidated by numbers. That wasn’t an issue for me — I went to school for math and science. I just placed a lot of emphasis on only one aspect of my financial health — cash flow. Don’t get me wrong, cash flow is important. Making sure you don’t go into the red in your accounts will save you a lot in fees and even more in stress. But — it is only ONE aspect of your financial health. I made some choices to spend money that I thought I could afford because I could afford the monthly payment. I didn’t always consider the total cost of the purchase. At the time I didn’t realize that those choices were at the expense of future goals.
In my observation, people generally either follow the money lessons they learned as a kid, rebel against the money behaviors that they saw as a kid, or avoid the whole topic of money as much as possible. Once we settle into a pattern, it is HARD to change. It also doesn’t help that there is a bit of a societal taboo around talking about money.
Why does that matter? Some people feel helpless and stressed about money. That is a horrible feeling. Money is not the most important thing in life — but it does touch almost every aspect of our lives in one way or another. I believe that by looking honestly at your finances you can regain a feeling of control. Look — I totally understand that there are systemic issues that are not always in our control regarding money. The wage gap is a real issue, surprise medical costs or job loss can completely wreak havoc on your financial life. I can’t pretend that a blog, educational course or coaching service can solve all of those things; however, I do think that they can help you personally be better positioned for a financial challenge in the future.
Changing our relationships with money
Over time, I have read many personal finance books and blogs, listened to podcasts, taken financial courses and workshops and realized that to make really good money choices you need to look at your financial health from multiple points of view. You also need to know what you value and what your goals are. You should look at your cash flow, net worth, liquidity ratio, debt to income ratio, etc — A.K.A. YourMoneyNumbers (we’ll talk plenty about these later — stay tuned for future posts). You can also use these numbers to help you to make better money choices daily.
Personal finance is just that — PERSONAL. We all have a story. We all have made some “bad” choices in the past (if by some miracle you haven’t yet — congrats! Make sure you have a plan to prevent you from making any in the future). But to move forward — to become in CONTROL of your financial health, it means acknowledging where you are today — NO JUDGMENT OR SHAME. Only then could you honestly look at what you can change to meet your goals. We make money choices EVERY day. Some choices are easy and some are hard, but they do EXIST. It is much easier to make the hard choices when you know what you ultimately want to achieve and when you can see the progress made toward each of your goals.
As I mentioned, by day I work as a systems engineering lead for a complex system. I have a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering with Information Technology and a master’s in Systems Engineering and Management. One thing we engineers/managers love to do is to set performance metrics and monitor them over time against our goals. This is how we stay on track to get really hard jobs done. The same principle can apply in your financial life. If you can become comfortable with YourMoneyNumbers, you will understand how you are doing finanically. You will begin to see how the choices you make can effect YourMoneyNumbers. And by monitoring them over time, you will keep yourself on track to meet your goals.
Why I started Quantify Financial
Two years ago, I had a revelation — when it comes to personal finance most people are not nearly as nerdy as I am. Most people don’t choose to spend a large chunk of their spare time reading up on all of these money topics. I thought about how I might be able to help others by taking the skills I’ve developed in 17+ years of engineering and my pursuit of personal finance knowledge and the idea for Quantify Financial was born. Some close friends, knowing I had this interest, chose to talk through some of their big financial decisions with me. I really enjoyed those conversations. I finally decided that it was time to stop thinking and take action.
Ultimately, I started Quantify Financial to help people understand their current financial situation, dream about their goals for the future, and develop concrete plans to achieve those goals. The focus is on helping you to quantifyyour financial health using YourMoneyNumbers to help gain control over your financial future.
I hope that something in this blog strikes a chord with where you are in your financial journey. I hope you will truly be inspired to set new life goals and know that you can achieve them with focus and some hard work.
Meanwhile, my measure of success will be the number of people who Quantify Financial can help inspire and achieve their goals. Let me know what would be most helpful to you by commenting on this post!
