Who is PastorFi and why read this Blog?


I am an ordinary guy.  There is really nothing extra-ordinary about me at all.  Yet for an ordinary guy, I live an extraordinary life!  Today, my wife and I have been married almost 20 years.  We have four children.   When I graduated from college in June 1991, I had no debt.  I had gone to college for 7 years and emerged with zero student loans.  That itself is another story for another time.  I started my working career on July 1st, 1991.  I was broke, divorced and  clueless when it came to money.  My ex-wife took most of our assets, and to her credit, took all our debt too.  I did not even know how to write a check.  I'm serious!  I was Clueless (yes I like the movie too).   My starting annual salary was around $22K.
Sometime in the fall of 1991, working as a "youth pastor" for a church just outside of Philadelphia I contracted the flu.  I was laying on the couch and awoke to find my roommates had left the TV on, blaring out something from PBS.  It was a financial segment. The thoughts going through my brain went something like this: "Oh no.  I am too sick to get off the couch to go turn off the TV.  (This was in the day before every TV had a remote - ours did not).  I thought: "at least they could have left it on a channel that had something about animals!  On TV the blaring continues and I found myself forced to watch.  This financial piece was highlighting a book called "The Wealthy Barber, by Dave Chilton, and Mr Dave Chilton was being interviewed.   He spoke about Mutual Funds and dollar cost averaging and the power of compound interest.  After a time I found myself going.... wow,  hmmmm, ok.  I found myself disappointed when the 2 hr segment ended.  My spirits soon revived when I learned that the next segment on PBS was a 2 hr follow-up program with Mr Dave Chilton.  I resolved to start saving for retirement.  It would take me 10 years to save my first $25K in my 403(b).  Over the next 16 years, from 2001 to 2017 my pay steadily increased and starting in July of 2017 for the first time I crossed the $70K annual salary mark.  I recently crossed a major Milestone of Fi for me - 10 times annual salary.  I did not (nor is there any hope that I will) inherit money.  I did not have a trust fund growing up.   I have never earned a six figure income, and yet I have no financial insecurity..  I am just an ordinary guy, living an extraordinary life.  I want to give a huge shout out to some of the good folk from ChooseFi, who encouraged me to start this blog, you know who you are.  The FIRE (financial Independence Retire Early) is spreading.

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