I distinctly remember a work friend asking me one evening after dinner in Los Angeles, “What are you saving all your money for?” I was stumped and struggled to say something coherent. He knew I lived in a cheap, crappy studio apartment, didn’t really buy much, and didn’t really spend much. Sadly, it has taken me years to know how I should have best answered that question.

Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time — Margaret Bonnano

I’m a late bloomer when it comes to money. On the one hand, I’ve always had an interest in money but I was never properly educated about personal finance. After graduating college and starting a job as an engineer, I read up on money in books and online, put some money in the stock market, and even attended a seminar on factoring (if you know what that is). I read “Rich Dad Poor Dad.” So it might seem like I was more sophisticated than most. On the other hand, I still didn’t really know what to do other than invest some money in my company’s 401k and some in the stock market. And I still had a lot of anxiety about money and my future. I would have benefited from some guidance from someone who understood money.

Yet I was in a fortunate enough situation after college to be able to wonder and think about these issues. I was very aware that others were living paycheck to paycheck and under less ideal circumstances. 

Fast forward to today… the times have certainly changed for many who have recently graduated from college. I see in my own life and in the life of others too much randomness in how people learn about money, save for the future, and make money decisions. Foundational money decisions have to be made all the time from the simple to the complex. How much money should I save? What health insurance plan should I choose? Should I buy or lease a car? Is it better to rent or buy a home? Should I pay off debt or invest my money? How much money should I put into retirement accounts? Is a Roth IRA better than a traditional IRA? How should I invest in real estate? What is infinite banking and is it a scam?

There is no shortage of information out there. There are fintech companies focused on personal finance and money: NerdWallet, Intuit’s Mint, Personal Capital, Wealthfront, Betterment, YNAB, Microsoft Money, LendingHome, Opendoor, Robinhood, Coinbase, etc. Some tech companies are focused on a finance vertical such as Policygenius for insurance or BiggerPockets for real estate investors. There are established old school financial institutions such as Fidelity, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs, and all the usual banks such as Bank of America. And there are media companies and websites delivering financial information to consumers such as CNBC, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, MotleyFool, and SeekingAlpha.

There are online forums such as Reddit which has personalfinance and financialindependence subreddits with tons of information. Some companies build software specifically for financial advisors to use directly such as Envestnet’s MoneyGuide or connect people to financial advisors like SmartAsset or Facet Wealth. There are also an endless number of finance bloggers such as Mr. Money Mustache and White Coat Investor. And of course, there are the pundits such as Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, and Robert Kiyosaki.

And yet… turn to anyone you know and ask them how they learned about personal finance, what they are doing to become financially more secure, or how they are enabling or have enabled their retirement and you’ll realize how haphazard and diverse everyone’s experiences are.

The FIRE movement caught on for many in the last 10 years. Yet at the same time, most American workers aren’t saving at levels that will allow them to retire fully at age 65 at their current standard of living (reference). More than half of older Americans have less than $50,000 for retirement (reference). This is tragic for many. There is minimal to no teaching on personal finance in school, most advice is about budgeting and investing in the stock market, and despite all the information out there people still struggle. Financial advisors are often not true fiduciaries nor are they skilled or deeply educated in all areas of money and the pool of people entering the financial advisor career path is in crisis and shrinking.

Learning about money is often better done with people who have achieved financial goals who can act as mentors. And we believe there needs to be a Google Maps for money that helps people know what their route options are, how long it will take to arrive at financial goals, and make tradeoff decisions on where to go. We at FinJell plan to build this Google Maps for money to solve our own problems but hopefully the problems of many of you out there. If we’re successful, we hope that we’ll have helped many people become more financially secure and educated about their own money by providing the service and tools to make it easier to have more confidence in their financial future. 

For now, we’ll start blogging about money and personal finance issues we’re tackling – this will be focused on the US market. We hope to do this in a way that adds value to all the existing information already out there. And hopefully the content here will not only be useful but will also give you some hints at what’s to come.